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\ ' 



OHIO IN THE WAE 



HER STATESMEN 
GENERALS AND SOLDIERS 



BY 

WHITELAW EEID 

EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE 



VOLUME I 

The History of Ohio During the War 

AND THE 

Lives of Her Generals 



COLUMBUS, OHIO 
ECLECTIC PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1893 



cryi 



C 



Z 



Copyright, 1867, 
Bt MOORE, WILSTACH & BALDWIN 

COPTRISHT, 1S93, 

By eclectic PUBLISHING COMPANY 



Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
Asior Place, New York 



FROM THE PUBLISHERS. 



AT an early date in the progress of the War the most casual observer of passing events 
could not fail to see the conspicuous part the men of Ohio were preparing to take in 
its prosecution. Watchful attention to the rapid developments of the time, and the 
tremendous issues involved in the great struggle, was sure to intensify feeling already enlisted. 

That the doings of Ohio Soldiers and Statesmen in the War should be fitly chronicled and 
published in a convenient and permanent form, was a decision more easily made than carried 
into execution. The, difference in the present instance is measured by an interval of more than 
four years, and the labor of not less than two persons during an equal period in preparing this 
work for the press. 

The collecting of materials in MSS. obtained by correspondence and conference with thou- 
sands of people located at widely different points, with the labor of collating the facts given, 
and condensing them into narratives of such proportions as would bring the whole into reasona- 
' ble compass for publication, has been much greater than could have been readily foreseen, or than 
is likely to l)e appreciated by the inexperienced. To these difficulties are to be added the numer- 
ous obstacles which are sure to arise in getting a work of this magnitude through the press in 
the time anticipated, whatever allowances for delays may have been originally made, and com- 
plicated as in the present case in the destruction by fire of one-half the stereotype plates, when 
the volumes were nearly two-thirds finished, and by the fact that the work has grown to be one- 
fourth larger than calculated for. 

The groups of portraits were engraved from time to time, by Ritchie, Rogers, and other 
eminent artists, as photographs were secured from reliable sources from which to produce them. 
The original intention was to have these include no person who had not attained the rank of 
Brigadier-General (excepting a few heroes of lower rank who had fallen in the service) ; gradu- 
ally, however, exceptions were suggested in favor of such as had discharged the duties of their 
brevet rank, and finally the sketches were extended to include notices — in many instances far 
too brief — of all officers of like rank appointed from the State. 

The two volumes contain three times the amount of matter usually published in volumes 
of similar size, and in a dress not less attractive, even when as profusely illustrated, and pre- 
sent facts equal to what are ordinarily given in a dozen volumes published under Legislative 
authority. The prices put upon the work, in its several styles of binding, are the same per vol- 
ume as those affixed by the publishers to '^ Applet on' s Neio American Cyclopedia" while the style 
of publication is more costly and the contents one-half greater. Thus, reliance for remuneration 



From the Publishers. 

is based upon large sales at moderate prices to the soldiers and their hosts of friends. Only thus 
can a return be expected for the twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars expended in producing 
the book, not to speak of profit on the venture. On this score, however, the publishers have no 
reason to be especiallv fearful. Several thousand copies have found purchasers in advance ot 
publication; and, as heretofore arranged for, the work will continue to be delivered only to sub- 
scvibers by duly-authorized agents. 

The work is believed to be incomparably more complete than any similar one undertaken 
in any other State, and on a plan not attempted elsewhere. 

Published to portray the patriotic efi-orts of the people of Ohio, the deeds of her soldiers, 
and of those who were at once her sons and the Nation's cherished leaders in the fierce struggle, 
the work will be found singularly free from the fulsome and vapid praise which was so striking 
a feature in works on the war published during the heat of the contest or at its close, to catch 
the sympathies of the public. Our author, with his careful, fearless, and polished pen, will 
.loubUess find many eager readers, and be the means of exciting much discussion among the 
Uunking men of the Nation. 



PREFACE. 



AN effort is made in these pages to present some leading facts in the illustrious record 
of the State of Ohio during the war of the Great Kebellion. It is sought, first, to ex- 
hibit the home history of the State through the long struggle; second, to present in 
whatever fullness of detail may be possible, the careers of the General Officers from Ohio, whether 
born in or appointed from the State; and third, to trace in outline the history of each regiment 
sent out, with the roster of its officers, and the leading facts in its organization and service. 

The work owes its origin to Mr. WiLiiiAM H. Mooke, the senior partner of the house by which 
it is published. As early as in the summer of 1863 he visited me in Washington to arrange for 
its preparation. Its main features were then agreed upon, and he straightway set about procur- 
ing such facts for it as were then accessible. I desire now to add that but for his zeal, courage, 
and energy the work would probably have failed of completion. 

It was a part of the contract made by Mr. Moore on behalf of the publishers, that they 
Bhould procure for me all books, documentary matter, personal statements, etc., necessary for the 
preparation of the work. In pursuance of this arrangement, they have employed persons of 
apparent fitness for such service to visit the armies in the field, and, since the close of the war to 
wait upon officers of regiments. Generals, private soldiers — upon any one, in short, who might be 
thought able to contribute any fact not yet known or cast light upon any occurrence hitherto ill- 
understood. 

With the material thus furnished my own work began. Many of the statements I was able 
to correct or modify from personal knowledge — many more could be verified from published 
documents or from official reports on file at the War Department — still others could be compared 
with the versions given in the reports of battles and of investigating committees, and in other 
documentary matter published by the Eebel Congress, of which I was fortunate enough to pro- 
cure nearly complete sets at Eichmond.* And on many points a residence of over a year at the 
South since the close of the war had given me additional light. 

That these facilities have been used to the best possible advantage I dare not hope; but that 
they have been used honestly and conscientiously, I trust the succeeding pages may make clear. 
The book has been written without any theories of the war to sustain, and without any pet repu- 
tations to build up. I have striven earnestly to write always in the spirit of those golden words 
that stand as mottoes upon the title page of this volume — to avoid the' custom of awarding wild, 
violent praise to the common performance of duty — to remember that whoever has committed 
no faults has not made war — to promote the honest growth of a soldier's renown by simply tell- 
ing what he did. And if I have had any theory whatever that has influenced my expressions, 
it has been that of the gruff, good Count Gurowski, that the real heroes of this war were the 
great, brave, patient, nameless People. 

It is quite probable that I shall have very few readers to agree with the estimates placed upon 
the performance of many of our most distinguished Generals. It is a National habit to go to 

* For a general guide as to the events of the war, constant use has been made of Mr. Greeley's " Amei-ican Con- 
flict"— a work with which I have not in all cases been able to agree, but which has always seemed to me a marvel of 
comprehensiveness and condensation. 



2 Preface. 

extremes. At first we could endure no comparison for the young commander of the Army of the 
Potomac but with Napoleon; after a time we could scarcely hear without impatience any defense 
of him from the gross charges of cowardice and treason. At first we denounced the man who 
fouc^ht Belmont and Pittsburg Landing as a drunkard and an incapable; now we echo the words 
of Sherman that he is the legitimate successor of Washington, and believe him the greatest Gen- 
eral of the century or the continent. It is not by any reflection of such popular verdicts that 
honest History can be written. Yet I have experienced too many proofs of the generous con 
sideration given by our people to honest convictions, to have any doubt as to the kindly reception 
they wUl extend to these frank statements of opinions that have not been formed without much 
studv, and are not expressed without conscientious care. 

'it is doubtless impossible, in a work of this magnitude, to avoid errors. No page-not ; 
even the briefest sketch of a cavalry company or independent battery-has gone to the printers 
without being carefully revised or rewritten. The rosters of the regiments have been first taken 
from the rolls of the Adjutant-General, then compared with the War Department Volunteer 
Register, and finally corrected and enlarged in almost every case by some officer of the organiza- 
tion concerned ; every page has been again and again revised. After all, in so many names, and 
dates and brief accounts of great transactions, many errors must have escaped notice; but it may 
be safely affirmed that, in the main, the record of Ohio soldiers as here presented, is incompara- 
bly more complete and correct than any, official or unofficial, that is elsewhere accessible. _ 

It has been earnestly desired to add to the work an unique collection of incidents in the 
war, narratives of personal experience, sufferings in Southern prisons, and the like-the materials 
for which were mostly furnished by Ohio private soldiers. But the work has already swelled far 
beyond the limits to which it should have been restricted; and it becomes an unfortunate neces- 
sity to omit this further illustration of the lives and works of the men in the ranks. For the 
same reason some mention of the Western gunboat service must be left out. 

I am specially indebted to Major Frank E. Miller (of Washington C. H., Ohio) for intelli-i 
gent and valuable assistance in reducing to shape the vast mass of material placed in my hands, 
by the publishers. He has also prepared the exhaustive indexes which accompany the work. 
Hon. William T. Coggeshall, Private Secretary to Governor Dennison (who has since died at hi- 
post as United States Minister to Ecuador); Hon. William Henry Smith, Private Secretary to 
Governor Brough, and subsequently Secretary of State; F. A. Marble, Esq afterward Private 
Secretary to Governor Brough and to Governor Anderson, and Edwin L. fetanton, Esq., ot the 
War Department, have placed me under obligations for valued assistance in many ways. J 
have also to thank the Adjutant-General and the Governor of Ohio for access to any document, 
among the State archives which it was needful to consult. Finally, to a whole host ot the sol- 
diers of Ohio, for the kindness which loaded me with whatever facts were asked, and tor th. 
delicate consideration which intrusted these to me to be used according to my own sense of fitness 
I can never sufficiently express my obligations. No General or other officer of Ohio has failec 
to furnish whatever I sought; and no one (with a single exception) has asked that any teatur, 
in his career should be concealed or any other extolled. 

And now as this labor, which for nearly two years has engrossed my time, is brought to a, 
end, I lay aside the pen regretfully. Here are many pages, and many efforts to do some justic 
to features in the war history of our noble State. No one can better understand how tar the 
fall short of the noble theme. And yet-who can write worthily of what Ohio has done? 

\\ . K. 

Cincinnati, December 24, 1867. 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Preface -, 

CHAPTER I. 
Ohio's Part or the Was fob the Union 13 15 

CHAPTER II, 
The State at the Outbreak of the War 16 19 

CHAPTER III. 
Initial War Legislation — The Stbugole and Surrender of Party 20— 24 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Opening Acts of Dennison's War Administration 25 44 

CHAPTER V. 
West Virginia Rescued by Ohio Militia under State Pay 45_ 51 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Progress and Close of Dennison's Administration 52 63 

CHAPTER VII. 
General Features of the First Year of Tod's Administration 64 82 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Siege of Cincinnati g3_ qq 

CHAPTER IX. 
The Arrest and Trial of Vallandigham 99 124 

CHAPTER X. 
Armed Resistance to the Authorities 125 129 

CHAPTER XL 
The Organization of the National Guard 13q 133 

CHAPTER Xn. 
The Morgan Raid through Ohio ^^a jgo 

CHAPTER XIII. 
rsE Vallandigham Campaign 1=0 -ij-i 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Closing Featured of Tod's Administration 172— l»l 



Page. 

182—199 
200—207 



4 Contents. 

chapter xv. 

The Opening of Brotjgh's Administbation-His Cabe fob the Soldieks, and 

THE StBIFES to WHICH IT LED 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The last Recruiting— its Pbogbess and Perils 

CHAPTER XVII. 

208 220 

The Hundred Days' Men 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Bbough's Troubles with Officers, and his Failure to be Renominated 221-230 

CHAPTER XIX. 

2"-] 237 

Close of Brough's Admtnistbation 

CHAPTER XX. 

OQQ 244 

Military Legislation of the State ^"^° 

CHAPTER XXI. 

245 951 

Ohio Surgeons in the "War 

CHAPTER XXII. 

• oe;-! 272 

The Relief Work; Aid Societies, etc • ^^^ 



GENEEAL. 

351—416 



Ui-TSSES S. Grant 

LIEUTENANT- GBNEEAL 
Wm. Tecumseh Sherman 



MAJOE-GENEEALS. 

275—309 

"William S. Rosecrans 



George B. McClellan 311—350 



495—560 

Philip H. Sheridan 561—590 

James B. McPherson 59I— 616 

O. M. MiTCHEL "■"■"ZZZZ 617-655 

Q. A. GILLMORE ggg_gg^ 

Irvin McDowell 695—724 

Don Carlos Buell 725—738 

Robert C. Schenck ^ 739—764 

James A. Garfield ^"ZZ:^"!^^ 765-769 

William B. Hazen 770—777 

Jacob D. Cox ZZZ^ZZZ. 778-783 

Geobge a. Custer 



Contents. 5 

Page. 

James B. Steedmax 784 — 788 

Godfrey Weitzel 789 — 795 

David S. Staitley 796—798 

Geobge Crook 799 — 804 

Wager Swayne 804 — 805 

Alexander M. McCook 806 — 809 

Mortimer D. Legkjett 809 — 810 



BEEYET MAJOE-GENEEALS. 

Charles W. Hill 811—815 

John C. Tidball 816 — 820 

Egbert S. Granger 821 — 822 

John W. Fuller 823 — 827 

Manning F. Force 827 — 828 

Henry B. Banning 829 — 830 

Erastus B. Tyler 831 — 833 

Thomas H. Ewing 834 — 836 

Emerson Opdycke 837 — 839 

Willard Warner 839 — 840 

Charles E. Woods -. 841 — 843 

August V. Kautz 844 — 848 

EuTHERPORD B. Hayes 848 — 849 

Charles C. Walcutt 850 — 851 

Kenner Garrard 852 

Hugh Ewing 853—856 

Samuel Beatty 856 

James S. Eobinson , 857 

Warren Keifer 858 — 860 

Eli Long 5» ' 861—862 

William B. Woods 863 — 864 

John W. Sprague 864 866 

Ben. p. Eunkle 866 867 

August Willich .^. 868 870 

Charles Griffin 871 873 

Henry J. Hunt 874 

B. W. Brice 874 



BEIGADIBE-G-ENBEALS. 

Egbert L. McCook 875 879 

William H. Lytle 880 883 

William Sooy Smith 884 887 

C. P. Buckingham 887 889 

1^'ERDINAND VaN DeBVEER 890 893 

George P. Este 894 897 

Joel A. Dewey gg- 

Benjamin F. Potts _ 898 qqq 

Jacob Ammen 90i 903 

Daniel McCook 9q.^ qqq 



Q Contents. 

Page. 
J. W. FORSTTH ^^^ 

Ealph p. Bucexand 907—908 

William H. Powell 909—910 

John G. Mitchell 911—912 

A. Sanders Piatt 913—915 

Eliakim p. Scammon 91^916 

Charles G. Harder 91/— 918 

J. W. Reilly 918-919 

Joshua W. Sill 919—920 

N. C. McLean 921—922 

William T. H. Brooks "^^^ 

QOJi 

George W. Morgan 

John Beatty 924—926 

Q97 

William W. Burns ^^' 

John S. Mason 928—929 

S. S. Carroll ^ 

Henry B. Carrington 931—932 

932 
Melancthon S. Wade 

John P. Slough 

QQQ 

Thomas Kilby Smith 

BEEVET BKIGADIER-GENEEALS. 

R. N. Adams, 954 ; Franklin Askew, 957. 

William H. Baldwin, 957; W. H. Ball, 958; Gershom M. Barber, 958; James Barnett, 958; 
Robert H. Bentley, 959 ; J. Biggs, 959 ; John R. Bond, 959 ; Henry Van Ness Boynton, 
959 ; Rosliff Brinkerhoff, 960 ; Charles E. Brown, 961 ; Jefferson Brumback, 961 ; Henry 
L. Burnett, 961 ; Joseph W. Burke, 962. 
John Allen Campbell, 962; Charles Candy, 962; John S. Casement, 962; Mendal Churchill, 962; 
Henry M. Cist, 962; Benjamin F. Coates, 963; James M. Comly, 963 ; Henry S. Commager, 
963; H. C. Corbin, 963; Benjamin Rush Cowen, 963; John E. Cummins, 965; J. R. Cock- 
erill, 965. 
Andrew R. Z. Dawson, 965; Henry F. Devol, 942; Francis Darr, 965; Azariah N. Doane, 965. 
Charles G. Eaton, 965; John Eaton, jr., 965; B. B. Eggleston, 955; John J. ElwiU, 966. 
Benj. D. Fearing, 940; J. M. Frizzell, 966; Joseph S. FuUerton, 966; Edward P. Fyffe, 966. 
Israel Garrard, 943 ; Horatio G. Gibson, 966 ; William H. Gibson, 967 ; Samuel A. Gilbert, 967 ; 
Josiah Given, 967 ; William Given, 967 ; Henry H. Giesy, 967 ; James H. Godman, 967 ; 
C. H. Grosvenor, 952. 
William Douglas Hamilton, 967 ; Andrew L. Harris, 968 ; James H. Hart, 968 ; Russell Hast- 
ings, 968 ; Thomas T. Heath, 968 ; Andrew Hickenlooper, 937 ; George W. Hoge, 968 ; E. 
S.°Hollowav, 969 ; Marcellus J. W. Holton, 969 ; Horace N. Howland, 969 ; Lewis C. Hunt, 
969; Samuel H. Hurst, 969 ; R. P. Hutchins, 969 ; Walter F. Herrick, 969. 
John S. Jones, 948 ; Theodore Jones, 970 ; Wells S. Jones, 970. 
John H. Kelley, 970; R. P. Kennedy, 970; Robert L. Kimberly, 970; Henry D. Kingsbury, 

970 ; Isaac Minor Kirby, 956. 
John Q. Lane, 971; E. Bassett Langdon, 971; John C. Lee, 972; Frederick W. Lister, 973; B. 

C. Ludlow, 934. 
Charles F. Manderson, 973; William H. Martin, 973; Edwin C. Mason, 973; O. C. Maxwell, 
973; James McCleary, 973; Daniel McCoy, 944; Henry K. McConnell, 974; Anson G. 
McCook, 974; J. E. McGowan, 974; Stephen J. McGroarty, 974; Edwin S. Meyer, 975; 
Granville Moody, 975; John C. Moore, 975; August Moor, 975; Marshall F. Moore, 976; 
Samuel R. Mottj 975 ; F. W. Moore, 950 ; Reuben Delavan Mussey, 975. 



Contents. 7 

George W. Neff, 977 ; A. B. Nettleton, 977 ; Edward Follensbee Noyes, 978. 

John O'Dowd, 979. 

Augustus C. Parry, 979 ; Don A. Pardee, 981 ; Oliver H. Payne, 945 ; John S. Pearce, 981 ; 
William S. Pierson, 981 ; Orlando M. Poe, 981 ; Eugene Powell, 981. 

E. W. Ratliff, 981 ; W. H. Eaynor, 981 ; W. P. Richardson, 945 ; Amerieus V. Rice, 982 ; Or- 
lando C. Risdon, 982. 

Thomas W. Sanderson, 982 ; Franklin Sawyer, 982 ; Lionel A. Sheldon, 982 ; Isaac R. Sher- 
wood, 953; Thomas C. H. Smith, 982; G. W. Shurtliff, 982; Patrick Slevin, 982; Benjamin F. 
Smith, 982 ; Willard Slocum, 983 ; Orland Smith, 983 ; Orlow Smith, 983 ; Joab A. Staf- 
ford, 983; Anson Stager, 983; Timothy R. Stanley, 983; William Steadman, 983; William 
Stough, 984; Silas A. Strickland, 984; Edgar Sowers, 984; Peter J. Sullivan, 984. 

Jacob E. Taylor, 984; Thomas T. Taylor, 984; David Thompson, 984; John A. Turley, 984. 

Thomas M. Vincent, 947 ; Lewis Von Blessingh, 984 ; Alexander Von Schraeder, 985. 

Durbin Ward, 985; Moses B. Walker, 955; Darius B. Warner, 986; Henry R. West, 986; 
Horatio N. Whitbeck, 986; Carr B. White, 987; Aquila Wiley, 987; Wm. T. Wilson, 987; 
Oliver Wood, 987; Thomas F. Wildes, 951 ; G. F. Wiles, 946. 

Thomas L. Young, 988 ; Stephen B. Yeoman, 949. 

Lewis Zahm, 989; George M. Zeigler, 989. 

OUE HEROIC DEAD. 

Colonel Minor Millikin, 990; Colonel Lorin Andrews, 995; Colonel Fred. C. Jones 997- Col- 
onel William G. Jones, 999; Lieutenant-Colonel Barton S. Kyle, 1000; Colonel John H. 
Patrick, 1001; Colonel John T. Toland, 1002; Colonel George P. Webster, 1003; Colonel 
Leander Stem, 1004; Lieutenant-Colonel Jonas D. Elliott, 1005; Lieutenant-Colonel James 
W. Shane, 1006; Colonel Joseph L. Kirby Smith, 1007; Colonel Augustus H. Coleman, 
1008; Colonel John W. Lowe, 1009; Lieutenant-Colonel Moses F. Webster, 1011. 

TABLES OF STAFF OFFICEES, Etc. 

Assistant Adjutant-Generals, 1012; Additional Aids-de-Camp, 1013; Aids-de-Camp appointed 
under Act of July 17, 1862, 1013; Hospital Chaplains, 1013; Judge Advocates, 1013; Signal 
Corps, 1014; Additional Paymasters, 1014; Assistant Quartermasters, 1014; Commissaries 
of Subsistence, 1016. 

WAR GOVERNORS, Etc. 

Page. 
Ex-GovERKOK WnxiiiAM Dennison 1017 

" David Tod 2020 

" John Brough 2022 

Secretary Edwin M. Stanton 2027 

Ex-Secretary Salmon P. Chase 2030 

U. S. Senator Benjamin F. Wade 2033 

U. S. Senator John Sherman 2035 



Jay Cooke. 



1037 



Contents. 



MAPS Al^D ILLUSTRATIOISrS OF VOL. I. 

MAPS. 

Page. 

Some of the Eoutes to, and Battle-fields around, Richmond 295 

The Battle-field of Stone River 331 

Chickamauga and Chattanooga 341 

Battle of Belmont 360 

Pittsburg Landing and Vicinity 376 

vicksbtjrg and surroundings 383 

Petersburg and the Flanking Movements to the Left 407 

Shermajj's Atlanta Campaign 451 

Sherman's March to the Sea 468 

Sherman's Campaign of the Carolinas 473 

Sheridan's Valley Campaign 524 

The Bull Run, Rappahannock, Antietam, and Gettysburg Campaigns 669 

Defenses of New Orleans • 790 



WOOD CUTS. 

Pontoon Bridge over the Ohio River 92 

The Squirrel Hunter 96 

Gunboats on the Ohio 136 

Feeding Troops, Fifth Street Market Space, Cincinnati 192 

GiLLMORE Shelling Charleston 638 



FRONTISPIECE. 

PORTRAIT OF LIEUTENANT-GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. 

MEDALLION POETEAITS 

SECOND PLATE. 

Page. • Page. 



Lieut. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant 273 

Maj. Gen. Wm. T. Sherman 273 



Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans 273 

Robert C. Schenck 273 

George B. McClellan 273 i " James A. Garfield 273 

Don Carlos Buell 273 I " James B. McPherson 273 

Ormsby M. Mitchel 273 ! " David S. Stanley 9.73 



Contents. 



THIRD PLATE. 



Page. 
, 495 

495 
495 
, 495 
William SooY Smith 495 



Maj. Gen. Irvin McDowell 

" James B. Steedman.. 

" Philip H. Sheridan.. 

" Alex. McD. McCook . 



Page. 

BvT. Maj. Gen. Samuel Beatty 495 

" " R. B. Hayes 495 

Surgeon-Gen. Gustav C. E. Weber.. 495 



Brig. Gen. Edward F. Noyes . 



John S. Mason. 



495 
495 



FOURTH PLATE. 



Maj. Gen. Quincy Adams Gillmore. 617 

" Jacob DoLsoN Cox 617 

" Godfrey Weitzel 617 

" George Crook 617 

" Mortimer D. Leggett 617 



Page. 

Bvt. Maj. Gen. John W. Fuller 617 

" " Hugh Ewing 617 

Brig. Gen. Nathaniel C. McLean .... 617 

" George W. Morgan 617 

Bvt. Brig Gen. James M. Comly 617 



FIFTH PLATE. 



Maj. Gen. George A. Custer 778 

" Wiliam B. Hazen 778 

" Wager Swayne 778 

Bvt. Maj. Gen. August V. Kautz .... 778 
" " Kenner Garrard 778 



Page. 

Bvt. Maj. Gen. S. S. Carroll 778 

" " Manning F. Force... 778 

" Chas. C. Walcutt .,. 778 

Brig. Gen. A. Sanders Piatt.- 778 

Bvt. Brig. Gen. Benj. D. Fearing... 778 



SIXTH PLATE. 



Bvt. Maj. Gen. Charles R. Woods.. 841 

" " William B. Woods. 841 

*' " J. Warren Keiper. 841 

" " John C. Tidball 841 

Bsio. Gen. John Beatty 841 



Page. 

Brig. Gen. H. B. Carrington 841 

" B. E. CowEN 841 

M. S. Wade 841 

Bvt. Brig. Gen. Fred'k W. Moore... 841 

" " Frank Askew 841 



SEVENTH PLATE. 



Bvt. Maj. Gen. John W. Sprague.... 

" " Robert S. Granger. 
Brig. Gen. C. P. Buckingham 

" Jacob Ammen 

" Ralph P. Buckland 



■age. 

887 


Brig. Gen 


Eliakim p. Scammon.... 


Page. 

.. 887 


887 


li 


John G. Mitchell 


.. 887 


887 


« 


Eli Long 


.. 887 


887 


(( 


William W. Burns 


.. 887 


887 


(( 


Benjamin F. Potts 


.. 887 



EIGHTH PLATE. 



Bvt. Maj. Gen. Erastus B. Tyler ... 

" " Emerson Opdycke... 

" " James S. Robinson... 

Brig. Gen. Ferdinand Van Derveer 

" Thomas Kilby Smith 



Page. 
909 

909 
909 
909 
909 



Brig. Gen. William H. Powell 

Bvt. Brig. Gen. Israel Garrard 

" " B. B. Eggleston 

" A. C. Parry 

" " James A. Wilcox.... 



Page 

909 
909 
909 
909 
909 



10 



COI^TENTS. 



NINTH PLATE. 



Page. 

BvT. Maj. Gen. Willard Warner ... 951 

Brig. Gen J. W. Eeilly 951 

BvT. Brig. Gen. Henry F. Devol 951 

if " Thomas F. Wildes... 951 

« " Isaac R. Sherwood. 951 



Page. 

BvT. Brig. Gek. Moses B. Walker ... 951 

" " Benj C. Ludlow 951 

i< " Thomas L. Young ... 951 

u tt Chas. F. Manderson 951 

« " W. P. ElCHARDSON.... 951 



TENTH PLATE. 



BvT. Maj. Gen. Charles W. Hill 971 

u '< Henry B. Banning... 971 

BvT. Brig. Gen. E. Bassett Langdon. 971 

" " c. H. Grosvenor 971 

a « "W. H. Baldwin 971 



Page. 

BvT. Brig. Gen. Dukbin Ward 971 

K " A. HiCKENLOOPER 971 

u " George W. Neff 971 

u a s. A. Strickland 971 

« " S. J- McGroarty 971 



ELEVENTH PLATE. 

"OUR HEROIC DEAD." 



Page. 

Brig. Gen. Joshua W. Sill 990 

" Robert L. McCook 990 

" William H. Lytle, 990 

Col. Minor Millikin, (1st O. V.C.).-. 990 

" LoRiN Andrews f4th O. V. I.)-.-. 990 



Col. J. H. Patrick (5th O. V. I.). ... 
" Fred. C. Jones (24th O. V. I.) 

" John T. Toland (34th O. V. !.)• 

" Will. G. Jones (35th O. V. I.).. 

Lt. Col. B. S. Kyle (71st O. V. I.)-.- 



Page. 

990 
990 
990 
990 
990 



TWELFTH PLATE. 

"OUR HEROIC DEAD." 



Page. 

Brig. Gen. Charles G. Harker 1008 

'• Daniel McCook 1008 

Col. a. H. Coleman (11th O. V. I.) 1008 

" John W. Lowe (12th O. V. I.)- 1008 
" J. L. KiRBY Smith (43d O. V. I.) 1008 



Page. 

Col. Geo. P. Webster (98th O. V. I.) 1008 
" Leander Stem (101st O. V. I.)- 1008 

Lt. Col. M. F. Wooster (101st O. V. I.) 1008 
J AS. M. Shane (98th O. V. L).. 1008 
J. D. Elliott (102d O. V. I.) 1008 



THIRTEENTH PLATE. 

OHIO CIVILIANS. 



Page. 

Salmon P. Chase, Sec. of the Treasury.. 1017 
Benj. F. Wade, U. S. Senator and Chair- 
man of Com. on Con. of the War ...... 1017 

John Shebjian, U. S. Senator and Chair- 
man of Finance Committee 1017 



Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, 
Gov. Dennison 

" Tod 

" Bbough 

Lt. Gov. Anderson 



Page. 

1017 
1017 
1017 
1017 
1017 



IP^K/T I. 



THE HISTORY OF THE STATE DURING THE WAR, 



HER WAR ADMINISTRATIONS. 



Introductory. 13 



CHAPTER I. 



OHIO'S PLACE IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 



WHEN the Nation, striving only to enforce its laws and maintain its 
lawfully elected rulers, suddenly found itself plunged into a war that 
promised to envelop half its territory, it confided its "Grand Army" 
to the leadership of an Ohio General.* When, beaten less by the enemy than 
by its own rawness, that army retreated in disorder from the field it had fairly 
won, and the panic of the first Bull Eun seemed to freeze the currents of 
National life, another Ohio General, f fresh from the first successful campaign 
of the war, was called in to restore public confidence, and reorganize the army 
on the grander scale which the increasing perils demanded; while still another 
Ohioan J was left to assume his vacated command in the mountains. 

As the war expanded, the State continued to preserve a similar pre-emi- 
nence. Through three campaigns, the greatest of the National armies remained 
under the leadership of an Ohio General. This officer also succeeded the vet- 
eran Scott as General-in-Chief in command of all our armies. An Ohio Gen- 
eral 1} commanded the great department which lay south of his native State, till, 
after pushing back the war from the Border to the Alabama line, he was caught 
and submerged in its refluent tide, and another Ohio General was summoned 
from fields of victory in the Soath-West to take his place. An Ohio General,§ 
after brilliant services elsewhere, commanded the Department of the South, till, 
in the midst of his labors, death came to relieve him; and when active ojDera- 
tions in the department were resumed, it was reserved for another Ohio Gen- 
eral** to revolutionize gunnery, in destroying the fort around which the war 
had opened, and in whose downfall was written the doom of the rebellion. 

No less signal were the services rendered by the sons of the State through 
ihe whole duration of the war. Its close found another native of Ohio,tt after 

* Irvin McDowell, native of Ohio, and one of her cadets at West Point. 
t George B. McClellan, citizen of Ohio, and lately Major-General of Ohio Militia. 
tWilliam S. Rosecrans, native of Ohio, and one of her cadets at West Point. 
li Don Carlos Buell, native of Ohio, but appointed to the service from Indiana. 
? 0. M. Mitchel, citizen of and appointed from Cincinnati. 
** Quincy A. Gillmore, native of and appointed from Ohio. 

tt U. S. Grant, born in Clermont County, Ohio, and originally appointed to the army from 
that district. 



14 Ohio in the Wak. 

a career as wonderful and as varied as that of any Marshal of France, in com 
mand of all our armies, and hailed, by popular acclaim, our greatest Soldier, j 
Another,* rising from the lank of a Quartermaster, was foremost in enforcing 
the surrender of Lee, and stood confessed the first Cavalry G-eneral of the 
Continent. Another, f set aside for insanity at the outset, led the great con- 
solidated armies of the West from victory to victory, till one of their successes 
decided a Presidential contest, and another, as they marched down to the Sea, 
and swept like the Destroying Angel through the birth-place and home of 
Secession; ended the war. 

Other sons of the State had borne parts no less conspicuous in the National 
councils. One, at the head of the War Department, J illustrated by his fiery 
energy and his wonderful executive capacity, all, and more than all, that has 
been said of the greatest war minister of the most warlike nation of Europe. 
Another, II so well discharged the great duties of the Treasury Department, 
carrying the Nation, and its armies through financial expenditures without a 
parallel, with a security and public confidence without precedent in the world's 
history of war, that a leader of the rebellion had been forced at its close to 
say: "It was not your Generals that defeated us, it was your Treasury." 
Another,! foremost among all the brave hearts who surrounded and upheld the 
Government, and in all the gloomiest hours never once despaired of the 
Eepublic, was the Chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. 
And another, ** maimed with honorable wounds received in the public service, 
passed from the field to take his place at the head of the committee which 
controlled the military legislation of the country. 

The exalted fame reflected on the State which could boast such representa- 
tives in the field, and at the head of the great Departments and Committees 
that controlled the business and met the expenditures of tlie war, was still 
further increased. Energetic Administrations at home successively devoted the 
State and all it contained to the great struggle — "rising to the height of the 
occasion, dedicating this generation, if need be, to the sword, and vowing, before 
high Heaven, that there should be no end to the conflict but ruin absolute or 
absolute triumph." They gave to the Nation, in its jDrosecution of the war 
throughout its entire extent, this whole-hearted and unswerving support, and 
could still find means, beside, for such special achievements as the rescue of 
West Virginia by Ohio militia, the destruction of one of the most formidable 
cavalry commands of the rebellion on Ohio soil, and the re-enforcement of the 
Army of the Potomac, at the critical hour when the fate of a Nation hinged on 
the fate of a campaign, by the voluntary contribution of over forty regiments 

* Phil, H. Sheridan, native of and appointed from Ohio. 
t W. T. Sherman, native of and appointed from Ohio. 

t E. M. Stanton, native of Ohio, and resident of the State for the greater portion of his life. 
II S. P. Chase, ex-Governor and ex-United States Senator of Ohio. 

§ Ben. F. Wade^ United States Senator from Ohio, and Vice-President of the United States, 
**Eohert C. Schenck, native of Ohio, Major-General of Volunteers, and Chairman of the 
Militarv Committee of the House of Eepresentatives. 



In"trodltctory. 15 

of Ohio Hundred Days' men, called to the field at but little more than an 
hour's notice, from every busy avocation throughout the State. 

Yet the People who filled these regiments, and made these Administrations, 
and furnished these Statesmen and these Generals, merited more praise than 
all the rest. They counted their sons and sent them forth. They followed 
them to the camjjs. They saw them waste in inaction and die of disease. Then 
they saw them led by incompetents to needless slaughter. Stricken with 
anguish, they still maintained their unshaken purpose. They numbered the 
people again, and sent out fresh thousands. They followed them with generous 
gifts. They cared for the stricken families, and made desolate lives beautiful 
with the sweet charities of a gracious Christianity. They infused a religious 
zeal into the contest. They held their soldiers to be soldiers in a holy war ; 
they truly believed that through battle, and siege, and reverse, God was waiting, 
in His own good time, to give them the victory. Then they saw the struggle 
broadening in its purposes as in its theater. They did not shrink when 
they thus found how they had walked these paths of War with open but sightless 
eyes, while unseen hands were guiding them to ends they knew not of. After a 
season the war came very near to each one of them. Almost every family had 
in it one dead for the holy cause ; by almost every hearthstone rose lamentation 
and the sound of weeping for those that were not. Then came the voice of the 
tejnpter. Able sons of the State, men foremost in her honors and her trust, be- 
sought them to pause, declared the war at once a failure and a crime, entreated 
them to array their potential influence against the Government in its struggle, and 
in favor of peace on any terms ;. conjured them to save the blood of sons, and hus- 
bands, and fathers. They spurned the temptation. By a vote more decisive than 
had been known in the history of American elections they rejected the tempter. 
Thenceforward the position of Ohio was as a watchword to the Xation. 

It seems right that the history of such services and such devotion should 
be specially preserved. The State which contributed such leaders in the Cab- 
inet, such Generals in the field, and an army of three hundred and ten 
thousand soldiers to follow them, may be pardoned for desiring her achieve- 
ments separately recorded. Finding them groujaed th^^s together, those who 
come after us may trace the career of Grant, and Sherman, and Sheridan ; 
of Rosecrans, Mitchel, McPherson ; of McDowell, McClellan, Buell ; of Gillmore, 
and Steedman, and Hazen, and Schenck, and the whole host of our worthies ; 
of Stanton, and Chase, and Wade ; of Dennison, Tod, and Brough, and the two 
hundred and thirty military organizations they sent into the field. They may 
watch how by the aid of these the army grew into shape and substance. They 
may see how, following those it was led '• always to honor, often to victory," 
and at last to glorious success. Then, contemplating this whole magnificent 
ofEering to the National cause, they may come to say, with something of the 
pride with which we, who have seen these things with our eyes and heard them 
with our ears, regard the noble State, the gracious Mother of us all, "This, this 
was Ohio in the War." 



16 Ohio in the War. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE STATE AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE AVAR. 



THE State of Ohio, which in the next four years was to contribute to the 
National service an army of soldiers amounting in the aggregate, according 
to the figures of the Provost-Marshal Grenei-al, to three hundred and ten 
thousand men, had in 1860 a population of not quite two and a half millions.* 
The existence of its territorial organization had only begun a year before the 
Century; but it was already, and as it seemed was likely long to remain, the 
third State in population and wealth in the Union. More than half of its area 
was under cultivation,! and more than half of its adult males were farmers, there 
being of this class two hundred and seventy-seven thousand owning farms, aver- 
aging a little over ninety acres to each man. So well was this most important 
body of the State's pi-oducers aided by the natural fertility of the soil, that they 
furnished each year more than double the entire amount of food, animal and veg- 
etable, that was needed for the support of the whole population of the State. In 
1860 they exported nearly two million barrels of flour, over two and a half miU- 
ion bushels of wheat, three million bushels of other grains, half a million barrels 
of pork. The value of the exports of agricultural products for that year from 
Ohio swelled to fifty-six and a half million dollars. 

]^ot less industrious and prosperous were the manufacturers of the State. 
The value of their products for 1860 was over one hundred and twenty -two mill- 
ions of dollars, an increase of ninety-eight per cent, in a single decade. The 
city of Cincinnati alone, where Indians were trading wampum and buying 
blankets when New York had already attained the rank of the metropolis of the 
continent, manufactured in 1860, sixteen million dollars, worth of clothing, a 
larger quantity than New York itself produced in the same year. 

But the wealth of the State and the welfare of her people, so eloquently 
illustrated in figures like these, may perhaps be more clearly presented in a 
briefer statement. The assessed value of her taxable propert}^ rose in 1860 to 
nearly a thousand million dollars ; while, by the estimate of her Commissioner 
of Statistics, the entire debts of the people would not amount to twenty per cent. 
of that valuation. Let us not fail to add that, by the beneficent legislation of the 

* 2,343,739. In 1850 it was 1,980,329. And in 1830 only 937,903. 

t It had 13,051,945 acres of improved land to 12,210,154 of unimproved. 



Condition of the State. 17 

State, none of her children were growing up witliout the free gift of an education 
that should fit them for the duties of citizenship; tliat there were pubh'shed and 
mainly circulated within her borders twenty-four daily newspaj^ers, two hundred 
and sixty-five weeklies, and fifty-fo<ir monthlies, making in the aggregate seventy- 
two million copies; and that so general was the devotion to religion and the 
provision for religious instruction, that the church edifices in the State contained 
sittings enough for the entire j^opulation of the State. 

The impending war was to have for its essence the sjDirit of hostility to the 
existence, or at least to the power of the sj'stem of human slavery; and so it comes 
that the position of the State on this subject is not less essential to a comprehen- 
sion of her great part in the struggle, than is an appreciation of her Avonderful 
pi'Ogress and resources. The political conservatism, which prosperity and accu- 
mulating wealth naturally engender, Avas further favored in Ohio by the circum- 
stances of her settlement and geograph3\ Along four hundred and thirty-six 
miles of her border lay slave States. From these many of her pioneers had come; 
many more traced with Kentuckians and West Virginians their common lineage- 
back to the eastern slope of the ancient Dominion. In time of war the most efi'ect- 
ive support to the exposed settlements of the infant State had come fi'om their 
generous and warlike neighbors across the Ohio. In the long jjeace that followed, 
the heartiest friendships and warmest social attachments naturally went out to 
those who had been proved in the hour of trial. If her churches on every hill- 
side taught a religion which found no actual warrant in the Bible for the system 
of human slavery, they at least had no difficulty in believing that the powers 
that be are ordained of God, and b}^ consequence in enforcing a toleration which 
proved quite as acceptable across the Border as the most exhaustive Scriptural 
exegesis. North of the National Eoad, which for many years was the Mason 
and Dixon's line- of Ohio politics, different views prevailed; and the people, 
tracing their ancestry to Puritan rather than Virginia stock, cherished different 
feelings; but the southern half of the State, being more populous and more influ- 
ential, long controlled the elections, and inspired the temper of the government 
and the legislation. 

In the Presidential contest of 1848, the electoral vote of the State was thus 
thrown for Lewis Cass. In 1852, it was in like manner given to Franklin Pierce. 
But by this time a change had begun. In the very heart of the conservative 
feeling of the State, one of the foremost lawyers of the city of Cincinnati had for 
years been keeping up an antislaverj^ agitation. He had found a few, like- 
mmded with himself, but Society and the Church had combined to frown him 
down. Still, so single-minded and sincere Avas he, that, though the most ambi- 
tious of men, he resolutely faced the popular current, shut his eyes to all hope 
of political advancement, and daily labored at the task of resisting the preten- 
sions of Slavery, giving legal protection to the friendless and helpless negroes, 
and diff'using an Abolition sentiment among the conservative men of the Border 
and the influential classes of the great city of the State, whose prosperity' was 
supposed to dejDend upon her intimate relations and immense trade with the 
slave-holding regions to the south of her. To this task he brought some peculiar 
~ - Vol. I.— 2. 



18 Ohio in the War. 

qualifications. Profoundly ignorant of men, he was, nevertheless, profoundly 
versed in the knowledge of Man. The baldest charlatan might deceive him 
into trusting his personal worth; but the acutest reasoner could not mislead 
him in determining the general drift of popular sentiment, and the political 
tendencies of the times. Conscious of abilities that might place him m the 
front rank of our Statesmen, his sagacity, not less than his conscience, taught 
him to take Time for his ally; and lightly regarding the odium of his present 
work, to look confidingly to the larger promises of the Future. Loving per- 
sonal popularity, he was entirely destitute of the qualifications for attaining it. 
Keally warm-hearted and singularly tenacious in his attachments, he was perpet- 
ually regarded as utterly selfish and without capacity for friendship; so that his 
defects, no less than his merits, shut him up to a course which could hope for 
personal triumph only in the triumph of great principles. He was gifted by 
nature with a massive and cogent eloquence, little likely to sway the immediate 
passions of the populace, but sure to infiltrate the judgment and conscience of 
.the controlling classes in the community. His energy was tireless, and his will 

absolutely inflexible. 

Under such leadership, ably seconded by the faithful and true old man 
who so long stood in Ohio the champion of Abolition, pure and simple, and the 
peculiar representative of the Eeserve, a new element sprang up in Ohio politics. 
It cast a handful of votes for Birney for the Presidency; had risen to propor- 
tions which made it a respectable element in political calculations when it cast, 
what was thought to be, the vote of the balance of power for Van Buren; and 
had reached the height of its unpopularity with the old ruling class of the Stai. 
when, in 1852, refusing to sustain General Scott on account of the "anti-agita- 
tion "'and "finality of the slavery question" features in his platform, it persisted 
in again giving the votes of its balance of power to John P. Hale, and tlius 
permitting the triumph of Franklin Pierce. 

But before another Presidential election the shrewd calculations of the 
sagacious leader of this outcast among parties had been realized. Holding, as 
has been seen, the balance of power, and subordinating all minor questions to 
what they regarded as the absorbing issue of slavery or antislavery, they had 
already, with^ a handful of votes, controlled a great election, and sent this, 
Abolition leader to the United States Senate. A greater triumph now awaited 
him. As dexterous in managing parties as he was blind in managing men, h( 
placed such stress upon the new organization which had risen upon the ruins 
of the old Whig party, that, detesting his principles and distrusting himself, the^j 
were, nevertheless, forced to secure the votes without which the election wercj 
lost in advance, by placing his name at the head of their ticket, and bearinc' 
the odious Abolitionist in triumph into the chair of the Chief Executive of th 
State. The impulse thus given was never wholly lost; for though the peopl 
were by no means as radical as their Governor, they gave at the next Presi; 
dential election a handsome majority to Fremont, and a year later again electe.| 
their Abolition leader. 

Whether it was through a far-seeing anticipation of what was to grow ou 



Condition of the State. 19 

of this antislavery struggle, or whether it was only a result of the sagacious 
forecast which in most things distinguished his administration, Governor Chase 
early began to attempt an effective organization of the militia. In this, as in 
his political views, he was in advance of his times. In every State west of the 
Alleghanies the militia had fallen into undisguised contempt. The old-fash- 
ioned militia musters had been given up ; the subject had been abandoned as 
fit only to be the fertile theme for the ridicule of rising writers and witty stump 
orators. The cannon issued by the Grovernment were left for the uses of polit- 
ical parties on the occasion of mass meetings or victories at the polls. The 
small arms were scattered, rusty, and become worthless. In Chicago a novel 
drill had been an inducement for the organization of the Ellsworth Zouaves ; 
and here and there through the West the young men of a city kept up a mil- 
itary company ; but these were the exceptions. Popular prejudice against 
doing military duty was insurmountable, and no name for these exceptional 
organizations so struck the popular fancy as that of "the Cornstalk Militia." 

Governor Chase at once essayed the formation of similarly uniformed and 
equipped militia companies at all leading points throughout the State, with 
a provisional organization into regiments and brigades. At first the popu- 
lar ridicule onl}- was excited; by-and-by attention to the subject was slowly 
aroused. Some legislative support was secured, a new arsenal was established; 
an issue of new arms was obtained from the General Government; and an 
approximation was at last made to a military peace establishment. Such was 
the interest finally excited that at one time a convention of nearly two hundred 
ofiicers assembled at Columbus to consult as to the best means of developing 
and fostering the militia system; and the next 3"ear, before going out of office. 
Governor Chase had the satisfaction of reviewing, at Daj-ton, nearly thirty 
companies, assembled from different parts of the State — every one of which 
was soon to participate in the war that was then so near and so little antici- 
pated. His successor continued the general policy thus inaugurated, urged the 
Legislature to pay the militia for the time spent in drill, and enforced the 
necessity of expanding the system. Comparatively little was accomplished, 
and yet the organization of Ohio militia was far superior to that existing in any 
of the States to the westward. All of them combined did not possess so large 
a militia force as the First Ohio Eegiment, then under the command of Colonel 
King, of Dayton. 

Thus, materially prosperous and politically progressive, yet with much of 
the leaven of her ancient Conservatism still lingering, and with the closest 
affiliations of friendship and trade with the slave-holding States of the Ohio 
and Mississippi Yalleys, but with the germs of a prejDaration for hostilities, and 
such a nucleus of militia as might serve to protect the border from immediate 
ravages, Ohio entered upon the year that was to witness the paralysis of her 
industry and trade, the sundering of her old friendships, her political revolu- 
tion, and the devotion of her entire energies to the business of war. 



20 



Ohio in the War. 



CHAPTER III. 



INITIAL WAR LEGISLATION-THE STRL^GGLE KM SURRENDER OF PARTY. 



T 



HE legislative and executive departments of the State Gove.nm nt^ 
, upon which were precipitated the weightiest burdens o the wa,. had 
J-bZn chosen as rep^sentatives rather of the average an Uslavery progress 
of the Wh,g party, than of the »ore advanced position, to which ex-Gove,w 
Ch se had been committing his supporters. Great pains were taken to we con e: 
Ohase nau u«« . Tpnnessee on their v sit to Columbus, and to 

'"' ":f ttr :f1he : ;: Lenlhrh:::: then,, not .s, by the Gover„n,ent| 
rrbv the Peopl of he State. Uni'on-saving speeches and resolutions marked, 
thanb5 thepeop usual, the Union-savmg temper- 

' t',r. h- Z^l^tZJ^t to fhe South of everything save the absc, 
Tt 1 ' fta^^pot i controversy. The Governor, in his inaugural address, 
I flmly insisting npon hostility to the extension of slavery had also advo 
ad the colonizatio,: of the blacks in Central or South Amcr.ca, and fa, hfn, 
obedience to what were regarded as our constitutional obligat.ons to the slave 
lodig States A leading member of the party in the Senate* had mtroducec 
b to nrevent by heavy penalties the organisation or the giv.ng of any a,o 
:« ; rue 1 U j1 Browr's, and it had come within three votes of a passage 
"^ Mo e striking proof of the conciliatory disposition with winch the Leg.sla 
ture w s nimat d was to be given. The constitutional amen ment carr.e 
hrouirCongress by Thomas Corwin, and submitted to the Leg.slatnres of h 
!!! States for ratification, provided that hereafter no amendment or othc 
r„g n tl ^Zs of Government should be permitted, whereby the N.at.on, 
authorities should be enabled to interfere with slavery withm ,ts present l.m,t 
b"* the beginning of actual hostilities in Charleston Harbor, 'twas appare, 
t^rLrrying the effort for conciliation to the furthest extreme, the heavy E 
bli n majority in the Legislature meant to give the sane , on o Oh,o ^o h 
eversible gua/antee to slavery in the fundamental law of the land Befo 
pile' on L Senate calendar was reached, however, came the bombardme 
:; sCer, the surrender, and the C.U of the Vresident -;^Vr^'>^-^ 
from the danger of sudden capture by the conspirators. On the 1.5th Ap 
•Hon. R. D.Harrison, afterward elected from the Seventh District, to succeed e.-Go,er,|, 



Corwin in Congress. 



Initial War Legislation. 21 

Oulumbus was wild with the excitement of the cull to arms. On the 16th the 
feeling was even more intense; troops were arriving, the telegraphs and mails 
^\'ere burdened with exhortations to the Legislature to grant money and men 
lu any extent; the very air came laden with the clamor of war and of the 
swift, hot haste of the people to plunge into it. On the 17th, while every pulse 
around them was at fever-heat, the Senators of Ohio, as a last effort, passed the 
( orwin constitutional amendment, only eight members out of the whole Senate 
apposing it.* 

But this was the last effort at conciliation. Thenceforward the State strove 
to conquer rather than to compromise. Already, on the 16th of April, within 
less than twenty-four houi-s after the President's call for troops had been re- 
ceived, the Senate had matured, carried through the several readings, and passed 
a bill appropriating one million of dollars for placing the State upon a war- 
footing, and for assisting the General Government in meeting the shock of the 
rebellion.f 

The debate which preceded the rapid passage of this bill illustrated the 
melting away of party lines under the white heat of patriotism. Senator Orr, 
the Democratic representative of the Crawford County Senatorial District, 'was 
opposed to the war, and even to the purposes of the bill, but he should vote for 
it as the best means of testifying his hostility to secession.' Judge Thomas M. 
Key, of Cincinnati, the ablest Democrat in the Senate, followed. | He, too, was 
in lavor of the bill. ' Yet he felt it in his soul to be an unwarranted declara- 
tion of war against seven sister States. He entered his solemn protest against 
the line of action announced b}^ the Executive. It was an usurpation by a 
President, in whom and in whose advisers he had no contidence; it was the be- 
ginning of a military despotism. He firmly believed it to be the desire of the 
Administration to drive off the border States, and permanently sever the Union. 
But he was opposed to secession, and in this contest he could do no otherwise 
than stand by the stars and stripes.' Next came Mr. Moore, of Butler Count}^, 
conspicuous as the most conservative of those reckoned at all with the Eepubli- 

■■ The eight who had the foresight to perceive that the 17th of April, 1861, was not a time 
to be striving to add security to slavery were, Messrs. Buck, Cox, Garfield, Glass, Monroe, Morse, 
Parrish, and Smith. 

tSome days earlier a bill had been introduced appropriating a hundred thousand dollars for 
war purposes. On a hint from the Executive that perhaps other and more important measures 
might be needed, action was delayed. Then the million war bill was introduced, in response to 
a message from Governor Dennison, announcing the call from Washington, maintaining the 
necessity for defending the integrity of the Union, and concluding as follows: 

" But as the contest may grow to greater dimensions than is now anticipated, I deem it my duty 
to recommend to the General Assembly of this State to make provisions proportionate to its 
means to assi.st the National authorities in restoring the integrity and strength of the Union, in 
all its amplitude, as the only means of preserving the rights of all the States, and insuring the 
permanent peace and prosperity of the whole country. I earnestly recommend, also, that an 
appropriation of not less than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars be immediately made for 
the purchase of arms and equipments for the use of the volunteer militia of the State. I need 
not remind you of the pressing exigency for the prompt organization and arming of the mili- 
tary force of the State." 

+ Subsequently Colonel and .ludge Advocate on McClellan's staff. 



22 Ohio in the War. 

can part}^ in the Senate; in fact as almost the ideal of the old " Silver-Gray 
Whig."* Hitherto he had voted consistently against all military bills, and had 
even avowed his readiness to surrender the Southern forts rather than bring on 
a collision. 'Now he felt called upon to do the most painful duty of his life. 
But there was only one course left. He had no words of bitterness for party 
with which to mar the solemnity of the hour. This only he had to say : He 
could do nothing else than stand by the grand old flag of the country, and stand 
by it to the end. He should vote for the bill' 

Thus, to recur to the figure already used, did the iron rules of party disci- 
pline and prejudice, melting beneath the white heat of patriotism, still mark in 
broken outline the old divisions beneath and through which the molten currents 
freely mingled. The bill passed by an almost unanimous vote ; one Senator 
only, Mr. Newman, of Scioto County, voting against it.f 

In the House, however, party opposition gave way more slowly. That 
same afternoon the bill went over from the Senate, and an effort was made to 
suspend the rules, so as to put it upon its passage. The Democrats demanded 
time for consultation. Mr. Wm. B. Woods J (ex-Speaker and Democratic leader) 
gave notice that it could not be unanimously passed without time were given. 
For one, he wanted to hear from his constituents. Mr. Geo. W. Andrews,] | of 
Auglaize County, denounced the excitement on the subject of war, here and 
over the country, as crazy fanaticism. Mr. Devore, of Brown County, 'regarded 
the interests of the country, south of the Ohio Eiver as well as north of it. The 
dispatches about the danger to Washington were preposterous, and were mostly 
manufactured for evil purposes.' Mr. Jessup, of Hamilton County, gave notice 
that if the majority wanted his vote they must wait for it. And so, the Eepub- 
licans agreeing to delay in the hope of securing harmony, the bill went over, 
after two ineffectual efforts to suspend the rules.g 

The next day, the Democrats having in the meantime spent three hours in 
excited debate in caucus, the effort to suspend the rules again failed. But the 
leaders earnestly assured the House that with another day's delay there was a 
strong probability of the unanimous passage of the bill. A dispatch had al- 
ready been i-eceived from Scioto County, denouncing Senator Newman for his 
vote against it in the Senate, and it was said that his son was enlisted in one of 
the companies then on the wa}'^ to Columbus. Mr. Hutcheson, of Madison 
County, an extreme States'-Kights Dem.ocrat, and almost a secessionist, spoke 
handsomely in favor of the bill, and drew out hearty applause from House and 

■■■■ Subsequently Colonel of one of the hundred days' regiments. 

t Under the terrible pressure of public condemnation, especially in his own district, Mr. j 
Newman shortly afterward asked leave to change his vote. 

t Subsequently Colonel of a three years' regiment, and Brevet Major-General of vol- 
unteers. 

H Subsequently Colonel of the Fifteenth Ohio in the three months' service, and Lieutenant- 
Colonel, until after the Clarksville surrender, of the Seventy-Fourth Ohio. 

§ In these eflforts twenty-five Democrats voted against suspending the rules, fourteen voted 
with the Eepublicans for suspension, and eight were absent when the roll was called. 



The Struggle and Surrender of Party. 23 

galleries. But delay was still insisted upon, and so the bill went over to the 
third day from the date of its introduction. 

Then all were ready. Ex-Speaker "Woods led oif in a stirring little speech, 
declaring his intention ' to stand by the Government in peace or in war, right 
or wrong.' Mr. Wm. J. Flagg, of Hamilton County, followed. 'He was glad 
that delay hud produced unanimity. But he had been of the number that had 
favored instant action. He had done so because Jefferson Davis had shown no 
hesitation in suspending the rules, and marching through first, second, and third 
readings without waiting to hear from his constituents. He had ever advocated 
peace, but it was always peace for the Union. JSfow he was ready for peace for 
the Union, or war for it, love for it, hatred for it, everything for it.' Mr. An- 
drews, of Auglaize County, had less to say of the crazy fanaticism of the ex- 
citement. ' The act of South Carolina toward the Democrats of the North was 
a crime 'for which the English language could find no description. It had for- 
ever severed the last tie that bound them together.' 

Amid such displays of feeling on the part of the Opposition, the bill finally 
went through, on the 18th of April, b}^ an unanimous vote ; ninety-nine in its 
favor. It appropriated half a million doHars for the purpose of carrying into 
effect any requisition of the President to protect the National Government ; four 
hundred and fift}^ thousand dollars for the purchase of arms and equipments for 
the militia of the State ; and the remaining fifty thousand as an extraordinaxy 
contingent fund for the Governor. The Commissioners of the Sinking Fund 
were authorized to borrow the mone}^ at six per cent, interest, and to issue cer- 
tificates therefor which should be free from State taxation. 

Meantime the Senate, under the leadership of Mr. Garfield, had matured 
and passed a bill defining and providing punishment for the crime of treason 
against the State of Ohio. It declared any resident of the State who gave aid 
and comfort to the enemies of the United States guilty of treason against the 
State, to be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiar}" at hard labor 
for life.* 

With the passage of these bills all semblance of part}" opposition to neces- 
sary war measures disappeared from the proceedings of the Legislature. Mr. 
Vallandigham visited the capital and earnestly remonstrated with the Demo- 
crats for giving their sanction to the war; but the patriotic enthusiasm of the 
crisis could not be controlled by party discipline. Under the leadership of ex- 
Speaker Woods, a bill passed exempting the property of volunteers from exe- 
cution for debt during their service. Then, as within a few days it became 
evident that far more troops were pressing for acceptance than were needed to 
fill the President's call for thirteen regiments, the Legislature acceded to the 
sagacious suggestion of the Governor that they should be retained for the serv- 
ice of the State. The bill authorized the acceptance of ten additional regi- 
ments, provided five hundred thousand dollars for their payment, and a million 
and a half more to be used in case of invasion of the State, or the appeai*ance 
of danger of invasion. Other measures were adopted looking to the danger ot 

*This bill was understood at the time to be specially aimed at Mr. Vallandigham. 



24 Ohio in the Wak. 

shipments of anus through Ohio to the South; organizing the militia of the 
State; providing suitable officers for duty on the staff of the G-overnor; requir- 
ing contracts for subsistence of the volunteers to be let to the lowest bidder; 
authorizing the appointment of additional general officers. No little hostility 
toward some members of Governor Dennison's staff was exhibited, but with the 
Governor himself the relations of the Legislature were entirely harmonious. 
In concert with him the war legislation was completed ; and when, within a 
month after the first note of alarm from Washington the General Assembly 
adjourned, the State was, for the first time in its history, on a war footing. 

Before the adjournment the acting Speaker had resigned to take a command 
in one of the regiments starting for Washington ; two leading Senators had 
been appointed Brigadier-Generals; and large numbers of the other members 
had, in one capacity or another, entered the service. It was the first of the war 
Legislatures. It met the first shock ; under the sudden pressure matured the 
first military laws. It labored under difficulties inseparable from so unexpected 
a plunge into duties so novel. But it may now be safely said that in patriotism, 
in zeal and ability, it was second to neither of its successors, and that in the exu- 
bei-ance of patriotic sentiment which wiped out party lines and united all in 
common efibrts to meet the sudden danger, it surpassed them both. 



Dennison's War Administration. 25 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE OPENING ACTS OF DENNISON'S WAR ADMINISTRATION. 



ALTHOUGH the country had been greatly excited by the acts of seces- 
sion by several States, the seizure of forts, and the defiance of the General 
Government, there still lingered in the minds of the most a trust that in 
some way the matter vv^ould be adjusted, and bloodshed would be avoided. 
There was much war talk on the part of the young and excitable, but the influ- 
ential men and the masses were slow to believe in the possibility of wa^. Yet 
the portents still grew darker and darker at the South. 

" Then a fierce, sudden flash across the rugged blackness broke, 
And with a voice that shook the land the guns of Sumter spoke ; 

And wheresoe'er the summons came, there rose an angry din, 
As when, upon a rocky coast, a stormy tide sets in."* 

Before the bombardment had ended twenty full companies were offered to 
the Governor of Ohio for immediate service. With the news of the surrender, 
and the call of the President for volunteers, the excitement became fervidly 
intense. Militia officers telegraphed their readiness for orders. The President 
of Kenyon College tendered his service in any capacity, and began by enlisting 
in the ranks.f The Cleveland Grays, the Eover Guards, the Columbus Yidettes, 
the State Fencibles, the Governor's Guards, the Dayton Light Guards, the 
Guthrie Grays — the best known and best drilled militia companies in the State — 
held meetings, unanimously voted to place themselves at the disposal of the 
Government, and telegraphed to Columbus for orders. Portsmouth announced 
a company ready to march. Chillicothe asked if she should send a company that 
day. Circleville teregraphed, offering one or more companies, announcing that 
they had two thousand dollars raised to equip them. Xenia asked leave to raise a 
battery of artillerj^ and a company of infantry. Canton sent up an officer, beg- 
ging the acceptance of two companies. Lebanon wanted two companies accej)ted. 
Springfield wanted the same. Lancaster started a company to Columbus. Cin- 

*" War Poems," by E. J. Cutler: Little, Brown & Co. 1867. 

T Three months, indeed, before the fall of Sumter, foreseeing the necessity for war. President 
Andrews had written the Governor, offering his services whenever it should break out. He was 
the first citizen of Ohio to make such tender. 



26 Ohio in the War. 

cinnati, Dayton, Cleveland counted their oifers by the thousand. Steedman, 
from Toledo, pledged a full regiment in ten days. Prominent men, all over the 
State, telegraphed asking what they could do, and placing themselves at the 
disposal of the authorities. The instant, all-devouring blaze of excited patriot- 
ism was as amazing as it was unprecedented. Let it not be forgotten that 
among the first oifers were some from colored men promising companies, and 
that, in obedience to the temper of those times, they were refused. 

The oflScer upon whom the full pressure of this sudden avalanche fell had 
filled one-half of his term as Governor of the State. He was a man of excel- 
lent social connections, of suave, elegant manners, a master of deportment, and 
a favorite in polite circles. His experience in public affairs had been limited to 
a single term in the State Senate, and of military matters he was, like most 
other officials, profoundly ignorant. Among railroad managei's and bank officers 
he had the reputation of financial ability, and of capacity for controlling large 
operations. But the public had not been accustomed to regard him as one of 
the leading men of the State, or scarcely, indeed, as one of her second-rates. 
Bank ^nd railx-oad influences, combined with the general lack of formidable 
aspirants, had united to secure him the nomination for the Governorship. In 
the debates between himself and his Democratic antagonist before popular as- 
semblages, the Eepublicans had been in great fears lest their champion should 
prove unequal to such a contest, and greatly delighted and surprised at the un- 
expected power of his performance. Still the old idea of him, as a man wholly 
frittered away in polish, was not entirely dispelled. His inaugural was not 
happy. It was severely criticised as prolix, verbose, and occasionally stilted. 
One luckless sentence had fastened itself in the minds of his opponents, and had 
been laughed at over the State, whenever his name was mentioned : " If at- 
tended with success at the threshold in dissolving the great Confederacy and 
creating a small one, the introduction of standing armies to confront border 
war on the slave and free frontiers, and to push the scheme of Southern con- 
quests, and to maintain them, and keep down domestic insurrection, would be 
the succedaneum for the security conferred by a common government." Up to 
the period of ,which we write the opposition press, and even influential Eepub- 
lican journals, had delighted to speak of Mr. Dennison as " the succedaneum 
Governor." In the easy duties of his office in time of peace he had acquitted 
himself creditably ; but, unfortunately for him and for the State, there was a 
general distrust of his ability to sustain the larger responsibilities now upon 
him, and a general disposition to judge all his actions harshi}- in advance. 

Thus unfortunate in the public estimate of his qualifications for the task he 
was now essaying, he was still more unfortunate in the tools with which he had 
to work. We have already seen how unwisely his distinguished predecessor 
was liable to act in his selections of men. But as Mr. Chase had made the re- 
vival of the militia one of the features of his administration, Governor Denni- 
son, wishing to continue the same work, found it easiest, and most consonant 
with his polite ways, to do it with the same staff ; accepting these officers the 



Dennison's War Administration. 27 

more readily as it was never dreamt that they would have anything of marked 
importance to do. It thus came about that when the bewildering mass of mil- 
itary business was precipitated upon him on the 15th of April, he met it with a 
staff in which it seemed as if the caj)acity of bad selection had been almost ex- 
hausted. Some of them had no executive ability ; some had no tact ; one was 
wholly unpractical ; they failed to command the confidence of the gathering 
volunteers, and at least two of them were the butt of every joker and idle clei*k 
about the Capitol. 

We are presently to see what complications of evil these circumstances 
brought about. 

But a single day was required to raise the first two regiments, in answer to 
the President's call. On the next they arrived, in separate companies, at Co- 
lumbus, on their way, as it proved, to Washington. The " Lancaster Guards " 
were the first to report on the ground. Close behind them came the Dayton 
Light Guards and the Montgomery Guards ; then swiftly following a score of 
others. 

On the morning of the 18th of April the First and Second Ohio were or- 
ganized from the first companies that had thus hurried to Columbus. They 
were mostly made up of well-known militia organizations, from leading towns 
and cities, as follows : 

First Ohio — Company A, Lancaster Guards. 

" " " B, Lafayette Guards (Dayton). 

" " " C, Dayton Light Guards. 

" " '• D, Montgomery Guards. 

" " " E, Cleveland Grays. 

« " " F, Hibernian Guards (Cleveland). 

'< « " G, Portsmouth Guards. 

" " " H, Zanesville Guai-ds. 

" « " I, Mansfield Guards. 

" " " K, Jackson Guards (Hamilton). 

Second " " A, Eover Guards (Cincinnati). 

" " " B, Columbus Videttes. 

" " " C. Columbus Fencibles. 

" " " D, Zouave Guards (Cincinnati). 

" " " B, Lafayette Guards (Cincinnati). 

" " " F, Springfield Zouaves. 

«' " " G, Pickaway company. 

" " " H, Steubenville company. 

<« " " I, Covington Blues (Miami County). 

" " " K, Pickaway company. 

At the outset the State Administration fell into the vicious policy of per- 
mitting the soldiers to elect their own commanders. Till an election could be 
held, ex-Speaker Edward A. Parrott, of the House of Eepresentatives, was as- 



28 Ohio in the War. 

signed for the First Eegiment as commandant, and Lewis Wilson (who had re- 
signed the office of chief of police in Cincinnati, to enter the service) for the 
Second. 

There were no arms, uniforms, equipments, transportation for them. But 
the Government was importunate. "Send them on instantly," was the order 
from "Washington, "and we will equip them here." Even among the civilians, 
then for the tirst time attempting the management of soldiers, there were fore- 
bodings concerning the policy of starting troops to defend a threatened city 
without guns or ammunition ; but with wild cheers from the volunteers, and 
many a "God bless j'ou" from the on-lookers, the trains bearing the unarmed 
crowd moved out of the Columbus depot, long before dawn, on the morning of 
the 19th of April. But before they started, fresh arrivals had more than filled 
their places in the hastily-improvised camp in the woods beyond the railroad 
depot, Avhich, with a happy thought of the first advocate for the " coercion of 
sovereign States," Governor Dennison had named Gamp Jackson. 

Already had begun the first of a long series of troubles that were to cloud 
the career of a faithful and able administration. 

The Commissaiy-General, Mr. Geo. W. Eunyan, of Cincinnati, had been 
called upon to provide for the troops as soon as they began to arrive. Hurrying 
up to Columbus, he found several companies there almost as soon as himself 
Where were they to be put? How were they to be fed? For an hour or two 
they could march about the streets with their martial music, and for another 
hour or two they could be trusted to stand on grassy spots about the Capitol at 
a parade rest, but — what then ? To this novice, and to his associates and supe- 
riors, indeed, then clustering about the Governor's table in the excited crowd at 
the Executive rooms, the question was almost startling. To all of them, how- 
ever, the most natural suggestion was a hotel ; and to the hotels accordingly-, 
our Commissary-General sallied forth, having for aid Mr. Lucien Buttles, of Co- 
lumbus. These gentlemen found the Goodale House capable of accommodating 
one company, and willing to reduce its charges, in aid of the common cause, to 
a dollar and a quarter per day. Second-class houses could take four more com- 
panies at somewhat lower rates — some even as low as seventy-five cents per day. 
And so the first-arriving soldiers were quartered at the hotels. 

Little as they knew about army life, the authorities knew enough to under- 
stand that this could only be temporary. So next the Govex-nor instructed the 
Commissary-General to see what he could do for the permanent subsistence of 
volunteers. He saw; reported, as the best he could do, a contract with a Mr. 
Butler at fifty cents per day ; and, on his recommendation, the contract was 
straightway signed. The contractor found himself unable to provide food as 
fast as the troops came in. Within a few days loud complaints aro.se about 
breakfasts delayed till twelve o'clock, and the like irregularities; the volun- 
teers, fresh from the comforts of home, and having little else to do, growled 
lustily; the newspapers discussed the grievance; ardent members of the Legis- 
lature presently took up the burden of constituents whom they found in thei 



Dennison's War Administration. 29 

ranks; and so, amid the enthusiasm of the jaeople and the struggles of the Ad- 
ministration, rose a hoarse clamor against heartless contractors and incompetent 
State officials who permitted them to abuse our gallant citizen-soldiery. Other 
coniplaints presently began to be heard from Cleveland, where the subsistence 
contract had been given to O. C. Scoville at fifty cents per day, and from Cin- 
cinnati, where it had been given to H. F. Handj^ at sixty cents per day. 

In the midst of this came fresh food for censure. Great bundles of round 
poles began to come through by express from New York in numbers that to the 
uneducated eye seemed absolutely enormous, consigned to the Governor. They 
were the tent-poles belonging to certain purchases of tents made for the State in 
New York. Uniforms were to be provided for the gathering troo^DS, and con- 
tracts were hastily given out on such terms as were offered. Messrs. J. & H. 
Miller, of Columbus, were to furnish four thousand overcoats at nine dollars and 
sixty-five cents apiece ; Mack & Brothers and J. H. Luken, of Cincinnati, Eng- 
lish & Co., of Zanesville, and McDaniel, of Daj-ton, were each to furnish one 
thousand uniforms (coats and trowsers only), at sixteen dollars — one-sixth to be 
delivered weekly. Mr. Eobinson, of Cleveland, was to furnish two thousand at 
the same rates. Stone & Estabrook were to furnish one thousand flannel shirts 
at one dollar and a half a piece. Other prices were in proportion, and on all it 
appeared that large profits were likely to accrue. Shipments of arms presently 
began to arrive, and there were stories of large purchases, at extravagant rates, 
in New York. These several facts and rumors were discussed in the newspajiers 
with great severity, and the leading Eepublican journals were foremost in cen- 
suring the Governor's subordinates, and, impliedly, the Governor himself 

Other sources of dissatisfaction appeared. The Adjutant-General, a jierson of 
considerable and versatile ability, was an enthusiastic militiaman, but, just then, 
not much of a soldier. He was withal so excitable, so volatile, so destitute of 
method, as to involve the affairs of his office in confusion, and to bewilder him- 
self and those about him in the fog of his own raising. He accepted companies 
without keei^ing count of them ; telegraphed hither and thither for companies 
to come immediatel}' forward ; and soon^ had the town so full of troops that his 
associates could scarcely subsist or quarter, and he could scarcel}^ organize them; 
while, when he came to reckon up, he found he had far outrun his limits, 
and had on hand troops for nearer thirty than thirteen regiments. Then, 
when he attempted to form his companies into regimental organizations, he met 
fresh troubles. Each one wanted to be Company A of a new regiment, and was 
able to prove its right to the distinction. The i-ecords of the office were too im- 
perfect to show in most cases definitely which had been first accepted. Then 
Senators and Representatives must needs be called in to defend the rights of 
their constituents, and the Governor's room, in one end of which the Adjutant- 
General transacted his business, was for weeks a scene of aggravating confusion 
and dispute. 

Eor a little the popular discontent fermented. Then, on the 1st of May, 
the House of Eepresentatives took it up. The general regard felt — in spite of 
his weakness — for the Adjutant-General, spared liim. But a resolution was 



30 Ohio in the Wak. 

introduced, declaring it to be the sense of the House that the Quartermaster- 
General and Commissary-General were unfit for their places, and appointing a 
committee to wait upon the Governor and request their removal. Efforts vs^ere 
made to couple with this an indorsement of the Governor himself, but the 
House refused. One prominent Eepublican declared that he hoped the Gover- 
nor was not to blame, but lie 'was n't bound to say grace before mentioning his 
name and return thanks afterward for the privilege ; he wanted those men 
turned out, and he wanted the Governor to know it; and he wasn't disposed 
to mince many words over the matter.' A similar strain was adopted by others, 
and the resolution was passed by a vote of sixty-one to twenty-four. 

The Governor assured the committee that all the subsistence contracts would 
be virtually annulled by the removal of the trooj)s to other camps within the 
next forty-eight hours ; but knowing better than they the injustice of a portion 
of the clamor, he gave no indication of an immediate purpose to remove the 
obnoxious officers. 

He kept his promise by the speedy selection of a site for a large camp near 
Miamiville, on the Little Miami Eailroad, in the south-western corner of the 
State, where the main portion of the force should rendezvous, and where it 
wonld be at hand for any danger thi-eatening Cincinnati. But here again his 
evil genius followed him. The land was leased at high rates, and the expendi- 
ture was speedih'^ criticised in the leading newspapers as extravagant. 

The dissatisfaction thus engendered was soon increased by the reports com- 
ing back from the First and Second Eegiments. They had failed to get through 
to Washington, had been stopped first at Harrisburg and then at Philadelphia, 
had encountered some hardships for want of proper equipment, and great delays 
in getting their uniforms and arms, and had comjjlaints then to make as to the 
quality of both. In the absence of officers — their election not having been held 
when they started from Columbus — the Governor had placed them under the 
command of Mr. George W. McCook, a Democratic politician of prominence, 
whom he constituted his own personal agent. Under his supervision all the 
arrangements had been made, and fiar his selection also the Governor was 
fiercely assailed. The newspapers took up the complaints of the soldiers ; and 
the people of the State were soon made to believe that the sons they had hur- 
riedly sent out in their eager zeal to save the National Capital were suffering 
from the neglect of the State authorities, and the indifference or cruelty of 
those placed over them. 

"We can now see how wickedly unjust the most of this profuse and varied 
censure was. 

In sending the first volunteers to hotels on the day of their arrival, the 
Governor resorted to almost the only instant relief attainable. And besides 
there was a feeling then that nothing was too good for our soldiers, which would 
have aroused greater complaint had he done anything else. In awarding the 
fifty and sixty cents per day contracts for subsistence, he certainly expended 
more than was needful. But he acted on the avowed belief that it would not 
do to bring the volunteers down at the very start to army rations, in which he 



Dennison's Wak Administration. 31 

was probably right. And while the price paid was large, and many men might 
have been found who would have furnished the same provisions for less, yet the 
demand was immediate, and on the instant they were not found. Furthermore, 
arrangements can not be made in a small place like Columbus (whei-e the rates 
were first established) in a day for comfortably subsisting several thousand 
men, and for the extra exertions required, it was quite natural that an extra 
charge should be made. Within two weeks the whole cause of complaint was 
removed ; and under the authorities at the new camps, the troops were fed at 
an average expense of less than one-third of the Columbus contract. The com- 
plaints against the operations in the Quartermaster's Department proceeded 
upon the same theory of expecting the very best results attainable with long 
practice and abundant leisure to be secured on the instant by the new machin- 
ery. The sending of an agent of the Governor with the First and Second Reg- 
iments to the field to see that their wants were supplied, might, under the in- 
structions of the General Government, have been omitted, but it was a wise and 
prudent precaution. The selection of Mr. McCook was one of many similar 
acts by which, adroitly siezing upon any prominent Democrat who could be 
used, the Governor, seeing plainly that the war must be a war of the people 
and not of one party, sought to commit the Democratic organization also to its 
support. 

But the public mind was not in a state to look for or to comprehend these 
motives for the Governor's actions. We have seen that there was already a pre- 
disposition to question his competency for the weighty tasks now upon him, 
and to judge him harshly. Each complaint, however groundless, served, in the 
feverish excitement of the hour, to heighten this tendency. 

From the day on which the President made his call for volunteers, the Gov- 
ernor had felt the want of experienced military men about him. Personally he 
knew nothing of military matters — could scarcely tell the field officers of a 
regiment. Nearl}^ all men then in public life were in the same condition. He 
had about him a staft' that knew something of militia but nothing of war. The 
best of them was the Adjutant-General, of whom we have spoken. He had at- 
tended a military school, had made some military translations from the French, 
and had prepared a militia manual. 

From the outset, therefore, the Governor longed for some approved army 
officer, to whom he might turn over the matters of military detail with which 
he was oppressed. The first Ohio officer to offer his services was a young engi- 
neer — afterward to hold no mean rank in the greatest of the Western armies — 
Lieutenant 0. M. Poe. But he was at the Cajjitol only for a few days on a tem- 
poi"ary leave of absence. The Governor telegraphed to the Secretary of War; 
asking that he be detailed for service at Columbus, in the organization of troops. 
He asked also that Lieutenant Wm. B. Hazen, then a young Ohio officer of 
infantry, reputed to possess some ability, should be detailed for similar service. 
The Secretary of War, Mr. Cameron, returned a pert reply. He had no time, 
he said, to be detailing Lieutenants ! 



32 Ohio in the War 

But b}' this time the (jrovernor had learned that he was to have the power 
of appointing Generals for the troops he was raising. Instantly his mind re- 
verted to the officer of whose standing in the army he knew the most — Irvin 
McDowell, of the staff of Lieutenant-General Scott. He did not yet know what 
rank the commanding oflicer of the Ohio contingent would enjoy, but whatever 
it should be, he almost determined to bestow it upon McDowell. 

Already, however, some Cincinnatians, who knew there was a General to 
appoint, had decided to press a candidate of their own. Mr. Larz Anderson, Hon. 
Wm. S. Groesbeck, and other influential gentlemen, united in a recommendation ^ 
of one Captain McClcllan, then an officer on the Ohio and Mississippi Eailroad. 
The Governor remembered him as a young man whom he had met at a rail- 
road convention a year or two before. He had paid but little attention to him, 
and should scarcely have remembered the name but for the enthusiastic praises 
of a Mr. Clark, who was in attendance. This gentleman had assured Mr. Den- 
nison that Captain McClellan was a man of remarkable ability, and had taken 
the pains, on returning home, to send him McClellan's Eeport on the Organiza- 
tion of European Armies. 

All this came back now into the Governor's memory, as he listened to the 
praises of the young railroad officer, from the personal friends who hurried to 
Columbus to urge his appointment. He hunted up the old report, sent him a 
year or two before, and looked through it. Finally he began to think that the 
man who understood the organization of armies so well would be very valuable 
in his office, to take charge of the organization of the Ohio army. Still, not 
quite willing to abandon McDowell, he determined to have a look at his rival. 
Accordingly he wi'ote to Captain McClellan, asking him to come up to Colum- 
bus and give the benefit of his advice about the fortifications then thought by 
the alarmed citizens of Cincinnati to be necessary to protect them from the hos- 
tile Kentuckians. The Captain replied that he was unable to come ; but 
that he. would send in his stead Captain Pope, of the regular army, who 
happened then to be in the city, and whose judgment about such matters was 
excellent. 

Captain Pope came, but the Governor was not favorabl}^ impressed with him. 
He recommended the purchase of a considei-able number of huge Columbiads, 
to be mounted, it would seem, on Walnut Hills, since it was then the policy to 
hold sacred from the tread of United States* troops the soil of Kentucky. In 
the fullness of his desii*e to do whatever was needed, the Governor, though 
with some misgivings, actually signed the order, and the Columbiads were 
procured. 

The friends of McClellan continued their urgency, and, at last, under the 
high-pressure system which the enthusiasm and the emergency had created. 
Governor Dennison hastily wrote a second time, asking the young army officer, 
whom by this time he was beginning to believe almost an absolute authority on 
military matters, to come up to the Capitol for consultation. Judging that by 
this time the efforts of his friends must have paved the way for him, McClellan 
came. The Governor, favorably disposed already, was greatly pleased with his 



Dennison's War Administration. 33 

appearance and demeanor. He reflected that McCIellan seemed to have more 
reputation than McDowell, and that his appointment would be likely to have 
move prestige and exert a better influence over the gathering volunteers ; and so, 
at length, he appointed him a Major-General of the Ohio militia, to command 
the forces called into the field; and sent a note to McDowell, regretting that 
circumstances seemed to require the retraction of the implied promise that he 
should receive the place.* 

Governor Dennison's expectation now was that McCIellan would remain in 
Columbus, and relieve him of the burdens of military administration. In this, 
however, he was disappointed from the outset. The new Major-General re- 
mained perhaps a couple of weeks, and gave some little advice to the legislative 
committees concerning some of the military legislation they had in hand. But 
meantime he had opened a correspondence with the War Department, and it 
presently appeared that he was about to be elevated to a wider command, j 

Before this, however, he had, only two days after his appointment, ap- 
proached the Governor with a private dispatch from Governor Curtin, of Penn- 
sylvania, which offered him the command of the troops of his native State. 
This, he said, had it come two days earlier, he would have accepted. If the 
Governor now chose, in view of this fact, to renew his off'er to McDowell, he 
(McCIellan) would gladly get out of the way, and go on to Pennsylvania. Den- 
nison promptly declined. General confidence, he said, seemed to have been ex- 
cited by his appointment, and he would not unsettle it by any change. McCIel- 
lan accordingly wrote his reply: "Before I heard you wanted me in any 
position I had accepted the command of the Ohio forces. They need my serv- 
ices, and I am bound in honor to stand by them," 

Presently came news that three years' troops were to be called out, and 
that their Generals were to be appointed by the President. Straightway Den- 
nison determined to secure, if possible, the three years' appointment for the 
new Major-General of his making. On the 11th of May he telegriiphed to Sec- 
retary Chase : " Can McCIellan get a commission for three years at once, so as 
to make him rank over all others, and make sure of his holding the chief com- 
mand here ? Ohio must lead throughout the war." No immediate reply came. 
But on the 14th of May, while the Governor was in Cincinnati, on a hasty trip 
to look after the requirements of the southern border, a dispatch was handed him 
from Mr. Chase: " We have to-day had McCIellan appointed a Major-General 
in the regular army." He was in a room with McCIellan, Marcy, and others, 
and he immediately handed over the dispatch to the one whom it most con- 
cerned. Governor Dennison has since described the utter amazement that over- 
spread the face of the young oflicer, and the diflSculty with which he could be 
persuaded that so overpowering an honor had really been conferred upon him. 
His father-in-law and chief of staff, Major Marcy, was equally incredulous; and 
the next day the Governor had even to produce the dispatch again, before Mrs. 
McCIellan could satisfy herself that her husband had been so suddenly raised 
so high. They all seemed to imagine that it must be some inexplicable mis 
* See post. Part II. Life of McDowell. 

Vol. J.— .3. 



34 Ohio in the War. 

take, and that the "Washington authorities could really intend nothing of the 
kind.* 

Meanwhile, having given the chief command to a regular officer, who 
seemed to be thus highly appreciated by the army authorities at Washington, 
Governor Dennison next looked about him for influential and energetic men, 
anxious to enter the war, on whom he could confer the three Brigadier-Genei-al- 
ships. Newton Schleich, of Fairfield Countj^ then the Democratic leader in the 
State Senate, was the first selected ; J. H. Bates, of Cincinnati, an officer of the 
old militia, was the second; and J. J). Cox, one of the Eepublican leaders in the 
Senate, and a gentleman who had already made himself of great use in the Gov- 
ernor's office in aiding the transaction of business, was the third. 

Even these appointments, in the temper to which the public mind, was now 
brought, became subjects of complaint. The most absurd was the chai'ge of the 
Cleveland Plain Dealer, a leading Democratic newspaper in the northern part 
of the State, which denounced the Governor for the gross partisanship of his 
appointments, and particularly for the "promotion of Schleich, a Eepublican 
gi'eenhorn, to the high rank of Brigadier-Genei'al ! " So easy was it by this 

* It is scarcely necessary (since it is substantially intimated in the text) to add that in the 
above I have followed Governor Dennison's personal statements as to the circumstances attend- 
ing the rapid promotion of General McClellan. Stories have been widely circulated to the eflFect 
that the original appointment as Major-General of Ohio militia was procured by the accidental 
discovery that Curtin intended to offer a similar position in Pennsylvania, and even that this dis- 
patch was itself a forgery. From the numerous versions set afloat, I take this one, from the Bos- 
ton Commonwealth, because it happens to be authenticated by the initials of Rev. D. A. 
Wasson : 

"McClellan was an officer of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad. He managed matters so 
miserably as greatly to embarrass the principal roads connecting with that of which he had 
charge. To get rid of him became, therefore, an imi^ortant desideratum with those most con- 
cerned in these roads. 

" When the war broke out there was a meeting between three of the persons thus interested. 
Two of them said : 'Now is our time. McClellan is a military man ; let us get him an appoint- 
ment to the command of our State troops. He will do good service there, and we shall be rid 
of an ugly incumbrance.' The third demurred. 'I don't know about that,' he said. 'McClel- 
lan has given no evidence of ability as a man of business ; and I see no reason to think that he 
would do better as a General. It would hardly be patriotic to take a load from our own shoul- 
ders and place it on those of the nation.' ' But he has been trained to the art of war,' urged the 
others ; 'if he is not good for that, what is he good for?' The objector refused to be convinced, 
but the others made haste to carry their project into effect. A petition was accordingly sent to 
Governor Dennison, praying him to bestow command on this blocker of business — who rose from 
bed, it was said, at eleven in the morning. Governor Dennison hesitated. While he was con- • 
sidering the matter, a telegram, signed by Governor Curtin, came from Philadelphia, containing! 
a request to McClellan to take command of the Pennsylvania troops. This indication that he 
was desired abroad decided the Governor to employ him at home. He was appointed accordingly. 
"The Philadelphia telegram, which secured him his place, was afterward discovered to bej 
bogus — concocted in Cincinnati for the purpose which it served ! " 

So far at least as this refers to any influence from Philadelphia, by means either of genuine 
or forged dispatches, tending to impel Governor Dennison to the appointment, the story is erro- 
neous. The appointment was made before Governor Curtin's dispatch was heard of. As tlve 
matter was once thought of much importance, and as the appointment certainly did exercise a 
large and long-continued influence upon the fortunes of the war, it is well enough that the exaci 
facts should be recorded. i 



Dennison's War Administration. . 35 

time to find causes for denouncing the Governor, and so little care did influen- 
tial men take to see whether there was the slightest basis for their charges. 

Eepublicans, on the other hand, were disposed to complain that the Demo- 
crats received more than their share of the high promotions. MoClellan was a 
Democrat, and so was Schleich, and, in fact, but one Eepublican had been ap- 
pointed, out of the four general officers assigned to the State. 

What it now remains to us to tell of the first War Administration of Ohio, 
constitutes the highest claim of the maligned Governor to the regard and grati- 
tude of his State and of the country. To a man of his sensitive temper and 
special desire for the good opinion of others, the unjust and measureless abuse 
to which his earnest efforts had subjected him was agonizing. But he suf- 
fered no sign to escape him, and with a single-hearted devotion, and an ability 
for which the State had not credited him, he proceeded to the measures most 
necessary in the crisis. 

First of all, the loan authorized b}' the Million War Bill was to be placed, 
for without money the State could do nothing. The Common Council of Cin- 
cinnati offered to take a quarter of a million of it, and backed its offer by for- 
warding the money. The State Bank, full of confidence in its old officer, now 
at the head of the Administration, was entirely willing to take the rest ; the 
Common Council of Columbus was willing to take a hundred thottsand dollars ; 
and offers speedily came in for smaller amounts from other quarters. The Gov- 
ernor was anxious, however, that a general opj^ortunity should be given to pa- 
triotic citizens throughout the State. He, therefore, discouraged somewhat the 
large subscribers, and soon had the loan favorably placed. 

Next after money came the demand for arms. For its tVenty-three regi- 
ments already raised, the State of Ohio had only one thousand nine hundred and 
eighty-four muskets and rifles of all calibers and one hundred and fifty sabers. 
The Governor of Illinois had on hands a considerable number, of which Denni- 
son heard. He at once resolved to procure them. Senator Garfield was at hand, 
ready and willing for any work to which he might be assigned. Duly armed 
with a requisition from the proper authorities, he was dispatched to the Illinois 
Capital. He succeeded in securing five thousand muskets, and shipj^ed them 
straightway to Columbus. At the same time — for the Governor, in the midst of 
the popular abuse, had already begun to display a capacitj* for broad and states- 
manlike views — he was instructed to lay before the Illinois Executive a sugges- 
tion as to the propriety of uniting the Illinois troops and all others in the 
Mississippi Yalley under the Ohio Major-General. Glad to hear of an officer 
anywhere who knew anj'thing about war, they joyfully consented, and so Mc- 
Clellan's department was, with their full approval, presently extended from 
West Virginia to the Mississippi. 

Five thousand arms, however, were but a drop in the bucket, and accouter- 
ments were almost wholly wanting. The supply in the entire country was quite 
limited; even in Europe there were not enough immediately accessible to meet 
the sudden demand; and it was evident that the first and most energetic in the 



36 Ohio in the Wak. 

market would be the first to secure arms for their soldiers. Governor Dennison 
accordingly selected Judge-Advocate-General Wolcott of his staff,* a gentleman 
of fine ability and of sujDposed business capacity, to proceed forthwith to New 
York as his agent for the purchase of arms. It was under his management that 
the hasty shipment of tent-poles had been made, on which was based one of 
the earliest complaints against the State Administration. He secured at once, 
on terms as favorable as could then be obtained, about five thousand muskets, 
with equipments, knapsacks, canteens, etc., to correspond. Meeting the agent 
of the State of Massachusetts, just as he was about to sail for England to 
purchase arms, he commissioned him to purchase there for Oho a hundred 
thousand dollars' worth of Enfield rifles. Subsequently, Mr. Wolcott secured 
authority from the Ordnance office of the War Department to purchase directly 
on the account of the United States such arms and accoutrements as were 
needed for Ohio troops ; and the enei-gy and personal supervision which the Gov- 
ernor was thus able to secure in the transaction of the Government business for 
his State, went largely to aid the rapid arming and equipment of the Ohio 
troops. Before this, however, by the aid of another agent, General Wool had 
been prevailed upon to order ten thousand muskets through to Columbus, and 
the first needs were thus supplied.f 

Next, so soon as the first rush of volunteers gave him time to look about 
him, he prepared to reorganize his staff by the selection of men better fitted for 
its duties on a war establishment. The confusion in the Adjutant-General's 
office, and the enormous labors actually devolving upon that overworked officer, 
first directed attention to the task of securing an able Assistant Adjutant-Gen- 
eral. With this view he offered the place to Mr. Samuel Craighead, of Dayton. 
That gentleman visited Columbus, looked at the workings of the office and de- 
clined. Mr. C. P. Buckingham, a citizen of the State, of high position, a grad- 
uate of West Point, and a gentleman of calm, methodical habits and thorough 
knowledge of the business, was then obtained. Next Colonel Charles Whit- 
tlesly, another old army officer, was given to the luckless Quartermaster-General 
as an assistant. A few daj-s later the Commissary-General was displaced, and 
the new Assistant Adjutant-General was assigned to his duties, while Lieutenant 
J. W. Sill took the place thus vacated under the Adjutant-General. Lieutenant 
William S. Eosecrans — a name soon to become notable in the history of the 
war — was made Chief Engineer. 

By this time the attitude of Kentucky had become a source of alarm along; 

* Subsequently, and till his lamented death, Assistant Secretary of War. 

tin this, and in all the other operations in the same crowded season, one of the most grati- 
fying features was the earnest anxiety of the most prominent citizens to be of service, any way or 
anywhere, to the State. Foremost among them was the Hon. Noah H. Swayne (now Justice of 
the Supreme Court of the United States), who repeatedly visited Washington at the Governor's 
request, on business for the State — permitting the avithorities to make no remuneration for his 
labors save the payment of his traveling expenses. Not less zealous were the Hon. A. F. Perry, 
of Cincinnati, Hon. J. R. Swan, of Columbus, Mr. Ball, of Zanesville, and such members of the 
Legislature as Garfield, Cox, and Flagg. 



Dennison's War Administration. 37 

the border, and of grave apprehension with all. Her Governor had refused, 
with insult, the call of the President for troops. Her most influential newspa- 
per had professed itself "struck with mingled amazement and indignation " at 
the audacity of such a call ; declared the policy of the Administration to "de- 
serve the unqualified condemnation of every American citizen;" and called 
upon the people to " take him and his Administration into their own hands." 
A State guard had been organized, which speedily became a convenient drill 
and recruit agency for the Confederate armies. And finally, on the 20th of 
May, Governor Magoffin had risen to the height of folly and treason involved in 
a proclamation, whei'eof this is the substance : 

" Now, therefore, I hereby notify and warn all other States, separate or united, and espe- 
cially the United States and Confederate States, that I solemnly forbid any movement upon Ken- 
tucky soil, or occupation of any part, post, or place therein for any purpose whatever, until 
authorized by invitation or permission of the legislative and executive authorities. I especially 
forbid all citizens of Kentucky, whether incorporated in the State guard or otherwise, making 
any hostile demonstrations against any of the aforesaid authorities ; to be obedient to the order." 
of the lawful authorities; to remain quietly and peaceably at home, when oflf military duty; to 
refrain from all words and acts likely to provoke a collision, and so otherwise conduct them- 
selves that the deplorable calamity of invasion may be averted ; but, meanwhile, make prompt 
and efficient preparations to assume the paramount and supreme law of self-defense, and strictly 
of self-defense alone." 

Before the issue of this open proclamation of treason — indeed in the very 
first throbs of the excitement following the President's call for troops and Ken- 
tucky's refusal — Governor Dennison, alarmed lest the border should become the 
theater of hostilities, sent a gentleman to confer with Governor Magoffin, and 
to attempt to commit him to a friendly policy. He was j^olitic and sagacious in 
the selection of his agent. Judge Thomas M. Key, of the State Senate, was an 
able, earnest, and patriotic Democrat, and it was then the policy to employ in 
as prominent positions as possible every member of that Jjarty who could be 
secured. Moreover, he was a Kentuckian by birth, and like most natives of that 
State, he cherished a lively regard for her honor and her interest still. He 
was, therefore, likely to be all the more acceptable as a messenger from the Gov- 
ernor of the State of his adoption to the Governor of that of his birth.* Judge 
Key was accordingly sent to Kentucky, with a letter accrediting him as a rep- 
resentative of the Governor of Ohio, charged to express " the kindly and neigh- 
borly feeling " of the people of Ohio; and the earnest wish of the Governor 
that "the same complete devotion to the Constitution and Union of the United 
States should animate the action of both ; " as well as " to confer fi-eely in regard 
to the condition of the people upon the common border, and the proper means 
for removing all apprehensions of strife between them." 

What view Judge Key then took of the position of the Governor of Ken- 
tucky may be inferred from the dispatch to Governor Dennison, in which he 
made his first report : 

* It should be added that the selection of Judge Key was warmly sanctioned by Senator J. 
I). Cox, who was actively occupied in the aid of the Governor, and whose counsels had already 
become potent. 



38 Ohio in the Wae. 

" Interview long, free, and satisfactory. Expresses purposes and policy friendly and pru 
dent. Anxious for instant communication between Executives upon aggression by citizens of 
either State. Kentucky arming for defense and neutrality." 

In his subsequent more extended report, Judge Key added that Governor 
Magoffin had dwelt particularly upon "his firm purpose to permit nothing to be 
done that could be viewed as menacing the city of Cincinnati," a point then 
calculated greatly to ease the excited apprehensions of that metropolis.* 

It was on the 28th of April that Judge Key reported his free and satisfac- 
tory interview, with the assurance of the friendly and prudent purposes of the 
Governor of Kentucky. On the 20th of May that officer issued the proclama- 
tion above quoted. 

Four days later, on the suggestion and at the earnest request of Governor 
Pennison, the Governors of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio met at Indianapolis, in 
conference, on the occasion of McClellan's review of the Indiana troops. In 
this conference Governor Dennison dwelt upon the position of defiance which 
Kentucky had assumed, and the essential service she was rendering the Confed- 
eracy. He urged the policy of seizing the prominent points in Kentucky, Lou- 
isville, Columbus, Paducah, Covington, Newport, and the railroads leading there- 
from. Do this, said he, and we at once remove the possibility of war from our 
own borders, stop the recruiting of Confederate troops in Kentucky, prevent 
the possibility of the State being betrayed into the Confederacy, and greatly aid 
and strengthen our friends in Tennessee. To secure the action of the Govern- 
ment on this suggestion, he wanted it indorsed by the Governors of the three 
great loyal States lying north of the border. Governors Yates and Morton 
promptly fell in with the idea; Senator Trumbull, who was present, reduced it 
to writing in the form of a memorial to the Government; the three Governors 
signed it, and Yates and Trumbull vs^ent on to Washington to present it. 

It is impossible to overestimate the change in the subsequent course of the 
war which the adoption of this wise suggestion would have insured. The 
treachery of Buckner would have been either hindered or neutralized ; the for- 
tification of Columbus and Bowling Green would have been prevented ; Ten- 
nessee, after a majority of sixty-seven thousand against secession in March, 
could scarcely have been crowded out of the Union, in the ensuing June, by the 
pressure of Eebel sentiment from all quarters. But it was not till the 6th of 
September that Grant, acting on the policy originated and urged by Governor 
Dennison in May, crossed over into Kentucky and seized Paducah and Smith- 
land. By that time the opportunity was lost. Columbus Avas strongly garri- 
soned, Buckner had consummated his treason. Bowling Green was fortified, Ten- 
nessee was gone — and Kentucky held back all the armies of the West until 
March, 1862. 

« Five days after the presentation of this report by Judge Key, Mr. Thos. L. Crittenden, an 
estimable citizen of Kentucky, lifted into importance (to the country's i^sfortune, when he sub- 
sequently became a Major-General of volunteers) by being the son of John J. Crittenden, wrote 
to Governor Dennison, asking his influence to secure a truce between the General GovernmenI 
and the seceded States till the extra session of Congress in July, 



Dennison's War Administration. 39 

In another direction the forecast of Governor Dennis on was to receive an 
equally signal illusti*ation, and with a happier result. 

About the time that he opened negotiations through Judge Key with the 
Governor of Kentucky, his eyes were also turned to the gathering convention 
of Virginia Unionists at Wheeling. When the magnificent response of the peo- 
ple to the call for troops began to be seen, he telegraphed Mr. Jno. S. Carlile, 
then the leading Union man of West Virginia,* asking him and his friends to 
meet, at Bridgeport (opposite Wheeling, on the Ohio side), a representative of 
the Governor of Ohio, for conference. They promptly" assented, and he sent 
forward as his spokesman Judge-Advocate-General Wolcott, of his staff. This 
gentleman bore them the assurance that if they would break off from old Vir- 
ginia and adhere to the Union, Ohio would send an ample military force to pro- 
tect them. It was a pledge the State was nobly to redeem. 

The first note of war from the East threw Cincinnati into a spasm of alarm. 
Her great warehouses, her foundries and machine shops, her rich moneyed in- 
stitutions were all a tempting prize to the Confederates, to whom Kentucky was 
believed to be drifting. Should Kentucky go, only the Ohio Eiver would re- 
main between the great city and the needy enemy, and there were absolutely 
no provisions for defense. 

The first alarm expended itself, as has already been seen, in the purchase 
of huge Columbiads, with which it was probably intended that Walnut Hills 
should be fortified. There next sprang up a feverish spirit of active patriotism 
that soon led to complications. For the citizens, not being accustomed to draw 
nice distinctions, or in a temper to permit anything whereby their danger might 
be increased, could see little difference between the neutral treason of Kentucky 
to the Government and the more open ti-eason of the seceded States. They ac- 
cordingly insisted that shipments of produce, and esj^ecially shipments of arms, 
ammunition, or other articles contraband of war, to Kentuck}^ should instantly 
cease. 

The citizens of Louisville, taking alarm at this threatened blow at their 
very existence, sent uj) a large delegation to protest against the stoppage of 
shipments from Ohio. They were received in the Council Chamber of the City 
Hall, on the morning of April 23d. The city Mayor, Mr. Hatch, announced the 
object of the meeting, and called upon Mr. Eufus King to state the position of 
the city and State authorities. Mr. King dwelt upon the friendship of Ohio for 
Kentucky in the old strain, and closed by reading a letter which the Maj'or had 
procured from Governor Dennison, of which the essential part was as follows : 

" My views of the subject suggested in your message are these : So long as any State re- 
mains in the Union, with professions of attachment to it, we can not discriminate between that 
State and our own. In the contest we must be clearly in the right in every act, and I think it 
better that we should risk something than that we should in the slightest degree be chargeable 
witli anything tending to create a rupture with any State which has not declared itself already 
out of the Union. To seize arms going to a State which has not actually seceded, could give a 

** And since the most conspicuous and shameless of her renegades. 



40 Ohio in the Wae. 

pretext for the assertion that we had inaugurated hostile conduct ; and might be used to create a 
popular feeling in favor of secession where it would not exist, and end in border warfare, which 
all o-ood citizens must deprecate. Until there is such circumstantial evidence as to create a moral 
certainty of an immediate intention to use arras against us, I would not be willing to order their 
seizure ; much less would I be willing to interfere with the transportation of provisions." 

" Now " said Mr. King, " this is a text to which every citizen of Ohio 
must subscribe, coming, as it does, from the head of the State. I do not feel 
the least hesitation in saying that it expresses the feeling of the people of Ohio." 

But the people of Ohio did not subscribe to it. Even in the meeting Judge 
Bellamy Storer, though very guarded in his expressions, intimated in the course 
of his stirring speech the dissatisfaction with the attitude of Kentucky. "This 
is no time," he said, "for soft words. We feel, as you have a right to feel, that 
you have a Governor who can not be depended upon in this crisis, but it is on 
the men of Kentucky that we rely. All we want to know is whether you are 
for the Union without reservation. . . . Brethren of Kentucky! the men 
of the North have been your friends, and they still deserve to be. But I will 
speak plainl}'. There have been idle taunts thrown out that they are cowardly 
and timid. The North submits; the North obeys; but beware! There is a 
point which can not be passed. While we rejoice in your friendship, while we 
glory in your bravery, we would have you understand that we are your equals 
as well as your friends." 

To all this, the only response of the Kentuckians, through their spokesman, 
Judge Bullock, was that Kentucky wished to take no part in the unhappy 
struggle; that she wished to be a mediator, and meant to retain friendly rela- 
tions with all her sister States. But he Avas greatly gratified with Governor 
Dennison's letter. 

The citizens of Cincinnati were not. Four days later, when their indigna- 
tion had time to take shape, they held a large meeting, whereat excited speeches 
were made, and resolutions passed deprecating the letter, calling upon the Gov- 
ernor to retract it, declaring that it was too late to draw nice distinctions 
between open rebellion and armed neutrality against the Union, and that armed 
neutrality was rebellion to the Government. At the close an additional resolution 
was offered which, despite the grammar, passed in a whirlwind of applause: 

"Resolved, That any man or set of men in Cincinnati or elsewhere who knowingly sell or 
ship one ounce of flour, or pound of provisions, or any arms or articles which are contraband of 
war to any person "or any State which has not declared its firm determination to sustain the 
Government in the present crisis, is a traitor, and deserves the doom of a traitor." 

So clear and unshrinking was the first voice from the great conservative 
city on the Southern border, whose prosperity was supposed to depend on her 
Southern trade. They had reckoned idly, it seemed, who had counted on hesita- 
tion here. From the first day that the war was open, the people of Cincinnati 
were as vehement in their determination that it should be relentlessly prosecuted 
to victory as the people of Boston. 

They immediately began the organization of Home Guards, armed and 
drilled vigorously, took oaths to serve the Government whenever called upon, 



Dennison's War Administration. 41 

and devoted themselves to the suppression of any contraband trade with the 
Southern States. The steamboats were watched; the raih-oad depots were 
searched, and wherever a susjDicious box or bale was discovered, it was ordered 
back into the warehouses. 

After a time the General Grovernment undertook to prevent any shipments 
into Kentucky, save such as should be required by the normal demands of her 
own population. A system of shipment permits was established, under the 
supervision of the Collector of the Port, and passengers on the ferry-boats into 
Covington were even searched to see if they were carrying over pistols or other 
articles contraband of war; but in spite of all efforts Kentucky long continued 
to be the convenient source and medium for supplies to the South-western 
seceded States. 

Few will now doubt that Governor Dennison was wrong in the positions 
taken in his letter to Mayor Hatch. Yet, as being in accordance with the policy 
then pursued toward Kentucky by the General Government, it may be justified; 
and none, in any event, will be disposed to censure it harshly who remember 
the hurrying confusion of the times and the innumerable mistakes made by 
every one, from the highest to the lowest. 

But the official refusal to furnish troops at the President's call was all the 
notice any one should have required of the exact position of Kentuckj^. Had 
she been thenceforth treated as the enemy she was, some pages of the history 
of the war might now bear brighter colors. 

The day after the Cincinnati meeting denouncing his course relative to 
Kentucky, Governor Dennison, stimulated perhaps by this censure, but in ac- 
cordance with a policy already formed, issued orders to the presidents of all 
railroads in Ohio to have everything passing over their roads in the direction 
of Virginia or anj^ other seceded State, whether as ordinary freight or express 
matter, examined, and, if contraband of war, immediately stopped and reported 
to him. The order may not have had legal sanction, but in the excited state of 
the public mind it was accepted by all concerned as ample authority. The next 
day similar instructions were sent to all express companies. 

A week earlier, on the 21st of April, the Governor had taken possession of 
the telegraph lines of the State, foi-bidding, as his somewhat vague order said, 
the passage of any news of the movements of troops from any quarter, without 
previous submission to and approval by him. Mr. Anson Stager, the General 
Superintendent of the Company under whose control were all the lines in the 
State, heartily seconded the Governor's efforts in this direction; but the matter 
was one involving numerous difficulties, and the system was never made to 
work satisfactorily.* 

In all these orders there was a stretch of authorit}'' which only the stress 
of public danger could sanction, and which no exigency could keep from 

*One effect of the order was to check all "Associated Press" dispatches to the newspapers 
of the country in transitu through Ohio, to eliminate from them references to troops which the 
newspapers of other States M'ere freely publishing, and to delay the delivery of the dispatches. 



i 



42 Ohio in the War. 

arousing the hostility of those whom they affected. The interference with the 
ordinary telegraphic dispatches to the newspapers excited the most ill-feeling. 
As it only touched the newspapers of Ohio, its tendency was to place them 
behind the journals of other States in the publication of the news. As it could 
not extend to the mails, its only effect was to produce an aggravating delay of a 
few hours. Very possibly even this might, in some few instances have been bene- 
ficial to the interests of the Grovernment; but the good was more than balanced 
by the ill-will excited, and by the hostility to the Governor thus intensified in 
the minds of the class most influential in shaping the public opinion of the State, 
Seeing how ill-adapted the means were to the end the Governor had in view^ 
being familiar with the subject themselves, they conceived a very low estimate 
of the ability of the man who could not perceive its bearings as clearly as they. 
On the whole, the only credit we can assign the Governor for this measure 
is the credit of being ready to assume grave responsibilities and excite the dis- 
pleasure of his supporters, for the sake of what he believed to be a public neces- 
sity. On this subject he was in advance of every other Governor in the Union,* ■ 
and of the Government of the United States. 

When the response of the Governor of Kentucky to the call of the Presi- 
dent for volunteers— "I say emphatically that Kentucky will furnish no troops, 
for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States"— when thiai 
response was made public. Governor Dennison immediately telegraphed thei 
War Department, "If Kentucky will not fill her quota, Ohio will fill it for her!" 
He more than kept his promise. In two days two regiments were dispatched. 
In a week the quota of the State was more than full. Within ten days so many 
companies had been accepted that the State was forced to take ten extra regi- 
ments into her own pay. Before two weeks had elapsed more companies had 
been offered than would have filled the^ quota of Ohio, the quota of Kentucky, 
and half the quota of Virginia. Sixteen days after the President's call, Adju- 
tant-General Carrington announced that the offers of troops from Ohio were 
enough to fill the full quota of seventy-five thousand men allotted to the entire 
country ! 

We can now read these statements with no emotion save that of pride at 
the magnificent conduct of the noble State. We can scarcely realize that they 
furnished at the time one of the weightiest causes for the increase of clamor 
against the Governor. 

* It must not be understood that the above is intended as any censure of the effort to sup- 
press publications of the movements of troops. The censure is because the measure aroused all 
the ill-will of that effort — far more indeed — and accomplished nothing. The means employed 
were utterly without adaptation to the end in view. It is due to Governor Dennison to add that 
it was generally understood that he was guided in this matter by the advice of a member of his 
staff, who, being a practical newspaper man, should have known that a revision of telegraphic 
dispatches in the State of Ohio alone could accomplish no conceivable good, and that even a 
revision in all the States, under a common authority, would have been of little avail, while the 
papers were free to publish whatever reached them by mail. And it is further due the Governoi 
to add, as the common testimony of all journalists who were thus thrown in contact with him, 
Ib.at he discharged the task he had undertaken with unvarying courtesy and consideration. 



Dennison's Wak Administeation. 43 

In the flurry of his nervous excitement, as well as by reason of the rush of 
work and lack of assistance, Adjutant-General Carrington preserved no complete 
record of his operations. As hour by hour the telegraph bi'ought him the offers 
of fresh companies, he promptly made answer to each, accepting them all. Pres- 
ently, when it came to making up the regiments, it was found that he was una- 
ble to give the order in which he had accepted them, or sometimes even the 
order in which they had arrived. Then, when the thirteen regiments called for 
were made up, the camp was still full of troops. In perplexity, recourse was 
had to the Legislature, and at the same time an order was made that no more 
should be accepted. The Legislature authorized ten more regiments for State 
service. These were made up, and to the Adjutant-General's despair the camp 
was still full. Thirty companies accepted, and on the spot had to be disbanded ; 
and permission given for others that had been accepted to come forward, was 
hastily revoked. 

But the mischief was done. The disappointed and enraged volunteers went 
home, cursing the Governor and his staff for having taken them to Columbus 
on a fool's errand ; and deepening the conviction that the crisis was too weighty 
for the management of the gentlemen at the State Capitol. 

Meantime the organized regiments, as fast as they were mustered into the 
United Slates service, were sent to the new camp, selected by General Eose- 
crans near Cincinnati, to give a feeling of security to that city, and named by 
McClellan, in honor of the officer to whom he owed his appointment, and under 
whose management the troops were gathering. Camp Denuison. 

Here new confusion began. By this time the Government had realized its 
first mistake, and having little further need for three months' troops, since the 
capital was safe, was striving to convert them into soldiers for the war. Many 
preferred to finish the term for which they had enlisted and get their pay for 
it, before entering upon another engagement. Distinctions were made between 
these and those who re-enlisted ; discipline was still lax ; there were loud (and in 
great measure groundless) complaints about rations ; and for every mistake or 
wrong the whole blame was laid straightway on the officer whose name the 
camp bore. Yet it was entirely under the control of General McClellan, 
now, as we have seen, a Major-General of the United States regular army, 
and in no sense under the orders of Governor Dennison. The General saw 
the newspapers teeming with complaints against the Governor for the man- 
agement in Camj) Dennison ; saw the man who had raised him to high 
office daily loaded with abuse for acts done under his own authority, by 
his own subordinates; and yet never once uttered even a whisper in explanation 
or defense. 

For a time the Governor bore all this in patience. He never once men- 
tioned to the gentlemen of the press whom he daily met that these faults at 
Camp Dennison were none of his — that it was an United States camp, under 
the exclusive control of United States officers. He reasoned that it was better 
for him to bear the odium — if odium there needs must be — than for McClellan 



44 Ohio in the Wak. 

to bear it, since McClellan must by all means retain the confidence of the troops. 
The view may have been fallacious, but it was certainly generous. 

Eveii the generosity never touched the Major-General he had made, who, 
now laat his rank was secure, had grown so indifferent to the one on whom ho 
climbed. McClellan daily read in the papers eulogies on his own brilliant 
capacities pointed by contrasts like that presented by Camp Dennison, which 
only showed, it was said, how a civilian blundered when he attempted military 
things. And still he made no sign. At last Governor Dennison wrote to him, 
somewhat sharply, saying that he ought to stop the troubles in the camp and 
the clamors about them, and that he suspected some of McClellan's people of 
fomenting both. No satisfactory reply was made, and the troubles and the 
clamor went on. Not till months afterward did the people of Ohio know that 
their Governor had been powerless in the camp, for whose mismanagement they 
had been loading him with censure, and that the author of the mismanagement 
was the man they had been loading with praises. 



West Vieginia Rescued by Ohio Militia. 45 



CHAPTER V. 



WEST VIRGINIA RESCUED BY OHIO MILITIA UNDER STATE PAY. 



IN the early days of the war, while communication with Washington was 
in peril, and sometimes cut off, and men's minds were familiarized with the 
idea of losing the capital, the isolated State Governors became in a measure 
their own strategists. To some, under these circumstances, nothing presented 
itself save to wait; to at least one there arose a plan of campaign for the defense 
of his State. Circumstances led him to dwell upon it after the initial danger to 
Washington had passed, and the War Department had extended its control over 
the whole theater of operations. He was successful in securing its adoption; it 
was his good fortune that he was able to furnish State militia for its execution ; 
and thus it came about that the campaign became a part of the history of Ohio 
rather than of the history of the war, and that the first offering made to the 
General Government by the State whose Govei'nor had been bold enough to say 
that " Ohio must lead throughout the war," was the offering of rescued and 
regenerated West Virginia. 

During the dark hours of April, 1861, after the anxiety about the National 
Capital, came apprehensions at Columbus concerning the danger on the border. 
Along four hundred and thirty-six miles Ohio bounded slave States ; and at 
every point in the whole distance was liable to invasion. On the south-eastern 
border lay the. State of Virginia, already threatening to secede, and soon to be- 
come the main bulwark of the Eebel cause. On the southern border lay the 
State of Kentucky, already furnishing recruits by the regiment to the Eebel 
army, and soon to threaten yet greater dangers. To these States the first earn- 
est glances of the Governor were turned. 

The attitude of Virginia was the more alarming, and her geographical po- 
sition made her hostility a thing of grave purport. Thrust northward into the 
space between Pennsylvania and Ohio like a wedge, she almost divided the loyal 
part of the nation into two separate fragments. Here, as an acute military 
critic* has since observed, was the most offensive portion of the whole Eebel 
frontier. Behind the natural fortification of the mountains the communication 
with Eichmond and the whole South was secure. The mountains themselves 

* Emil Schalk's " Summary of the Art of War," pp. 45, 46. 



46 Ohio in the Wak. 

admitted of perfect defense. Beyond them it was easy, at any unexpected 
moment, to pour down upon the unguarded frontier ; or to fall, east or west, 
on the exposed flank of any advancing army of the nation. Yet the peo- 
ple of this territory were not hostile to the Union; and indeed they were 
unexpectedly bitter in their opposition to their fellow-citizens of the eastern 
slope, both on the subject of secession and on the score of old local griev- 
ances. Seeing then the strategic importance of the region, and the disaffection 
of its inhabitants, there was every reason to think that the Eebel authorities 
would at the earliest possible moment seek to occup}^ it. 

Now the Adjutant-General of Ohio was a man who had theorized on war, 
and had well learned some of its conditions. General Carrington suggested 
that the Ohio Eiver was not a proper line of defense as against hostile action 
on the part of Virginia. It would be better, he urged, to seize the mountain 
ranges of "Western "Virginia and rally the loyal inhabitants to their defense, lest 
an enemy, operating from Eichmond, should occupy the passes, and thence, from 
that secure advanced base, overawe the natural Union sentiment of the region 
and debouch at pleasure upon the Ohio border. 

But, could the territory of "Virginia, a State not yet actually seceded, be en- 
tered by the armies of the United States, or even by the militia of Ohio? The 
most said no. The action of the General Government said no. Eather than 
cross upon that sacred soil of his native State, General Scott was permitting 
Eebel pickets to guard the Long Bridge across the Potomac, and Eebel patrols 
to pace their beats within rifle range of the "White House. The question arose 
in the discussions in the Governor's office at Columbus. " We can let no theory 
prevent the defense of Ohic^" was his answer; an answer that itself entitles the 
man to the gratitude and regard of the State so long as her history shall be 
read. "I will defend Ohio where it costs least and accomplishes most. Above 
all, I will defend Ohio beyond rather than on her border." 

And so, as in the case of Kentucky, Governor Dennison had united the Ex- 
ecutives of Indiana and Illinois with himself in an earnest effort to secure the 
seizure of her leading strategic points, so now in the case of "West Virginia he 
sought to bring about the prompt occupation of her territory. 

As early as 19th April, only four days after the call for volunteers, he deter- 
mined to begin by protecting the exposed points. Parkersburg, a Virginia town 
at the western terminus of one branch of the great Baltimore and Ohio Eail- 
road, was violently hostile in the tone of many of its inhabitants, and by reason 
of its easy railroad communication with the mountains, was thought to be the 
point at which the Secessionists would first aim. Across the river from Park- 
ersburg, on the Ohio side, was Marietta, tho torii.inus of the railroad from Cin- 
cinnati — exposed to any raid across the river, and liable to be cut off from its 
railroad connection by the burning of the extensive trestle-Avork on which the 
track approached it. Here, then, was the first danger. 

A battery of six-pounders in good condition had been tendered by Colonel 
Barnett, of Cleveland. It was ordered at once to Columbus. Meantime, on 
Sunday, the Columbus machine shop was opened at the request of Governor 



West Vikginia Rescued by Ohio Milita. 47 

Dennison,* and before night two hundred solid shot were cast. The next day 
the bat-^ery arrived by special train. It went immediately on to Loveland, 
thence south-eastward to Marietta. It was on the border in position to defend 
the town, and to overawe Parkersburg, within forty-eight hours after the issue 
•of the order and before the movement had been discovered by friend or foe.f 

Lieutenant O. M. Poe of the Engineers, the first oflfieer of the regular army 
to offer his services to the Governor, was next sent down to see what further 
measures of immediate defense were required at Marietta, at Gallif»olis, and at 
■other exposed points. 

Then, on the 7th of Ma}^, Governor Dennison telegraphed to Washington, 
asking that the boundaries of the department they had just assigned his new 
General, McClellan, should be extended so as to include Western Virginia. The 
next day the extension was made. Then he wrote to McClellan, setting forth 
the request of John Hall, of Parkersburg, of a committee of gentlemen subse- 
quently^ sent from the same place, and of still others who appealed in earnest 
lettei-s, for the immediate crossing of the Ohio and occupation of the town. 
The designs of the Secessionists w^ere explained, and the importance of fore- 
stalling them was pressed. Governor Dennison indorsed the request, and urged 
further reasons wh}^ the troops should immediately enter West Yirgiuia at this 
point, and perhaps at others also along the border. 

On more accounts than one. General McClellan's reply possesses a historic 
interest : 

"I have carefully considered your letter of the 10th, with the accompanying letters, and 
many others that I have received, bearing on the same subject : 

" Strange as the advice may seem from a young General, I advise delay for the present. 1 
fear nothing from Western Virginia. I have written urgently to General Scott for his views as 
to Western Virginia. Every day I am making great progress in organization, and will soon 
have Camp Dennison a model establishment. We have to-day seven regiments — by Wednesday 
Bates's brigade will be there — the six new regiments can be received as soon as mustered in. 
Send me the State regiments then, and in two or three weeks they can be rendered manageable. 
I do not like the idea of detaching raw troops to the frontier. My view is to strike effectively 
■when we move, and everything is progressing satisfactorily. 

. . . " Let us organize these men and make them efFective — in Heaven's name do n't pre- 
cipitate matters. 

. . . "Don't let these frontier men hurry you on. I had hoped to leave for Columbus 
on Mondav morning, but I find I must remain here to organize the secret service — it will be the 
most thorough and effective I have ever known, and must be attended to at once. 

. . . " I am pressed by Cairo — Yates, Morton, etc. The latter is a terrible alarmist, and 
not at all a cool head." J 

"From the reception of that letter," said Governor Dennison afterward, 
*'l dated the beginnings of my doubts as to McClellan's being, after all, a man 

* By John S. Hall, Esq., one of the Directors. 

t As the battery entered Columbus, a committee of citizens from Marietta arrived to repre- 
sent their danger to the Governor and to ask for succor. They found that his foresight had 
already secured them, and some of the committee, turning immediately back, reached Marietta 
Again on the same train which bore the battery they had gone to ask. 

X Archives Executive Department, State Capitol. Many of the preceding statements, which 
J have not thought it needful to credit separately, are drawn from the same source. 



48 Ohio in the Wak. 

of action." The historian who shall seek to trace in detail the steps to the 
strange torpor that subsequently befel the Army of the Potomac, may indeed 
find in it suggestive hints. The General to whom the war in the West was then 
practically committed, had begun by regarding men like Oliver P. Morton and 
Richard Yates as alarmists, and had already placed himself in the attitude of 
holding back. 

But Governor Dennison was not disi^osed to yield the point. The rejDre- 
sentations of alarm along the border increased, and he continued to press on 
McClellan his wishes. On the 13th of May that officer again wrote him; "Most 
of the information /obtain from the frontier indicates that the moral effect of 
troops directly on the border would not be very good — at least until Western 
Virginia has decided for herself what she will do. . . . If it is clear that the 
Union men will be strengthened by the movement, of coui-se it should be made." 

While thus engaged in putting off the Governor and the alarmed people on 
the river. General McClelhm was conducting a correspondence with Lievitenant- 
General Scott as to a grand operation in the Kanawha Yalley. He would 
move directly up it to the mountains, using the river for his line of supplies as 
far as the mouth of the Gauley ; would then strike across the Alleghanies, move 
down the James, and thus take Richmond by the back door. The reply of the 
burdened but still w^ary and diplomatic veteran was adroit. It was a good plan, 
he said — bold and apparently feasible. But he had himself been considering a 
plan for a grand movement down the Mississippi, for the command of which he 
had thought of McClellan!* And so the postj^onement of the West Virginia 
project was all the easier. 

But by this time mattei'S were approaching a crisis. On the 20th of May, 
John S. Carlile telegraphed Governor Dennison from Wheeling that troops, 
under the proclamation of Letcher, were approaching — would enter Grafton 
that day, Clarksburg probably the day after, and Wheeling very soon. They 
openly avowed their intention to bi'eak up the loyal Convention at Wheeling. 
If the Unionists of West Virginia were to be saved, and that portion of the 
State was to be rescued from the rebellion, now was the time to do it. 

In his anxiety lest the golden opportunity should be suffered to slip, and in 
the natural distrust which General McClellan's previous course had excited, the 
Governor now telegraphed these facts not only to McClellan, but also to Scott. 
Four daj'S passed. Finall3^ on the 24th of May, the Secretary of War asked 
McClellan if he could not counteract the effect of the Rebel camp a^ Grafton, 
and save the evil effects on Wheeling and all West Virginia. 

Then at last McClellan decided that it was time to move. He had wanted 
the State troops (i. e., the ten regiments in excess of the President's call, kept 
in service by the State on her own responsibility) sent to Camp Dennison "for ' 
two or three weeks," that he might "render them manageable." Now he found 

* It will be observed {see post. Part H, Life of McDowell) that this is almost precisely the 
language that General Scott was addressing at the same time to General McDowell in Washing- 
ton. The original of General Scott's letter to McClellan is — or was once — in the hands of Gov- 
ernor Dennison. 



West Yieginia Rescued by Ohio Militia. 49 

that these troops which had not been sent to Canip Dennison were the only 
"manageable" ones in his department on whom he could instantly rely. He 
accordingly asked Governor Dennison for leave to nse them. The Governor, 
overjoj'ed to find that his cherished movement was at last to be executed, re- 
sponded by an order placing all the State troops under General McClellan's 
command. 

On the 26th of May Adjutant-General Cai-rington, who had been sent down 
to aid in moving these troops, reported to General McClellan. The General was 
anxious to have a regiment sent to Marietta, opposite one western terminus of 
the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad at Parkersburg, and another to Bellair opposite 
the other terminus, near Wheeling. He also wanted the other eight regiments 
to be in readiness for jirompt movements. Adjutant-General Carrington at once 
took the cars back to Columbus. On the train he wrote the dispatches inaugu- 
rating the movement, and they were sent one b}^ one from the several way sta- 
tions along the route, as at each the train stopped for a moment : 

"Fourteenth regiment, Colonel Steedman, at Zanesville: Move at once by river to Marietta 
to support Barnett's Battery already there, and await orders. 

"Seventeenth regiment, Colonel Connell, at Lancaster: Move by rail to Zanesville to support 
Steedman, ordered to Marietta. Transportation ordered. 

" Fifteenth regiment. Colonel Andrews, at Zanesville : Move by rail to Bellair, and await 
orders. 

"Sixteenth regiment. Colonel Irvine, at Columbus: Move by rail to Zanesville to support 
Andrews, ordered to Bellair. 

"Nineteenth regiment. Colonel Beatty, and Twenty-First regiment. Colonel Norton, at Cleve- 
land : Move fortliwith to Columbus for orders and immediate service. 

"Senior officer of the Twentieth regiment: Complete your organization forthwith. 

"To all Camp Commanders: Obey promptly all orders of Major-General McClellan; Gov- 
ernor Dennison puts him in command of the State troops." 

At the same time dispatches were sent to the various railroad and steam- 
boat companies concerned, to furnish transportation. 

Within six hours after General McClellan had asked it, the State troops 
were in motion. 

What followed may here be brietl}^ told. Colonel Steedman crossed with 
the Fourteenth and Barnett's Artillery at Marietta, re^jressed with a stern hand 
the rising tendencies to disturbance in Parkersburg, swept directly out into the 
country along the railroad, rebuilt bridges (one of them sixty-five feet long and 
forty-five feet high), repaired the track, and brought up a subsistence train be- 
hind him. Colonel Irvine crossed with the Sixteenth at Wheeling, united with 
a regiment of loyal Virginians under Colonel Kelly, and moved out on the rail- 
road, repairing it as they went. At the junction of the two tracks at Grafton 
the columns met, the Eebel force fleeing precipitately a few hours before their 
arrival. Then the}^ pushed after them to Philippi, fought the first little skirmish 
of the war, drove Colonel Porterfield and his Eebel Virginia regiment out, and 
thei'e rested. The great railroad lines were secured, the Wheeling Convention 
was protected and West Virginia was practically rescued. 

Vol. 1.— 4. 



50 Ohio in the War. 

Meanwhile the Twenty-First regiment had been sent to Gallipolis, opposite 
the mouth of the Kanawha, where it also presently crossed. 

The uniforms hastily procured for the men who had thus secured a State to 
the Union were found to be defective ; and the Adjutant- General was presently 
sent to the field to remedy the evil. While there, in company with Colonels 
Steedman and Barnett, he urged upon the General whom McClellan had sent j 
out after the occupation, the policy of pushing on from Philippi to the Cheat 
Mountain passes beyond Huttonsville, and thus completing their control of the 
country. Lack of transportation was assigned, however, as a reason for delay- I 
ing a movement which would have robbed McClellan of his early laurels, by 
leaving him no West Virginia campaign to fight. The delay gave the Eebels 
time to recover their energies. General Garnett, an accomplished officer of the 
old army, was sent out, troops were collected, and the Eebel advance was again 
pushed forward as far as Laurel Hill. 

Then McClellan took the field with some regiments from Indiana and wi'th 
the rest of the Ohio State troops. After some unfortunate delays he moved 
upon the enemy at Laurel Hill in two columns; sending one under General 
Morris to demonstrate on their front, while he pushed around with the other to 
Huttonsville in their rear. General Morris obeyed his orders to the letter; Gen- 
eral McClellan with the other column was too late. Eosecrans r^-'i-eady pi-o- 
moted from Chief Engineer on Dennison's Staff to Colonel of one of the militia 
regiments, and thence to a Brigadiership in the regular army) was left with 
McClellan's advance to fight the battle of Eich Mountain unaided. Garnett, 
taking alarm at the defeat there of his outpost, hastily retreated; McClellan had 
not pushed up soon enough after Eosecrans's victory' to intercept him. Morris 
did the best he could in a stern chase; Steedman, commanding /izs advance, 
overtook the rear-guard of Garnett's arni}^ at Carrick's Ford, had a sharp 
skirmish, in which Garnett himself fell, and drove the army on in a state of 
utter demoralization. General Hill, a General of Ohio militia, sent into the 
field on account of the militia regiments there, who had taken the State, and 
mainly fought the campaign, was expected to head it off, but the disjjositions to 
that end had not been perfectly arranged, and so the scattered fragments es- 
caped. West Virginia was again free from armed Eebels, from the Kanawha 
Eiver to its northern boundar}'.* 

"•■■■ In the above account of the rescue of West Virginia by Ohio State troops, not mustered 
into the United States service at all, the only eflfort has been to trace the steps of that rescue. 
The subsequent campaign, conducted mainly but not exclusively by the State troops, may be 
found more fully described in a more appropriate place hereafter. Part II, Lives of McClellan 
and Eosecrans. 

It has been explained that the Fourteenth (the first of the militia regiments mustered only 
into the State service) was the first to cross at Parkersburg, and the Sixteenth the first to cross at 
Wheeling and Bellair. These, with the aid of the Virginians and Barnett's Cleveland Artillery, 
opened the roads and occupied the whole country from the river to Grafton — being rapidly sup- 
ported by the Fifteenth, the Nineteenth, the Eighteenth, and others of the State troops, and by 
the gallant Seventh and Ninth Indiana. These troops saved West Virginia, fought tlie first 
skirmish of the war in the West, and decided the Union tendencies of the population. Subse- 
quently, after unfortunate delay, General McClellan took the field with large re-enforcements. 



West Virginia Rescued by Ohio Militia. 51 

Subsequent campaigns had for their-only object to retain the territory thus 
won. West Virginia was already under Union control. The movement as we 
have seen was inaugurated, against considerable opposition at first from McClel- 
lan, by Governor Dennison. It was effected entirely by the militia of Ohio, 
with no assistance whatever save that derived from the Yirginians themselves. 
When McClellan delayed reaping the fruits of their success till the Eebels had 
returned with re-enforcements, these militia regiments constituted the heavy 
majority of the fighting troops that won the campaign then required, and thus 
completed their conquest. 

It was rightly said then, at the beginning of this chapter, that West Vir- 
ginia was the gift of Ohio, through her State militia, to the I^ation at the out- 
set of the war. 

Counting the column sent to the Kanawha, he had thirty regiments in all under his command in 
West Virginia, of which seven were Indiana regiments and one was composed of loyal Virgin- 
ians. The rest were all from Ohio (with the exception of a company or two of Illinois cavalry), 
though two of them were credited to Kentucky. On the Eich Mountain line the only Ohio reg' 
iment in the battle was the Nineteenth, one of the State militia. On the Laurel Hill line the 
only regiment engaged in serious fighting was the first of the State militia, Colonel Steedman'a 
Fourteenth. None of the other troops, either from Ohio or Indiana, lost a man killed or 
wounded in the action with Garnett's rear-guard at Carrick's Ford. 



52 Ohio in the Wae. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE PROGRESS AND CLOSE OF DENNISON'S ADMINISTRATION. 



THE sagacious policy of Governor Dennison concerning an early occupa- 
tion of the territory beyond the Ohio border had a full vindication in the 
events in West Yirginia. He was doomed to see it delayed in Kentucky by 
the tenderness of the President toward the neutrality of his native State. The 
fruits that an early movement there might likewise have secured were thus 
measurably lost. When, however, the earnest occupation of Kentucky began, 
he was able to furnish here, as in West Virginia, the bulk of the army. Before 
he went out of office his Adjutant-General reported twenty-two Ohio three 
years' regiments on duty in Kentucky, besides a considerable number of others 
almost read}^ for the field, who were soon to be sent in the same direction.* 

Meantime these splendid contributions to Kentucky did not diminish the 
helpful care extended over AVest Yirginia. At the end of the brief campaign 
there which the Ohio militia had made successful, General McClellan had been 
called to Washington. His successor, General Kosecrans, was left with a dis- 
solving army of three months' men. The few Ohio regiments for three years, 
which he had taken from Camp Dennison just before McClellan's advent, barely 
served to maintain his hold upon the country. By the 8th of August he was 
telegraphing vigorouslj^ to Governor Dennison for re-enforcements. He was 
none too eai-ly or too eai-nest. For already the Confederate Government, real- 
izino- its enormous loss in West Virginia, had sent its most trusted General, 
Eobert E. Lee, to regain the territory. The General Government was far off 
and slow to hear ; and so Eosecrans appealed directly to the power that had 
seized the State for aid, in this emergency, in holding it. Governor Dennison at 
once telegraphed to the forming regiments to hasten their organization. " If you, 
Governor of Indiana and Governor of Michigan, will lend your efforts," wrote 
Eosecrans again, " to get me quickly fifty thousand men, in addition to my pres- 
ent force, I think a blow can be struck which will save fighting the rifled-cannon 
batteries at Manassas. Lee is certainly at Cheat Mountain. Send all troops 

* The Ohio regiments first thrown into Kentucky were the First, Second, Fourteenth, Fif- 
teenth, Sixteenth, Seventeentli, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, Twenty-First, Thirty-First, 
Thirty-Third, Thirty-Fifth, Thirty-Eighth, Fortieth, Forty-First, Forty-Second, Forty-Ninth, 
Fifty-First, Fifty-Ninth, Sixty-Fourth, and Sixty-Fifth. These were all in service in Kentucky 
in the fall or winter of 1861. 



Progress and Close of Dennison's Administration. 53 

you can to Grafton."* But five days after the appeal, all available troops in the 
West were ordered to Fremont, in Missouri, and Rosecrans's plan was foiled. 

Before this heavy re-enforcements had been sent to the column in the 
Kanawha Valley under General Cox. Six days after the appeal from Eose- 
crans. Cox became alarmed, and telegraphed anxiously to Governor Dennison 
about his command.f Then, a few days later, Rosecrans again appealed to 
Dennison for troops to aid him in marching across the country against Floyd 
and Wise, to Cox's relief. "I want to catch Floyd, while Cox holds him in 
front." So immediate and effective was the response to these appeals that Gen- 
eral Eosecrans was enabled to employ twenty-three Ohio regiments;}; in the ope- 
rations by which he now cleared his department of Rebels, and put an end to 
efforts for the recapture of the country ; while, to guard the exposed railroads 
in South-eastern Ohio, companies of State troops were again employed. 

"With the aid given in this emergency the direct connection of the State 
Administrations with the conduct of campaigns ended.|| The country gradually 
learned to make war methodically; and with the passing away of the crisis 
which Governor Dennison had turned to so good account, the sphere of State 
Executives became limited to the organization and equipment of troops and the 
care for sick and wounded soldiers. To this, indeed, with the most, it was prac- 
tically limited all the time. But Ohio was " to lead throughout the war," and 
we have seen how in the initial operations in West Virginia and Kentucky she 
led, not onl}^ her sister States, but the Nation. 

What now remains to be told of the first of our War Administrations is, 
therefore, a story of details in recruiting and organization. 

The staff with which Governor Dennison met the first shock of the war 
was already undergoing a complete change. With this staff, without practical 
knowledge of war, without arms for a regiment, or rations for a company, or 
uniforms for a corporal's guai'd at the outset, and without the means or the need- 
ful preparations for purchase or manufacture, the Administration had, in less 
than a month, raised, organized, and sent to the field or to the camps of the 
Government an army larger than that of the whole United States three months 
before. Within the State the wonderful achievement was saluted with com- 
plaints about extravagance in rations, defects in uniforms, about everything 
which the authorities did, and about everything which they left undone. With- 
out the State the noise of this clamor was not heard, and men saw only the 
splendid results. The General Government was, therefore, lavish in its praise. 
The Governor under whom these things were done grew to be the most influ- 

* State Archives, Executive Dept., Dennison's x\dmr. 

1 14th August, 1861. 

t The twenty-three Ohio regiments in service in Virginia in the fall and winter of 1861, were 
the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thirteenth, 
Twenty-Third, Twenty-Fourth, Twenty-Fifth, Twenty-Sixth, Twenty-Eighth, Thirtieth, Thirty- 
Second, Thirty-Fourth, Thirty-Sixth, Thirty-Seventh, Forty-Fourth, and Forty -Seventh. 

II With the notable exception of the campaign three years later, in which Ohio threw in her 
heavy re-enforceraents of hundred days' men. 



64 Ohio in the Wae. 

ential of all the State Executives, at Washington, at the very time when at 
home he was the most unpopular of all who had within the memory of a gen- 
eration been elevated to that office. His staif officers were rapidly tendered 
better positions in the National service. His Adjutant-General was made a Co- 
lonel in the regular army, and some little time later a Brigadier-General of 
volunteers.* His Quartermaster-General was made a Captain of regulars.f His 
Engineer-in-Chief was made a Brigadier- General of regulars, and Major-Gen- 
eral of volunteers.^ His Judge- Advocate-General became an Assistant-Secre- 
tary in the War Department. || His second Commissarj^-General, after some 
faithful service as his Adjutant-General, was made Brigadier-General of volun- 
teers, and assigned to duty in the War Department.§ Two of the assistants in 
his Adjutant-General's Department became respectively Major- General of vol- 
unteers, and Assistant Adjutant-General to the Army of the Cumberland.** 
His Surgeon-General became Colonel of a regiment, and Brigadier-General of 
volunteers.ft His Paymaster -General became a Colonel, and gave up his life 
on the field.tt 

Some of the changes thus wrought, however, jDroved of great advantage to 
the Governor and to the sei-vice. He was able, when the troops began to re- 
turn from their West Virginia campaign, to enter upon the work of recruiting 
for the three years' service with a better understanding of the requirements, and 
a more systematic preparation. 

But, on the other hand, there now began to affect the service a long train of 
hinderances; some the result of previous misfortunes of the State administra- 
tion, some the operation of extraneous causes, all combining to delay and em- 
barrass the work. 

The slanders of the State Government, in which the newspapers of both 
parties had indulged, produced their legitimate fruit. Men who thought of 
enlisting were not willing to go under the authority of a State which gave its 
soldiers bad rations, which allowed them to be swindled in uniforms, and badly 
supplied with arms, which was universally denounced as inefficient, and some- 
times as worse. In consequence, the}^ enlisted in the regiments of other States, 

* Colonel H. B. Carrington, Eighteenth Infantry, United States Army. 

t Captain D. L. Wood, Eighteenth Infantry, United States Army. 

t W. S. Eosecrans. |1 C. P. Wolcott. g C. P. Buckingham. 

**Major-General Sill and Assistant Adjutant-General C. F. Goddard. 

tt W. L. McMillen. H Colonel Phelps. 

The staff of Governor Dennison, as finally organized, was as follows : 

Adjutant-General Catharinus P. Buckingham. 

Assistant Adjutant-General.* Rodney Mason. 

Quartermaster -General George B. Wright. 

Assistant Quartermaster-General Anthony B. Bullock. 

Commissary-General Columbus Delano. 

[With nine Assistant Commissaries of Subsistence, ranking as Captains and Lieutenants.] 

Judge- Advocate-General Christopher P. Wolcott. 

Surgeon-General Wm. L. McMillen. 

Aid de Camp Adolphus E. Jones. 

Aid de Camp Martin Welker. 



i 



Progkess and Close of Dennison's Administration. 55 



The very competent Adjutant-General under whom the Avork was now con 
ducted (General Buckingham), officiall}^ reported that in this way the State had 
furnished through the latter half of 1861 not less than ten thousand soldiers to 
the Government for which she received no credit. The number was undoubt- 
edly swelled by the dislike to the hard and obscure service in West Vii'ginia, to 
which it seemed for a time as if all Ohio soldiers were doomed ; and by the ad- 
ditional fact that as it happened during the latter part of the year, Ohio fur- 
nished the most of the soldiers and Indiana the most of the Generals in that 
field of operations. 

The Camp Dennison troubles soon made their effect visible, When the 
camp was first occupied the only troops were those enlisted for three months. 
General McClellan decided not to take them out of camp till they should re-en- 
list for three years. Many natui-ally hesitated. They wanted to try the service 
for which they had first volunteered ; and then to be paid and discharged from 
that before they undertook fresh obligations. They had already been demoral- 
ized by the vicious system of electing their own officers, under which election- 
eering, bribery, drunkenness and lax discipline sprang up. They were now, on 
the other hand, displeased to find that they were to be deprived of a privilege 
which they had come to look upon as a right, by the wise determination of the 
Governor to appoint the officers on his own judgment of their fitness. Under 
such influences many — and among them a fair share of the best material for 
soldiers — refused to re-enlist. Their presence among the three years' troops 
who were thus compelled to wait for the slow progress of recruiting to fill up 
the vacancies, soon led to disturbances. It was finally found necessary to sepa- 
rate the three months' troops altogether from those enlisted for three years. 
Instead of mustering them out — since it never meant to take them from camp — 
as the Governor urged, the War Department had them sent to their homes on 
furlough, without discharge and without pay. They were naturally dissatisfied 
Avith this reception of their patriotic volunteering to fight. They scattered 
over the whole State, telling, each in his own home-circle, the tale of the treat- 
ment they had received, and adding to the popular distrust. 

Meantime their departure from Camp Dennison did not diminish the troubles 
there. The enthusiasm with which the men had volunteered was ill-fed by the 
inaction of the camp. The officers were ^ot sufficiently attentive to the thor- 
ough occupatioo of the time of the men Avith drill and preparation for the field, 
and they soon found ample leisure to compare the zeal with which the}^ rushed 
to the service with the dullness of their life, and to look about them for griev- 
ances. Sometimes the camp authorities furnished indifferent rations or quarter- 
masters' stores. The discontent thus engendered was inflamed by the incendiary 
conduct of some of the newspapers, circulating by hundreds through the camp, 
which daily denounced its management, exaggerated every defect and sought 
for criminal motives in every mistake. Some of the regiments were still per- 
mitted to indicate their choice for officers, and in all it was well known that if 
the men took care to represent a certain officer as unpopular he would not be 
reappointed. Lax discipline on the one hand, and perpetual fault-finding on tl.e 



56 Ohio in the War. 

other, were the inevitable result. This notorious condition of Camp Dennison 
exerted an influence against recruiting through the whole State, both directly 
on the men who would have enlisted, and indirectly, by leading the whole com- 
munity to still further distrust of Governor Dennison. For even yet he had 
been left by the United States officials to bear all the burden of their misman-. 
agement in the camp they had named after him; and, stung by the injustice 
which he felt he had already received when he merited gratitude, he proudly 
refused to make any explanation whatever that should relieve him from this 
undeserved odium. 

And now there came in still another cause to operate against recruiting in 
the time of our sore need. The Government, on realizing its mistake in limiting 
Ohio to thirteen regiments, and on seeing the splendid service rendered by the 
ten militia regiments, patriotically put into the field by the State on her own re- 
sponsibility, volunteered the assurance that it would muster these men into the 
United States service and assume their payment and discharge. As the time 
approached Governor Dennison visited Washington to see that the authorities 
would be sure to be prepared. His precautions, however, notwithstanding the 
assurances he received, proved fruitless. The regiments came home to find 
no paymaster ready to receive them, and no mustering officer to discharge 
them. They had to be sent home, therefore — after a campaign brilliant and 
fatiguing — without pay and with no knowledge of when they would get it. 
Many believed they would never be paid, all were dissatisfied and displeased, 
and in this mood they were scattered over the whole State.* Thus was the 
cause of recruiting, which depended on popular approval and enthusiasm, still 
clouded by occurrences the best calculated to work its ruin. 

The dissatisfaction and disgust thus spread- thx-oughout the State resulted in 
bringing the work of recruiting almost to a stand. Fortunately^ when disband- 
ing the companies in excess of the thii-teen regiments for the Government and 
the ten for the State, raised in the first flush of the public enthusiasm, the Gov- 
ernor had decided to retain enough for four regiments, under drill at their respect- 
ive homes. These were now accessible. So, when the Government began to press 
for troops, these were collected and organized, and thus the State was able, at 
an early period, to throw the Twenty-Third, Twenty-Fourth, Twenty-Fifth, and 
Twenty-Sixth regiments into West Virginia at the first call of need. 

When at last the evil etfects of all the mistakes and misfortunes we have 
enumerated began to be counteracted, fresh difficulties in recruiting were en- 
countered. The Government expected the regiments to be full and fully organ- 
ized before it would receive or begin to supply them. If it took two months to 
recruit a regiment, the men who enlisted fii'st must remain in camp two months 
without pay, without uniforms, blankets or arms, without subsistence save as the 
State furnished it, and without any authority over them save as they saw fit to 
yield to it. Not even a Lieutenant could be mustered in, to exercise a legal 
military command over them till their ranks were full. After a time the Gov- 

■•'When the Government was ready it was hard to find and collect the men again, and two 
months and more passed before they were all paid. 



Pkogress and Close of Dennison's Administration. 57 

crnment consented that whenever a company was -half raised a Lieutenant 
niiicht be mustered in. Still clothing and blankets could not be procured. Then, 
at the earnest solicitation of the Governor, special permission was given to mus- 
ter in the Quartermaster, Adjutant, Surgeon, and Assistant- Surgeon of regi- 
ments prior to their organization. Their clothing and their sick were thus 
provided for. Finally, authority was procured to muster in a Lieutenant at the 
beo"inning for each company and to muster in the men as recruited. 

The change was magical. Within two weeks ten thousand men were mus- 
tered into the service, and recruiting soon became again an easy task. 

The Adjutant-General, however, complained of troubles still remaining. 
Under General Scott's influence the Government had refused to permit the 
State to furnish cavalry. At last authority for one regiment was pi'ocured ; but 
it was presently discovered that, under direct permission from the War Depart- 
ment, two more wei"e being raised in the northern part of the State, by Messrs. 
Wade and Hutchins, and two more in Southern Ohio, by permission of General 
Fremont. Confusion was thus wrought, and considerable detriment to the in- 
fantry recruiting ensued. 

Furthermore, the war which was to be ended in a single battle, opened in 
gloom and disaster. The paralj^sis of Bull Eun was followed by mortification 
from Ball's Bluff, and the like blundering defeats ; general inaction ensued, and 
from the Potomac to the Mississippi the Eebels seemed likely to maintain their 
ground. 

In spite of difficulties and depression the Adjutant-General was able, at the 
close of the year, to report forty-six regiments of infantry, four of cavalry, and 
twelve batteries of artillery in the field, with twenty-two more regiments of 
infantry and four of cavalry full or nearly full, and thirteen in process of organ- 
ization. In all, the State then had in the three years* service, seventy-seven 
thousand eight hundred and forty-four men, besides the twenty-two thousand 
three hundred and eighty men furnished at the first call for three months* 

For these troops Governor Dennison made the most earnest efforts to pro- 
cure competent and instructed commanders. At that early day no civilians in 
the State had any military experience, save the few who had served in the com- 

*This force may be stated more in detail as follows: 

Infantry, for three years 67,546 

Cavalry, for three years 7,270 

Artillery, for three years 3,028 

Total three years 77,844 

Add twenty-two regiments three months' infantry 22,000 » 

Two companies three months' cavalry 180 

Two sections three months' artillery 80 

Barnett's Battery, three months' artillery 120 

Whole number of men enlisted in 1861 in Ohio 100224 

It is impossible to assign accurately to each county the number raised in it, but tlie follow- 



58 



Ohio in the Wak. 



parativeJy insignificant operations in Mexico. He sought first, therefore, for 
men trained at West Point, who might be supposed to be familiar, theoretically 
at least, with the duties of their oflSces. Of these he secured fourteen in all, 
who were at once given the command of regiments. For the rest he sought 
carefully for men of any, even the least, experience, of abilit}', zeal, and fitness 
for the service. 

How well he succeeded may be judged, not only from the honorable record 
of the regiments, but from the high promotions that came to the commanders. 
The Colonel of the Seventh (E. B. Tyler) became a Brigadier-General of vol- 
unteers and Brevet Major-General. The Colonel of the Eighth (S. S. Carroll) 
received the same promotion. The Colonel of the Ninth (E. L. McCook) be- 
came a Brigadier; of the Tenth (W. H. Lytle), the same; of the Thirteenth 
(W. S. Smith), the same; of the Fourteenth (J. B. Steedman), a Major- General; 
of the Nineteenth (S. Beatty), a Brigadier ; of the Twenty-Third (W. S. Eose- 
crans), a Brigadier in the regular army, Major-General of volunteers, and dis- 
tinguished commander of a great department ; of the Twenty-Fourth (Jacob 
Ammen), a Brigadier ; of the Twenty-Sixth (E. P. Fyffe), a Brevet Brigadier ; 
of the Twenty-Seventh (Jno. W. Fuller), a Brigadier and Brevet Major-Gen- 



ing statement of the troops raised under the seventy-five thousand and three hundred 
calls is an approximation : 



thousand 



Adams 915 

Allen 776 

Ashland 578 

Ashtabula 1,306 

Athens 1,358 

Auglaize 565 

Belmont 1,030 

Brown 1,027 

Butler 1,141 

Carroll 386 

Champaign 828 

Clark 841 

Clermont 1,260 

Clinton 703 

Columbiana 854 

Coshocton 806 

Crawford 448 

Cuyahoga — 

Darke 685 

Defiance 410 

Delaware... 894 

Erie 556 

Fairfield 832 

Fayette 686 

Franklin 980 

Fulton 654 

Gallia 696 

Geauga 546 

Greene 1,074 

Guern-sey 775 



Hamilton 8,192 

Hancock 747 

Hardin 694 

Harrison 459 

Henry 526 

Highland 860 

Hocking 692 

Holmes 550 

Huron 929 

Jackson 750 

Jefferson 666 

Knox 913 

Lake 550 

Lawrence 1,263 

Licking 1,307 

Logan 870 

Lorain 823 

Lucas 1,108 

Madison 406 

Mahoning 629 

Marion 579 

Medina 579 

Meigs 1,292 

Mercer 556 

Miami 1,405 

Monroe 836 

Montgomery 1,158 

Morgan 750 

Morrow 696 



Muskingum 1,168 

Noble 617 

Ottaway 325 

Paulding 254 

Perry 702 

Pickaway 604 

Pike 560 

Portage 721 

Preble 857 

Putnam 337 

Kichland 1,087 

Eoss 1,457 

Sandusky 789 

Scioto 1,083 

Seneca 928 

Shelby 475 

Stark 1,048 

Summit 969 

Trumbull 1,144 

Tuscarawas 1,029 

Union 691 

Van Wert 361 

Vinton 601 

Warren 1,186 

Washington 1,381 

Wayne 734 

Williams 682 

Wood 740 

Wyandot 759 



Pkogkess and Close of Dennison's Administration. 59 

eral ; of the Thirtieth (Hugh Ewing), a Brigadier and Brevet Major-General ; 
of the Thirty-First (Moses B. Walker), a Brevet Brigadier ; of the Thirty-Third 
(J. W. Sill), a Brigadier; of the Thirty-Fourth (A. S. Piatt), a Brigadier; of 
the Thirty-Fifth (Ferdinand Yan Derveer), a Brigadier; of the Thirty-Sixth 
(George Crook), a Major-General; of the Forty-First (William B. Hazen), 
a Major-General; of the Forty-Second (James A. Garfield), a Major-Gen- 
eral; of the Forty-Fifth (B. P. Eunkle), a Brevet Brigadier ; of the Forty -Ninth 
(Wm. H. Gibson) a Brevet Brigadier; of the Fiftj^-Second (Daniel McCook), a 
Brigadier; of the Fifty-Fifth (Jno. C. Lee), a Brevet Brigadier; of the Sixty- 
Third (Jno. W. Spragne), a Brigadier; of the Sixty-Fifth (C. E. Harker), a 
Brigadier; of the Seventy-Second (R. P. Buckland), a Brigadier; of the Sev- 
enty-Fourth (Rev. Granville Moody) a Brevet Brigadier; of the Seventy-Fifth 
(N. C. McLean), a Brigadier ; of the Seventy-Sixth (Chas. E. Woods), a Major- 
General ; of the Seventy -Eighth (M. D. Leggett), a Major-General. 

Many of the subordinate officers also rose to high promotion ; and although 
some, also, brought disgrace upon themselves and damage to the cause, yet of 
the entire list it may be said that it would compare favorably with the appoint- 
ments from any other State. 

Camps Dennison and Chase, the one near Cincinnati, the other near Co- 
lumbus, were controlled b}^ the United States authorities. On Governor Den- 
nison fell the selection and management of other camps throughout the State, 
of which the following are the principal ones established during his admin- 
istration : 

Camp Jackson Columbus. Camp Putnam at Marietta. 

Camp Harrison near Cincinnati, Camp Wool at Athens. 

Camp Taylor at Cleveland. Camp Jefferson at Bellair. 

Camp Goddard at Zanesville. Camp Scott at Portland. 

Camp Anderson at Lancaster. 

Until the United States undertook the task of subsisting and supplying sol- 
diers as soon as they were recruited, these were supplied by the State Quarter- 
master. Of the magnitude of the other interests inti'usted to this officer during 
Governor Dennison's administration, some idea may be formed from statements 

like these: 

The number of rifles purchased on State account for the use of infantry was 
eleven thousand nine hundred. 

The number of carbines and revolvers for cavalry was one thousand eight 
hundred and eighty-five. 

The number of six-pounder bronze field guns was forty-one. 

A laboratory was established at Columbus for the supply of ammunition, 
which the United States arsenals, before there was time for a vast enlargement 
of their capacities, were unable to furnish. From this laboratory'- two million 
five hundred and five thousand seven hundred and eighty musket and pistol 
cartridges were supplied ; with sixteen thousand five hundred and thirty-seven 
cartridges, fixed shot, canister, and spherical case for artillery. 



60 Ohio in the Wak. 

In the absence of a sufficient supply of rifles, the old muskets were rifled, 
Miles Greenwood, of Cincinnati, taking the contract. The " Grreenwood rifle" 
thus manufactured became quite popular, being held by the ti-oops the equal of 
the Enfield in precision and range, and more destructive, inasmuch as it carried 
a heavier weight of metal. During Dennison's administration twenty-five 
thousand three hundred and twenty-four of these smooth-bore muskets were 
thus changed, at a cost of one dollar and a quarter per gun. 

The State had under its control, at the outbreak of the war, thirty-three 
smooth-bore six-pounders. Twenty-seven of these were likewise rifled and 
made equal to the best rifled guns. Twelve additional batteries were contracted 
for — the guns for which Miles Grreenwood had already begun casting. 

The office received from the Grovernment and issued to troops fifty-eight 
thousand five hundred and sixty-six rifles and muskets. 

It expended in the purchase of uniforms $1,117,349 35. Of none of the 
vast quantity of clothing thus bought were complaints ever made, except in the 
case of a few regiments, which in the first rush and at a time when the goods 
to make regulation uniforms were not in the country, received a pretty bad 
sample of shoddy. 

"We have seen that the operations of the Commissary Department were the 
first to arouse the clamor which continued till near its close to- pursue our first 
War Administration. At the end of the year, however, the Commissary-Gen- 
eral was able to report that, in issuing nearly three-quarters of a million rations 
the State had paid only thirteen and one-quarter cents per ration; and that in 
commuting four hundred and eleven thousand seven hundred and ten rations,* 
in the haste of the first organization, before it was possible to issue rations, and 
when it was unavoidable that the troops should either be quartered at hotels or 
otherwise boarded, the State had paid only an average of about forty-four and 
one-half cents per ration. Large as this last sum seemed it was small com- 
pared with that allowed by the United States Army Eegulations, under which 
a soldier so stationed as to have no opportunity of messing, was allowed to 
commute at the rate of seventy-five cents per day — the highest sum paid in 
the State anywhere in the greatest pressure of troops just after the April 
call. The whole sum of expenditures by the State for subsistence of soldiers 
was $488,858 71. 

For all these operations large sums of money were required. It was held 
by the Auditor f that of the three millions appropriated by the Legislature for 
war purposes, only half a million was available in direct aid of the United 
States. This was soon exhausted. Presently, however, under the eff^ective 

*" Commuting rations" is to pay money for the subsistence of soldiers instead of issuing to 
them rations in kind. The ration, as used in the above, means a supply of previsions for one 
man for one day. 

tR. W. Tayler, an exceedingly scrupulous and exact financial officer, who has since been 
made one of the Comptrollers of the United States Treasury, to succeed Elisha Whittlesey. 



Fkogress and Close of Dennison's Administration. 61 

financial management of Secretary Chase, the Grovernment was able to refund 
tlie sums thus advanced. Here a new diflSculty arose. The Auditor decided — 
and in this he Avas sustained by the Attorney-General — that these refunded 
moneys could afford the Governor no relief, since, if they once entered the 
treasury, they could not again be used in aid of the United States — the full 
appropriation of a half million dollars for that purpose having already been 
used. Technically there was no doubt that this was correct. 

Governor Dennison at once determined to evade this technicality and em- 
ploy the money. Accordingl}^, instead of permitting it to be refunded to the 
State Treasury through the ordinary channels, he caused it to be collected from 
the Government by his personal agents, when he proceeded again to use it for 
the various military purposes for which it was needed. As it was again, after a 
time refunded, he again collected it by his personal agents, and continued to 
employ it so long as was needful. In this way it was eventually reported that 
he had kept out of the State Treasury the sum of $1,077,600. For every dollar 
he presented satisfactory accounts and vouchers to the Legislature. The use 
of this money was a bold measure, but it was vindicated by the law of public 
necessity, and it never cast a shadow upon the integrity of the Governor who 
retained it, or of the officers through whom he disbursed it. 

During the fall and early winter of 1861, a cry of suffering came from the 
Ohio troops among the Alleghany Mountains in West Virginia. Sanitary and 
Christian Commissions were not then prepared to respond to such calls, and the 
Governor had no resource, save an appeal to the liberality of the people. In 
October he accordingly issued a proclamation calling upon the people for con- 
tributions of clothing, and particularly of blankets. "Within a few weeks nearly 
eight thousand blankets and coverlets had been sent in, besides nearly ten 
thousand pairs of woolen socks, and proportionate quantities of other articles. 
The suffering in the mountains however proved to have been much exaggerated, 
and only a small part of the articles thus contributed was sent there. Some 
were used in hospitals, others were issued to troops in Kentucky, and a con- 
siderable quantity remained on hands for the next year's uses. 

The annual nominating convention of his party had beeii held during the 
height of Governor Dennison's unpoj^ularity. Most of the party leaders were 
already aware of the injustice with which he had been treated, and a strong 
disposition was felt to renominate him in spite of the odium that would thus be 
attached to their ticket. But reasoning as politicians will, that the part}- could 
not afford such a risk, and being moreover anxious to draw off the war wing 
of the Democratic party, they j^assed Governor Dennison by with a compli- 
mentary resolution, indorsing his administration, and bestowed their nomina- 
tion upon David Tod, of the Eeserve, a patriotic and prominent Democratic 
leader. 

Governor Dennison betrayed no unseemly mortification at the result, and 
gave his cordial efforts to aid in the success of the ticket. In his final message 



62 Ohio in the Wak. 

he recited the effoi'ts made to place the State on a war footing and to furnish 
all the troops called for, with scarcely a reference to the misrepresentation with 
which he had been pursued. The facts were his conclusive vindication. 

As a bank man, he protested against the policy of Secretary Chase for the 
destruction of State banks and the establishment of the National Bank system.'j= 
As a somewhat consei'vative Republican he deplored any proclamation of im- 
mediate emancipation, as a measure which would insure the extermination of 
the negro race. He favored contiscation of Rebel property, and advocated the 
establishment of a negro colony in Central America. "I do not doubt," he con- 
cluded in a manly strain, "that errors have occurred in conducting my civil and 
military administration ; but I am solaced by the reflection that no motive has 
ever influenced me which did not spring from an earnest desire to promote the 
intei-ests of my fellow-citizens, and jireserve the honor of the State and the 
integrity of the Nation. , . I felt that I would be recreant to the duties en- 
trusted to me, if I failed to exert all my powers and eraj)loy all the instrumen- 
talities at my command, to support the Government in its efforts to sujjpress the 
insurrection and maintain its constitutional authority." 

For this singleness of aim and purity of purpose, as well as for marked 
sagacity and ability in the discharge of his public duties, his fellow-citizens 
have long since given him credit. 

It was his misfortune that the first rush of the war's responsibilities fell 
upon him. Those who came after were enabled to walk by the light of his 
painful experience. If he had been as well known to the State, and as highly 
esteemed two years before the outbreak of the war as he was two years after- 
ward, his burdens would have been greatly lightened. But he was not credited 
with the ability he really possessed, and in their distrust, men found it verj' 
easy to assure themselves that he was to blame for everything. 

That he made some mistakes is not to be disputed. Some of the early ex- 
penditures were less closely retrenched than they might have been. He was 
scarcely quick enough in reorganizing his peace establishment staff. He was 
not quite right in his policy for checking contraband goods, and his well-meant 
efforts to suppress contraband news were ill-considered and productive of need- 
less irritation. 

But these are small matters. He led in securing the redemption of West 
Virginia. He led in seeking to enforce upon the Government the need of speedy 
action in Kentucky. He led in pressing the necessity for a large army. He 
met the first shock of the contest, and in the midst of difiiculties which now 
seem scarcely credible, organized twenty-three regiments for the three months' 
service and eighty-two for three years ; nearly one-half the entire number of 
organizations sent to the field by the State during the war. He left the State 

* He subsequently declared, in a welcoming speech to Mr. Chase at Columbus, that he had 
been wrong in this opposition, and that the Secretary was right. He pronounced him indeed the 
greatest financier that had controlled the finances of a great government within the century. 
See " Going Home to Vote," a pamphlet published by the Union Loyal League of Washington^ 
in which this speech is given. 



Pkogress and Close of Dennison's Administration. 63 

credited Avith twenty thousand seven hundred and fifty-one soldiers above and 
beyond all calls made by the President upon her.* He handled large sums of 
money beyond the authority of law and without the safeguard of bonded agents, 
and his accounts were honorably closed. 

His fate was indeed a singular one. The honest, patriotic discharge of his 
duty made him odious to an intensely patriotic people. With the end of his 
service he began to be appreciated. He was the most trusted counsellor and 
efficient aid to his successor. Though no longer more than a private citizen, he 
came to be recognized in and out of the State as her best spokesman in the De- 
partments at Washington. Those who followed him on the public stage, though 
with the light of his experience to guide them, did not (as in the case of most 
military men similarly situated) leave him in obscurity. Gradually he even 
became popular. The State began to reckon him among her leading public 
men, the party selected him as President of the great National Convention at 
Baltimore, and Mr. Lincoln called him to the Cabinet. 

* From calculations in final report of United States Provost Marshal-General Fry, Vol. I, 
p. 161. 



64 Ohio in the War. 



CHAPTER VII. 



GENERAL FEATURES OF THE FIRST YEAR OF TOD'S ADMINISTRATION. 



IN January, 1862, David Tod entered upon the duties of Governor of 
Ohio. He had been the candidate of the Democratic party for Governor 
in 1844, had run ahead of his ticket, and had come within a thousand 
votes of election ; had been a popular stump orator, the President of the Na- 
tional Douglas Democratic Convention at Baltimore, and for nearlj" five years 
United States Minister to Brazil. Then, for some years, he had been success- 
fully engaged in iron manufactures, and as President of the Cleveland and Ma- 
honing railroad. He brought, therefore, to the office the reputation of a good 
business man, of a j^olitical leader with experience and public honors, and an 
earnest patriot, ready, at the call of the country, to drojD old lirejudicea and 
party connections. Thus secure in advance in the confidence of the people, he 
entered upon a path which the trials of his predecessor had smoothed for him. 
His knowledge of affairs aided him in the business details of his office. The 
Legislature, now thoroughly aroused to the magnitude of the war, gave him a 
hearty co-operation. The staff left by his predecessor was trained by the expe- 
rience of the first crowded year, familiar with the work and its wants, and now 
able to give system to all the details of the military administration.* Governor 
Dennison had established military committees in every county in the State to : 
aid and advise him in the work of recruiting, and camps for the regiments not 
yet complete. At the outset there was little to do, save to continue these agen- 
cies, and to fill up the regiments in camp. 

'■ Governor Tqd retained the three chief officers of Governor Dennison's staff. Judge Ad- 
vocate-General Wolcott being called to the War Department, and Surgeon-General McMillen to 
the command of a regiment, he was compelled to fill their places with new men. His staff for 
the year 1862 was as follows : ^ 

Adjutant-General • C. P. Buckingham. 

[Resigned April 18, 1862, to enter War Department.] 

Adjutant-General Charles W. Hill. 

Quartermaster-General Geo. B. Wright. 

Commissary-General Columbus Delano. 

Judge Advocate-General Luther Day. 

Surgeon-General Gustave C. E. Weber. 

[Resigned, from ill-health, October, 1862.] 

Surgeon-General Samuel M. Smith. 

Aid-de-Camp Garretson J. Young. 



ToD's Administration. 65 

With trained assistants, an organized sj'stem, aiid the worlv thus graduallj' 
coming upon him, Governor Tod speedily mastered his new duties. There 
was no opjDortunit}'^ for distinguishing his administration by the redemption of 
a State, or the appointment of officers who were soon to reach the topmost round 
of popular favor, or the adoption of independent war measures during a tem- 
porary isolation fi'om the General Government. But what there was to do he 
did prudently, systematically, and with such judgment as to command the gen- 
eral approval of his constituents. 

The first feature of his administration was the care for the wounded of the 
State, sent home from the terrible field of Pittsburg Landing. Then he exer- 
cised a general care over tlie troops in the field, and established the system of 
State agencies at important jjoints for their benefit. The only other striking 
features of the first year of his incumbencj^ were the alarm about the capital 
and the rapid recruiting for its defense ; the filling of the State quotas under the 
President's calls, and the draft to complete them ; the arrests which hostility to 
the draft provoked; the alarms along the border, first for the safet}^ of Cincin- 
nati when Kirby Smith threatened it, and then for the upper Kentucky and West 
Virginia border; and the special efforts thus required for the State defense. 

The outline of these several subjects we ma}" now seek to trace. 

No great battles had, during Governor Dennison's administration, excited 
the sensibilities of the people in behalf of their wounded sons and brothers; 
and no system of supplementing the army treatment b}" State care for the 
wounded had been held necessary. The initial movements of 1862 did not lead 
to great losses in any of the armies over the theater of war where Ohio soldiers 
were now scattered. On the Potomac the quiet was still unbroken. In West 
Virginia the season was too inclement to permit extended operations. In Ken- 
tucky, save the battles of the Sandy Valley, of Wild Cat, andof Mill Springs, the 
advance to Nashville, and even to the northern border of Mississippi, was made 
almost without fighting. At Fort Donelson, and in the operations in Missouri, 
the losses of Ohio troops had been too small to arouse a general feeling of anx- 
iety in the State. 

But Pittsburg Landing was a sudden, startling shock, 

" And heavy to the ground the first dark drops of battle came." 

Then followed rumors of the sad slaughter and of the terrible suffering. The whole 
State was aroused. Men everywhere talked of it as a personal calamity, denounced 
its authors, and demanded haste to relieve its victims.* It was not till the 
afternoon of the 9th of April that authentic news of the great battles of the 6th 

* It was currently believed in the West, at the time, that the first day's disaster at Pittsburg 
Landing had been aggravated by the drunkenness of General Grant. He was a long time very un- 
popular, in consequence of his management at this battle, in the States whose troops suffered the 
most by it; and he was never fully re-instated in public confidence in the West till after the fall 
of Vicksburg. It need scarcely be said that the charges of drunkenness or needless absence 
were gross slanders. A discussion of the real causes of the disaster may be found in the suc- 
ceeding pages, part II, Life of Grant. 
Vol. L— 5 



66 Ohiointhe War. 

and 7th reached Cincinnati. The losses were reported at eighteen to twenty 
thousand. The Sanitary Commission at once ordered the charter of a steam- 
boat to visit the battle-field with surgeons, nurses, and stores, and within an 
hour the " Tycoon" was secured. Then, as the Quartermaster-General, in a dis- 
patch from Washington, assumed the expenses of this boat, the Commission, in 
the coui'se of the afternoon, chartered another, the "Monarch." 

Mayor Hatch had meantime chartered the "Lancaster No. 4" on the city's 
account. By dark she was equipped with supplies, hospital stores, a full corps 
of physicians and nurses under Doctors Blackman and Yattier, pi'ominent mem- 
bers of the profession in Cincinnati, and fifty members of the city police force, 
under Colonel Dudley, and was rapidly steaming down the river. G-overnor 
Tod, on being advised of this action, promptly telegraphed that the State would 
assume the expenses of this, the first boat ofi" to the scene of suffering ; and 
that he had selected thirty volunteer surgeons who, with the Lieutenant-G-ov- | 
ernor of the State, would arrive in Cincinnati the next morning, in time for "' 
passage on the "Monarch." 

At nine o'clock this same evening, a few hours after the departure of the 
"Lancaster No. 4," the " Tycoon" set out, likewise fully equipped, with twenty- 
three nurses, one hundred and fifty boxes of hospital supplies, and eleven 
physicians, at the head of whom was Dr. Mendenhall, another well-known 
practitioner of the city. Eight more physicians, under Dr. Comegys, were 
ready to go out in the morning on the "Monarch" with the thirty from Colum- 
bus.* Meanwhile the Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee to secure 
from the City Council appropriations to meet the expenses thus incurred, and 
the Sanitary Commission received from individuals who feared this aid, though 
certain, might be a few hours too late, cash contributions to the amount of over 
two thousand dollars for instant wants. Within a few hours citizens of Day- 
ton swelled this sum by forwarding five hundred more ; while the " sanitary 
supplies" in store were speedily augmented by generous shipments from 
Cleveland. 

The system thus inaugurated was kept up so long as there appeared any 
necessity for it. Ohio surgeons and nurses visited the great battle-field and the , 
hospitals along the rivers ; Ohio boats removed the wounded with tender care 
to the hospitals at Camp Dennison and elsewhere within the State ; the Ohio 
treasury was the sufficient warrant for any expenditures for the comfort of the 
sick or wounded, concerning the approval of which by the General Government 
there was doubt. At the close of the year it was announced in the official re- 
ports that the State had paid the expenses of eleven steamboats, sent to Pitts- 
burg Landing and other points along the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi 
Elvers for sick and wounded soldiers, amounting in the aggregate to forty -seven 

* Eli C. Baldwin, Charles F. Wilstach, and C. R. Fosdick were appointed a committee of 
the Sanitary Commission to take command of the "Tycoon." B. P. Baker, Larz Anderson, and 
J. H. Bates were a similar Committee for the " Monarch." Among the nurses off in the first boat, 
the "Lancaster No. 4," were ten Sisters of Charity. 



ToD's Administration. 67 

thousand thirty-eight dollars and seventy-five cents* — a sum which the j)ay and 
expenses of nurses, volunteer surgeons, etc., increased to seven thousand six 
hundred and eighty-three dollars and eighty-five cents. The Surgeon-General 
was likewise sent with over twenty surgeons to the battle-field of Antietam, a 
few months later; and in the autumn, to Penyville, with eight surgeons and a 
corps of nurses. Special agents were likewise sent to Louisville and Cleveland 
to look after suffering paroled prisoners, and to the troops in the Kanawha Val- 
ley and at other points where suffering was said to exist. In much of this work 
Dr. Samuel M. Smith, of Columbus (who soon after became Surgeon -General), 
was conspicuous. He was sent no less than five times in charge of steamboats 
to Pittsburg Landing, as well as once to Antietam. 

This system presently received a development in a new direction. "We 
have just spoken of the "agents of the Governor sent to the Kanawha Valley 
and elsewhere, on the reception of reports about the wants of Ohio troops in 
the respective localities. Another step was soon taken, of which this furnished 
the suggestion. 

The suffering on the battle-fields, and the subsequent distress of many poor 
men, discharged for disability or sent home on sick leave, whose ignorauce of 
the regulations delayed them in the settlement of their accounts, the procuring 
of transportation, and the scores of other things for which, in general, the sol- 
dier is accustomed to look to his oflScers, led to the establishment of a system 
of State agencies at the most important points. At first the only object con- 
templated was to care for and assist the sick and disabled soldiers found, unat- 
tended by friends, about the principal depots. Agencies for this purpose were 
established at Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Crestline, and Bellair.f Then, 
as the discharged soldiers seemed to have great difficulty in the settlement of 
their accounts — owing often to their own ignorance of the necessary details, and 
often to the negligence of their officers — the Quartermaster-General was charged 
with the duty of establishing an agency in his office, to which such soldiers could 
resoi't for gratuitous aid, and for protection from ravenous claim agents. Finally, 
as the excellent workings of the system were developed, and as the progress of 
the war increased the necessity for it, the agencies were gradually extended. Be- 
fore the close of the Governor's first year in office, they had been established at 
Cincinnati under the care of A. B. Lyman, and at Louisville under the care of 
Royal Taylor. He soon afterward started others, as the varying wants of the 
service indicated the necessity, at Washington under J. C. Wetmore, at Mem- 
phis under F. W. Bingham, at Cairo and St. Louis under Weston Flint, at 
Nashville under Eo}' al Taylor (who continued also to supexwise the Louisville 
agency), and at New York under B. P. Baker. 

* Governor's mes.sage, 5tli January, 1863, Report of Contingent Fund, p. 33. Some of the 
steamers made two or more trips. The names of those engaged were " Magnolia," "Glendale," 
"Tycoon," "Emma Duncan," "Lady Franklin," "Sunnyside," and " Lancaster No. 4." 

t The expense of these agencies for the year, including the subsistence furnished by them 
to suffering soldiers, was only one thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven dollars and fifty- 
eight cents. 



68 Ohio in the War. 

Gradually the care thus exerted by the State authorities over Ohio troops 
on the battle-field, in the hospital, and on the way to their homes, came to fbl--| 
low them in all their movements in the field. The General Govern raent. for aii 
time, allowed an insufficient number of surgeons. Under authority conferred! 
by the Legislature, Governor Tod supplemented this want (up to the time when 
Congress authorized assistant regimental Surgeons), by sending State Surgeons 
into the field. For this species of relief an expenditure of seven thousand eight 
hundred and twenty-two dollars and twenty-five cents was incurred. 

Presently, we find the Governor beginning to plead the case of Ohio troops- 
in the field with the authorities. The Second Ohio Cavahy was in some trouble" 
on the frontier. '.' The Kansas authorities," said Governor Tod, " do not com- 
mand my confidence ;" and thereupon he appealed to the Secretarj- of War to 
see to it that the court in the case should be comjiosed of officers " no\vays im- 
plicated or interested in the matter."* Reports were in circulation of troubles 
among the paroled Union prisoners in camp near Chicago. Thereupon an 
agent was sent to see what numb'er of Ohio troops were there and what was 
their condition. f In the alarm over Kirby Smith's invasion, raw troops, half 
equipped, were hurried into Kentucky. The Governor telegraphs to the Com- 
mander of the Department, begging that tents be sent them at once ;J in a little j 
time telegraphs again ; then sends a characteristic dispatch to Secretar}^ Stan- 
ton to the effect that it "is well he doesn't know whose fault it is, or he would 
whip the fellow if he were as strong as Samson ;"|| once more appeals to the 
Commander of the Department, and finallj^ solicits ex-Governor Dennison to 
visit head-quarters and give his personal attention to the matter. § The peculiar 
vein "crops out" again in a dispatch about the same time to the Cincinnati 
Quartermaster: "For God's sake, furnish our Ohio troops now in Kentucky 
with canteens,"'!^* but the humane purpose was accomplished. A Colonel sends 
him, from Rosecrans's battle-field of Corinth, a bloody flag, captured from a 
Texas regiment by private Orrin B. Gould, of company G, in the Twenty-Sev 
enth Ohio, who fell in the act. The Governor determines that the hero, though 
dead, shall be I'ewarded, and his family are accordingly gratified by the recep- 
tion of a Captain's commission for him.ff 

All this was well meant and productive of good. Scarcely so much could 
be said for this foolish dispatch : 

" The gallant people of Ohio are mortified to death over the rumored cowardice of Colonel 
Rodney Mason, of the Seventy-First Ohio, and in their behalf I demand that he have a fair but 
speedy trial; and, should he be convicted of cowardice, tliat the extreme penalty of the law be in- 
flicted upon him, for in that event we can not endure even his foul carcass upon our soil."± + 

The various forms of the efforts to raise troops and the alarm along the 
border, constitute the prominent remaining features of the first year of Gover- 
nor Tod's administration. 

When Stonewall Jackson, bursting unannounced into the Valley, scattered 

*Ex. Doc. 1862. Parti, p. 67. tibid. J Ibid, p. 72. ||Ibid, d. 77. 

§Ibid, p. 74. «-Ibid, p. 78 Ttlbid, p. 68. tJIbid, p. 71. 



ToD's Administration. 69 

the fragmentary armies of the fragmentary department commanders who held 
piecemeal possession therein, and created the liveliest apprehensions for the 
safety of Washington itself, the War Department issued a hasty appeal for 
troops to protect the Capital. In obedience to this, Governor Tod, on the 26th 
of Ma}-, 1862, published his proclamation calling for volunteei"8 for three months, 
for three years, or for temporary guard-duty within the limits of the State. 
The day before he had sent telegraphic dispatches to the military committees of 
every county in the State, announcing the "imminent danger" at Washington, 
assigning the number expected from each county, and urging that whoever was 
willing to volunteer should hurry to Camp Chase — the railroads being instructed 
,to pass such recruits to Columbus at the State's expense. 

The people responded promptly. At Cleveland a large meeting was held, 
and two hundred and fifty men immediately enlisted — among them twenty- 
seven out of the thirty-two students in attendance at the Law School. At 
Zanesville the fire bells rang out the alarm, and by ten o'clock a large meeting- 
had assembled at the court-house. Three hundred men enlisted before three 
in the afternoon. Court was in session, but the Judge announced that it was 
adjourned sine die, as he and the lawj-ers were all going to join in the military 
movement. The Judge at Bellefontaine hastened to enlist.* At Putnam only 
three unmarried men between the ages of eighteen and thirty were left in the 
town. At Western Eeserve College twenty of the college cadets volunteered ou 
the day of the call, and more followed the next morning. 

In all five thousand volunteers reported at Camp Chase under this call — the 
majority of them within the first and second days after its issue. The men 
were permitted to elect their company officers, and the field and staff were at 
once appointed, so that the organization was almost as sudden as the enlistment. 
Within ten days after the call, the first of the new regiments, the Eighty-Fourth, 
was dispatched to the field. The Eighty-Sixth and Eighty -Eighth soon fol- 
lowed; while the Eighty-Fifth and Eighty-Seventh organized for duty within 
the State, relieved other troops for the front, and afterward furnished from their 
ranks considerable numbers of volunteers for active service. 

Up to this time Governor Tod had been called upon to undertake no work 
of importance connected with the raising of troops, save to fill up the regi- 
ments which Governor Dennison had left nearly completed. The progress that 
had been made in this work may be sufficiently set forth in tabular form, as 
follows: 

43d Infantry, Colonel J. L. Kirby Smith, completed 14th February, 1862. 

46th " " Thomas Worthington, completed 20th January, 1862. 

48th " " Peter J. Sullivan, completed 16tli January, 1862. • 

53d " " Jesse J. Appier, completed 3d February, 1862. 

54th " " Thomas Kilby Smith, completed 6tli February, 1862. 

55th " " J. C. Lee, sent to field 25th January, 1862. 

56th " " Peter Kinney, sent to lield 10th February, 1862. 

57th " " Wm. Mungen, completed 10th February 1862. 

■•■•Judge Wm. Lawrence, since member of Congress. He became Colonel of the__first three 
months' regiment thus raised, the Eighty Fourth Ohio. 



70 ■ Ohio in the War. 

68th Infantry, Colonel Valentine Bausenwein, completed 3d February, 1862. 

60th " " Wm. H. Trimble, completed 25th February, 1862. 

eist " " N. Schleich, completed 1st May, 1862. 

62d " " F. B. Pond, sent to field 17th January, 1862. 

63d " " J. W. Sprague, sent to field 18th February, 1862. 

66th " " Charles Candy, sent to field 16th January, 1862. 

68th " " Samuel H. Steedman, sent to field 7th February, 1862. 

69th " " Lewis D. Campbell, completed 24th March, 1862. 

70th " " J. R. Cockerill, completed, 3d February, 1862. 

71st " " Rodney Mason, sent to field 10th February, 1862. 

72d " " R. P. Buckland, sent to field 15th February, 1862. 

73d " " Orland Smith, sent to field 23d January, 1862. 

74th " " Granville Moody, completed 28th February, 1862. 

75th " " N. C. McLean, sent to field 23d January, 1862. 

76th " " Charles R. Woods, completed 9th February, 1862. 

77th " " Jesse Hildebrand, completed 5th February, 1862. 

78th " " M. D. Leggett, sent to field 10th February, 1862. 

80th " " E. R. Eckley, sent to field 20th February, 1862. 

82d " " James Cantwell, sent to field 23d January, 1862. 

6th Cavalry, " W. R. Lloyd, sent to field 13th March, 1862. 

Two or three of the attempted organizations jiroved unsuccessful, and the 
companies raised were attached to other commands. The impetus given to the 
othei'8 during the close of Governor Dennison's administration was sufficient, as 
may be seen above, to carry them to completion and into the field very soon 
after Governor Tod's inauguration. 

Toward the close of May the Governor was beginning to prepare for rais- 
ing three new regiments, when the sudden alarm about Washington interfered. 
There followed the hasty mustering of three months' men we have already de- 
scribed. Then, till the middle of July, three regiments for the war, the Forty- 
Fifth, Fiftieth, and Fifty-Second, had the range of the entire State for recruit- 
ing. They grew slowly, and the work of raising troops seemed to have come 
almost to an end. 

Meantime, in June, had come the President's call for three hundred thous- 
and, and soon after for three hundred thousand more, clo&ely following on the 
failure of the peninsular campaign, and the stupor that seemed to have befallen 
the armies in the South-west. Under these calls (not counting the previous 
excess of credits) the quota of Ohio was seventy-four thousand ; for thirty- 
seven thousand of which, under the recent legislation of Congress, the State mi- 
litia was liable to draft. It was evident that some new plan must be devised 
for raising these troops. The community that was spending a whole summer in 
filling three regiments was not likely, within a couple of months, to fill ten 
times as many fresh ones. 

From this point may be reckoned the beginning of the radical error by 
which all subsequent recruiting in Ohio, and in the sister States as well. Avas 
poisoned. Men had an instinctive repugnance to a draft ; an unwise fondness 
for being able to say that all the soldiers from the State were volunteers. It 
followed that if actual volunteers did not present themselves, artificial stimu- 
lants must be employed to produce them. Thus it came about that the burdens 



ToD's Administeation. 71 

of the war rested, not eqiiiilly upon all, but heaviest upon the most ardent, the 
most willing, and the most patriotic; and that ultimately, when this class was 
measurably exhausted, those to whom money, rather than patriotism, was a 
controlling consideration, became " volunteers " through the use of enormoup 
bribes in the shape of bounties. Upon two classes came the whole weight of 
the Avar — the most willing and the most purchasable. There were many fea- 
tures about this unwise jDolicy which commended it alike to the tenderness and 
the pride of public feeling. It prevented the exceptional cases of peculiar hard- 
ship which no care could have kept the draft from inflicting; it heaped upon 
tho?e who were willing to fight the rewards which a grateful community felt 
that they deserved ; it ministered to the vanity which was unwilling to ac- 
knowledge the necessity of a draft in a particular locality to secure its quota of 
soldiers for the war. 

If at the outset the volunteering had been confined exclusively to the regi- 
ments needed under former calls, and it had been distinctly announced that a 
draft would be held to fill the whole quota under the new call, and no volunteers 
therefor would be accepted, a better system might have been inaugurated, to 
which a relieved treasury and a diminished tax list might even now be bearing 
testimony. 

But the considerations in favor of the volunteering sj'stem were held con- 
clusive. The surrounding States adhered to it. The people revolted from the 
idea of a draft. Some States and many communities were beginning, the offer 
of a local bounty. The Government was about to offer a National bounty. 
The leading newspapers were calling upon the Governor to " take the responsi- 
bilit}'," and make a similar offer for the State. 

This he did not do ; but the opportunity for adopting the draft as the sys- 
tematic, fair, and common mode of raising such troops as were called for was 
lost. Following the bent of public temper, and undoubtedly cai-rying out the 
wishes of those who had elected him, the Governor proceeded with an effort to 
distribute the new quota equitably among the several counties, and to secure 
the proper number of volunteers from each. The draft, if used at all, was only 
to be held as a last resort for filling irremediable deficiencies. 

Up to this time it was estimated that one hundred and fifteen thousand two 
hundred voluntary enlistments had been made in the State, and from this num- 
ber over sixty thousand three years' troops were then in the field.* It was 
only by localizing the regiments, making the completion of each one the par- 
ticular duty of a particular region, that the work could again be made popular. 
An order was therefore issued, on the 9th of July, making the following 
assignments : 

FIRST DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP DENNISON. 

The Seventy-Ninth and Eighty-Third Regiments will be raised in -the counties of Hamilton, 
Warren, and Clinton; the Eighty-Ninth in Clermont, Brown, Highland, and Eoss ; the Ninetieth 
in Fayette, Pickaway, Hocking, Vinton, Fairfield, and Perrry. (Eendezvoused at Circleville.) 

■■ Governor'.? Annual Message for 1802, p. 5. 



72 Ohio in the Wae. 



SECOND DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP PORTSMOUTH. 

The Ninety-First Kegiment will be raised in the counties of Adams, Scioto, Lawrence, Pike, 
Jackson, and Gallia. 

THIRD DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP MARIETTA. 

The NinetyTSecond Regiment will be raised in the counties of Meigs, Athens, Washington 
Noble, and Monroe. 

FOURTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP DAYTON. 

The Ninety-Third Eegiment will be raised in the counties of Butler, Preble, and Montgom- 
ery ; the Ninety-Fourth in Greene, Clarke, Miami, and Darke. 

FIFTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP CHASE. 

The Ninety-Fifth Regiment will be raised in the counties of Champaign, Madison, Frank- 
lin, and Licking; the Ninety-Sixth in Logan, Union, Delaware, Marion, Morrow, and Knox. 
(Rendezvoused at Delaware.) 

SIXTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP ZANESVILLE. 

The Ninety-Seventh Regiment will be raised in the counties of Morgan, Muskingum, Guern- 
sey, and Coshocton. 

SEVENTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP STEUBENVILLE. 

The Ninety-Eighth Regiment will be raised in the counties of Belmont, Tuscarawas, Harri- 
son, Jefferson, and Carroll. 

EIGHTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP LIMA. 

The Njnety-Ninth Regiment will be raised in the counties of Shelby, Mercer, Auglaize, 
Hardin, Allen, Van Wert, Putnam, and Hancock. 

NINTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP TOLEDO. 

The One Hundredth Regiment will be raised in the counties of Paulding, Defiance, Henry, 
Wood, Sandusky, Williams, Fulton, Lucas, and Ottawa. 

TENTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP MANSFIELD. 

The One Hundred and First Regiment will be raised in the counties of Wyandot, Crawford, 
Seneca, Huron, and Erie. (Rendezvoused at Monroeville) ; the One Hundred and Second in 
Richland, Ashland, Holmes, and Wayne. 

ELEVENTH DISTRICT — RENDEZVOUS AT CAMP CLEVELAND. 

The One Hundred and Third Regiment will be raised in the counties of Lorain, Medina, 
and Cuyahoga; the One Hundred and Fourth in Stark, Columbiana, Summit, and Portage. 
(Rendezvoused at Massillon); the One Hundred and Fifth in Mahoning, Trumbull, Geauga, 
Lake, and Ashtabula. 

The military committees of the counties within the several districts Avere 
consulted' as to the appointment of oflScers for their respective regiments, and 
the work speedily received a fresh impulse. Each community took a special 
interest in filling its own regiment, and in "getting clear of the draft." Mor- 
gan's invasion of Kentucky, speedil}' followed by that of Kirby Smith, had an 
excellent effect in stimulating these efforts; and the alarm alone: the West Vir- 
ginia border very happil}^ co-operated toward the same end. The regiments 
were assigned, as we have seen, on the 9th of July, 1862. How rapidly they 
were filled may be gathered from the following table : 



ToD'S Administration. 73 

lOOth Regiment rendezvoused at Toledo; was full on 8th August. 

93d " " Dayton; was full on 9th August. 

99th " " Lima; was full on 11th August. 

105th " " Cleveland; was full on 11th August. 

96th " ' Delaware; was full on 12th August. 

94th " " Piqua; was full on 14th August. 

101st " " Monroeville; was full on 14th August. 

104th " " Massillon ; was full on 17th August. 

92d " " Marietta; was full on 15th August. 

98th " " Steubenville ; was full on 15th August. 

95th " " Camp Chase; was full on 16th August. 

102d " " Mansfield; was full on 18th August. 

103d " " Cleveland; was full on 18th August. 

89th " " Camp Dennison ; was full on 22d August. 

90th " " Circleville ; was full on 22d August. 

91st " " Portsmouth ; was full on 22d August. 

97th " " Zanesville ; was full on 22d August. 

The Hamilton County regiments, the Seventy-Ninth and Eighty-Third, 
were less successful. Two Grerman ones, raised south of the National Road, 
the One Hundred and Sixth, Colonel Tafel, and the One Hundred and Eighth, 
Colonel Limberg, were however nearly filled in August, when they were or- 
dered in their incomplete state into Kentucky, only, as it proved, to be speedily 
captured. The One Hundred and Seventh, Colonel Meyer, another German 
regiment, raised north of the National Eoad, was complete b}^ 6th September. 
Efforts by Captain O'Dowd to raise an Irish Catholic regiment proved futile, 
and excited the wrath of the State Adjutant-General to such a pitch that he 
reported: " If the intention had been to enlist men to stay at home and be 
exempt from the draft, no change of proceedings would have been required to 
effect these objects.* 

Other regiments were, about the middle of August, assigned as follows: 

Recruits from Greene, Clark, Miami, and Darke, to the 110th, to rendezvous at Camp Piqua. 
" " Paulding, Defiance, Henry, Wood, Sandusky, Williams, Fulton, Lucas, and 

Ottawa, to the 111th, to rendezvous at Toledo. 
" " Montgomery, to the 112th, to rendezvous at Camp Dayton. 

" " Champaign, Madison, Franklin, and Licking, to the 113th, to rendezvous at Camp 

Chase. 
•' " Fayette, Pickaway, Fairfield, Perry, Hocking, and Vinton, to the 114th to rendez- 

vous at Camp Circleville. 
" " Stark, Columbiana, Summit, and Portage, to the 115th, to rendezvous at Camp 

Massillon. 
" '< Meigs, Athens, Washington, Noble, and Monroe, to the 116th, to rendezvous at 

Camp Marietta. 
" " Adams, Scioto, Pike, Jackson, Lawrence, and Gallia, to the 117th, to rendezvous 

at Camp Portsmouth. 
" " the Eighth Military District, to the 118th, to rendezvous at Camp Lima. 

" Hamilton, Butler, Preble, Warren, and Clinton, to the 119th, to rendezvoiw at 

Camp Dennison. 
' " RirUand, Ashland, Holmes, and Wayne, to the 120th, to rendezvous at Camp 

Mansfield. 

♦Adjutant-General's Report for 1862. 



74 Ohio in the War. 

Recruits from Logan, Union, Delaware, Marion, Morrow, and Knox, to the 121st, to rendezvous 

at Camp Delaware. 
" " the Sixth Military District, to the 122d, to rendezvous at Camp Zanesville. 

" " Wyandot, Crawford, Seneca, Huron, and Erie, to the 123d, to rendezvous at Camp 

Monroeville. 
" " Medina, Lorain, and Cuyahoga, to the 124th, to rendezvous at Camp Cleveland. 

" " Mahoning, Trumbull, Geauga, Lake, and Ashtabula, to the 125th, to rendezvous at 

Camp Cleveland. 
" " Belmont, Tuscarawas, Harrison, Jefferson, and Carroll, to the 126th, to rendezvous 

at Camp Steubenville. 

Of these the Adjutant-General was able before the end of the year, 1862, 

to report the majority full, as follows : 

• 

110th Regiment rendezvoused at Piqua; was full* on 3d October. 

111th " " Toledo; was full on 27th August. 

115th " " Massillon ; was full on 22d August. 

114th " " Circleville; was full on 22d August. 

120th " " Mansfield; was full on 10th September. 

121st " " Delaware; was full on 11th September. 

123d " " Monroeville ; was full on 26th September. 

122d " " Zanesville; was full on 8th October. 

126th " " Steubenville; was full on 11th October. 

116th " " ■ Marietta; was full on 28th October. 

118th " " Lima; was full on 5th December. 

Most of the others were also in a fair way for speedy completion. Some 
new batteries were also raised, and the "Elver Eegiment" (Seventh) of Cav- 
alry, and several more organizations of each arm were begun. 

Meantime this effort to fill the quota by volunteering involved a necessary 
but very grave evil. Eecruits could not be secured save by multiplying organi- 
zations, and so making energetic recruiting agents of the new officers, whose 
commissions depended upon the completion of their commands. The number 
of regiments and of officers thus grew out of all proportion to the numbef of 
men; and the thinned ranks at the front, which most of all needed recruits, and 
in which these recruits could be most speedily fitted for active service, received 
scarcely any. 

Governor Tod did his best to change this unfortunate shape of affairs ; but 
the vice was inherent in the system. The tendency was all to the new regi- 
ments ; the public excitement and effort were in regard to them ; the State was 
filled with their agents. In the too rare cases in which the regiments in the 
field sent home officers to recruit, the difference in their operations was pithily 
stated by the Governor in one of his official letters: "The great trouble is that 
the recruiting officers sent home have their commissions in their pockets, and 
thus situated, encounter at every corner recruiting officei's who have their com- 
missions to earn." He proposed that commanders of regiments should send 
home non-commissioned officers or privates, with the px'omise of commissions, 
provided they should recruit a given number of men; but this sagacious hint 

* In point of fact one company was missing at this date — being only partiaiiy full — but the 
regiment was then ordered to the field in Kentucky. 



ToD's Administration. 75 

was not adopted. Then he suggested to the Secretary of War that the compa- 
nies of the weakest regiments should be consolidated, and that the oflScers of the 
companies thus broken up should be sent home to recruit — their remaining in 
the service to be conditional upon their success. Still striving to fill up the old 
organizations, he next adopted the plan of giving commissions for the lower 
vacancies in certain regiments to men who had not hitherto been in the service, 
on condition that they should take with them to the field a certain number of 
recruits. But the well-meant effort awakened at once the most outspoken hos- 
tility. OflScers in the field naturall}^ complained that their chances for promo- 
tion were injured by this foisting in above them of men who had won rank not 
by fighting but by recruiting; and they took the very sensible ground that it 
was the duty of those who stayed at home to keep their files full. Yet they 
should have seen that this was impossible so long as the volunteering system 
made rank the reward of recruiting agents, and service at home a surer way of 
securing it than service at the front — in short, as we have already said, that the 
vice was inherent in the system. 

The only serious diflBculties between the Governor and the officers in the 
field grew out of this subject. Some refused to recognize the commissions which 
he had given to recruiting agents, or permit them to be mustered into the service 
as belonging to their regiments. Two, out of the many tart letters thus evoked, 
will serve to illustrate the difficulty : 

The State of Ohio, Executive Department, '^ 
Columbus, November 7, 1862. j 

Lieutenant-Colonel E.W. Hollingsworth, Nineteenth Regiment 0. V. I,, Columbia, Kentucky : 

Dear Sir: — Your letter of the 1st inst., by Lieutenant Case, is before me. I am surprised, 
Colonel, that you should be so short-sighted as not to second my efforts in filling up your regi- 
ment. To save the existence of your regiment, and thereby the oflBcial existence of yourself, I 
appointed Lieutenant Case as Second-Lieutenant, upon condition that he recruit thirty men for 
your regiment, and take them with him. He could much more easily have earned a position for 
himself by recruiting for a new regiment, but my fear that the gallant old Nineteenth might be 
attached to some other old regiment, and thereby strike from the rolls its brave officers, induced 
me to urge him to recruit for it. Notwithstanding the bad taste of your letter, I have ordered 
Lieutenant Case to return to you again, and ask of you that you either assign him to duty or 
give him up his men, that he may find a place in some other old regiment, the officers of which 
may be able to appreciate that the Secretary of War will not keep regiments in the field simply 

to make place for officers. 

Respectfully yours, 

DAVID TOD, Governor. 

The State of Ohio, Executive Department, ") 
Columbus, November 27, 1862. J 

Colonel J. G. Hawkins, Thirteenth Regiment 0. V. I., Silver Springs, Tennessee: 

Sir: — Deeply as I regret to differ with you, I can not comply with your wishes as to Lieu- 
tenant Charles Crawford. 

To preserve the existence of your regiment, as I supposed, I offered this young man the po- 
sition of Second-Lieutenant, upon the express condition that he recruit a given number of men 
within a time specified. In thus doing I supposed that I was laboring for the interests of your 
regiment, and therein for the best interests of the Government. Lieutenant Crawford more than 
performed his part of the agreement — he recruited fifty-two men — and you must not interfere 
with its performance on my part. 

Very respectfully yours, 

DAVID TOD, Governor. 



76 Ohio in the War. 

In spite of these difficulties considerable numbers for the old regiments 
were secui'ed by the persistent efforts of the Governor, whose sagacity was no- 
where more consj^icuous than in perceiving this to be the essential necessity of 
the recruiting service. By the end of the year it was estimated that, of the 
troops raised in various ways throughout the State during the last eight months, 
about twenty-four thousand had gone to fill the wasted ranks at the front. 

A final opportunity to break away from the volunteering system was lost. 
When the orders of the Secretary of War for a draft were issued, many locali- 
ties seemed disposed to slacken their efforts and await it. Thereupon, on the 5th 
of August, the Governor addressed the military committees, by means of a cir- 
cular published in the newspapers: 

"The recent order of the Secretary of War in relation to drafting may cause diversity of 
opinion and action among you. Hence I deem it proper to urge that you proceed in your efforts 
to complete the regiments heretofore called for, and fill up those already in the field, as though 
tlie recent order had not been promulgated ; and it is hoped that the generous and liberal offers 
now being made all over the State, in the shape of bounties to recruits, will not be withdrawn or 
interfered with. It is believed that with continued vigorous efforts the regiments may be filled 
up by the fifteenth." 

And then, as the Government found it necessary to make still further post- 
ponements of the draft, the Governor again (1st September) addressed the mili- 
tary committees : 

"For the new regiments there are wanted about two thousand men, and for the old regi- 
ments about twenty-one thousand men, or, in all, about twenty-three thousand. Can this force 
be raised by voluntary enlistment, and thereby save the trouble, expense, and vexation of resort- 
ing to drafting in Ohio? It is believed that it can be. More than twice that number has been 
raised within the past few weeks ; and surely, the gallant men of Ohio are not weary in their 
good work." 

For the original prejudice against the draft as a systematic and permanent 
mode of sustaining the army, Governor Tod was not responsible. But it is thus 
seen how he fell in with and finally led the opposition to it. 

After all, the draft came. It was postponed to the 15th of September. The 
number then deficient was twenty thousand four hundred and twenty-seven ; 
and it was further postponed to the 1st of October. On the 1st of September 
only thirteen counties had filled their quotas. On the 1st of October only thir- 
teen more had escaped the draft, and it was finally ordered for twelve thousand 
two hundred and fifty-one. The Secretary of War appointed six Provost-Mar- 
shals: Charles F. Wilstach of Cincinnati, AVells A. Hutchins of Portsmouth, M. 
G. Mitchell of Piqua, Henr}- C. Noble of Columbus, Charles T. Sherman of 
Mansfield, and J. L. Weatherby of Cleveland. The State was divided into six 
districts and assigned to these gentlemen, under whose supervision the draft 
proceeded — each community striving by high and higher bounties, and by every 
form of individual effort, continued to the last moment, to escape. 

The counties that filled their quotas before the draft was ordered, and those 
that filled them after its first postponement, with the number of enrolled militia 
and the whole number of volunteers furnished in each, from the outbreak of the 



ToD's Administkation. 



77 



war up to tlie 1st of October, 1862, together with the number then drafted, maT 
be found set forth in the followino; table : 



COUNTIES. 



Number 

of 

Eniolliufut. 



Adams 

Allen 

Ashland 

Ashtabula ... 

Athens 

Auglaize 

Belmont 

Brown 

Butler 

Carroll 

Champaign 

Clark 

Clermont ... 

Clinton 

Columbiana . 
Coshocton — 
Crawford .... 
Cuyahoga.... 

Darke 

Defiance 

Delaware — 

Erie 

Fairfield 

Fayette 

Franklin 

Fulton 

Gallia 

Geauga 

Greene 

Guernsey 

Hamilton — 

Hancock 

Hardin 

Harrison 

Henry 

Highland 

Hocking 

Holmes 

Huron 

Jackson 

Jefferson 

Kno.v 

Lake 

Lawrence — 

Licking 

Logan 

Lorain 

Lucas 

Madison 

Mahoning .... 

Marion 

Medina 

Meigf 

Mercer 

Miami 

Monroe 

Montgomery 

Morgan 

Morrow 



3,920 
3,792 
4,033 
5,945 
4,297 
3,282 
5,973 
5,V27 
(5,544 
2,615 
4,112 
4,838 
6,191 
3,910 
5,738 
4,299 
4,524 
14,360 
4,913 
2,535 
4,430 
4,223 
4,878 
3,243 
7,841 
2,792 
3,832 
2,711 
5,099 
3,961 
39,926 
4,156 
3,077 
3,277 
1,559 
4,755 
2,935 
3,522 
5,318 
3,221 
4,379 
4,981 
2,579 
4,062 
6,595 
3,924 
5,496 
5,918 
2,909 
4,895 
3,213 
3,858 
4,736 
2,530 
5,814 
4,489 
8,959 
3,872 
3,530 



Number 

of 

Volunteers 

to the 1st 
September. 



1,428 
1,411 
1,322 
2,129 
1,963 
1,102 
2,217 
1,753 
2,759 

850 
1,493 
1,869 
' 2,295 
1,424 
1,830 
1,490 
1,161 
4,874 
1,503 

813 
1,724 
1,532 
1,888 
1,278 
3,105 

931 
1,288 

983 
1,889 
1,445 
14,795 
1,260 
1,197 
1,098 

704 
1,711 
1,195 

962 
1,914 
1,058 
1,856 
1,630 

945 
1,852 
2,208 
1,635 
1,704 
2,143 
1,095 
1,501 

929 
1,112 
1,716 

814 
2,120 
1,694 
2,822 
1,309 
1,179 



Number 

ordered to be 

drafted 



137 
105 

289 
238 

210 
172 
294 

189 
152 

75 
177 
139 
465 
227 
642 
869 
458 
202 

46 
157 

60 

18 

31 
185 
244 
100 
150 
138 
1,175 
404 

35 
215 

78 
185 



447 
202 
230 

361 



430 

493 
225 
71 
457 
356 
431 
177 
198 
205 
100 
755 
237 
232 



Number of 
Volunteers 
and correc- 
tions to 1st 
October. 



Number 
drafted. 



164 

139 

86 

146 

"46 

71 

165 

"'*64 

212 

102 

201 

41 

256 

29 

62 

569 

141 

39 

15 

94 

35 

39 

371 

90 

35 

42 

25 

138 

1,529 

27 

55 

10 

24 

4 



41 
153 

172 

59 

29 

69 

206 

419 

43 

80 

116 



341 
39 
93 
65 
29 



78 



Ohio in the Wak, 



COUNTIES. 



Number 

of 

Enrollment. 



Number 

of 

Volunteers 

to the 1st 

September. 



Number 

ordered to be 

drafted. 



Number 
Volunteers 
and correc- 
tions to 1st 

October. 



Number 
drafted. 



Muskingum 

Noble 

Ottaway 

Paulding 

Perry 

Pickaway .... 

Pike 

Portage 

Preble 

Putnam 

Richland 

Ross 

Sandusky .... 

Scioto 

Seneca 

Shelby 

Stark 

Summit 

Trumbull 

Tuscarawas .. 

Union 

Van Wert.... 

Vinton 

Warren 

Washington 

Wayne 

Williams 

Wood 

Wvandot 



Total 



7,020 
3,617 
1,587 
1,025 
3,104 
4,294 
2,353 
4,420 
3,575 
2,459 
5,870 
5,853 
4,387 
4,797 
5,497 
2,602 
7,910 
5,076 
5,997 
5,757 
3,059 
2,172 
2,446 
5,352 
6,089 
5,786 
3,175 
3,699 
3,322 



425,147 



2,314 

961 

575 

458 

1,145 

1,933 

1,060 

1,261 

1,307 

869 

1,970 

2,687 

1,403 

2,116 

2,001 

990 

2,477 

1,622 

1,937 

1,739 

1,161 

685 

1,002 

1,842 

2,243 

1,847 

975 

1,487 

1,304 



151,301 



489 

483 

58 

Ve 



503 
124 
114 
377 

351 

196 

52 
686 
411 
461 
564 

62 
182 

298 
193 
467 
295 

"is 



20,427 



182 

145 

21 

"52 



190 
37 
39 

150 

163 
94 
63 
11 

145 
55 

218 

140 

9 

31 

246 
86 
98 
71 

12 



307 

339 

37 

44 



313 

87 
75 

227 

188 

127 
41 
541 
356 
243 
424 
53 
151 

52 
107 
369 
224 



9,508 



12,251 



Three hundred and fifty-nine of those thus drafted were released on the 
ground of belonging to churches conscientiously opposed to fighting, as follows: 



Ashland 8 

Belmont 2 

Clinton 9 

Columbiana 3 

Crawford 7 

Darke 18 

Defiance 11 

Delaware 1 

Erie 2 

Fulton 5 

Gallia 4 

Greene 7 

Hancock 3 



Henry 1 

Holmes 72 

Jackson 1 

Knox 9 

Licking 2 

Mahoning 12 

Marion 2 

Medina 3 

Monroe 12 

Mercer 6 

Montgomery 78 

Morgan 7 



Muskingum 3 

Perry 2 

Putnam 8 

Richland 1 

Sandusky 1 

Stark 16 

Summit 3 

Tuscarawas 11 

Van Wert 1 

Warren 4 

Wayne 20 

Williams 2 



Morrow 1 

Total 359 

Opposed from the outset as something discreditable, the draft naturally 
failed to accomplish all that its advocates had expected. Of the twelve thou- 
sand to be drafted, about four thousand eight hundred either in person or by 
substitute volunteered after the draft; two thousand nine hundred were for 
various reasons discharged; one thousand nine hundred ran away, and the old 



ToD's Administeation. 



regiments received only the beggarly re-enforcement of two thousand four hun- 
dred. How these were distributed may be seen in part from the following: 



AT CAMP CLEVEI^AND, 



November 20, 1862, to the 6th Regiment O. V. Cavalry 69 men. 

" 20, " " 38th " " Infantry 83 " 



20, 


u 


11 


41st 


20, 


(I 


It 


42d 


20, 


(( 


<( 


72d 



11 

23 
44 



Total 230 



AT CAMP DENNISON. 



November 19, 1862, to the 25th Regiment O. V. Infantry . 



19, 


(( 




30th 


17, 


(( 




36th 


19, 


It 




62d 


19, 


It 




69th 


19, 


li 




70th 


19, 


tt 




77th 



Total 



15 men. 

12 " 

32 " 

30 " 

11 " 

2 " 

60 " 

162 



AT CAMP MANSFIEIiD. 



November 11, 1862, to the 16th Regiment O. V. Infantry. 



" 


12, 


a 


(( 


19th 


(1 


13, 


11 


a 


20th 


u 


13, 


(1 


a 


21st 


December 


9, 


(( 


11 


27th 


November 11, 


(1 


(! 


37th 




13, 


" 


(1 


41st 




13, 


(1 


(( 


42d 




13, 


it 


(( 


43d 




13, 


(( 


(( 


46th 




11, 


(( 


(1 


49th 




13, 


" 


(( 


5l8t 




14, 


(( 


(( 


56th 




13, 


11 


(( 


57th 




13, 


<i 


(( 


64th 




12, 


" 


II 


76th 




12, 


(1 


« 


82d 



90 


men 


91 


" 


116 


II 


54 


II 


9 


<i 


56 


'« 


26 


II 


47 


II 


50 


II 


25 


II 


77 


I 


17 


1. 


65 


II 


129 


II 


93 


II 


80 


II 


53 


II 



Total 1,078 



AT CAMP ZANESVILLE. 



November 11, 1862, to the 2d Regiment O. V. Infantry. 



10, 




It 


43d 


11, 




II 


46th 


10, 




II 


51st 


10, 




" 


65th 


6, 




II 


76th 


11, 




II 


78th 


10, 




II 


80th 



Total 



The deficiencies from runaway drafted men were soon more than 
by voluntary enlistments, so that at the end of the year the Governor 



19 


men, 


55 




3 




34 




44 




130 




16 




25 


t> 


326 




made 


up 


was 


able 



«u 



Ohio liS^ the Wak. 



to report the State ahead of all calls upon her, and his Adjutant-General to 
reckon up the sum of Ohio's contributions to the war at one hundred and sev- 
enty-thousand one hundred and twenty-one men — not counting the first three 
months' men who had re-enlisted, the recruits for the regular army, or those 
found in the naval service, or in organizations credited to other States. 

In so far as the appointment of new officers for these tx'oops fell uijon him, 
Governor Tod acted upon excellent principles. As far as possible he sought to 
secure for the leading officers men already in the service, whose conduct had 
shown them worthy of promotion. Thus the Colonels of a number of new reg- 
iments were chosen as follows : 



Colonel Runkle, late Lieutenant-Colonel 13th O. V. 1. 

" D. McCook, late Captain on General StafF. 

" Kennett, late Lieutenant-Colonel 27th O. V. L 

" Moore, late Captain 5th O. V. I. 

" Turley, late Lieutenant-Colonel 22d and 81st O. V. L 

" Van Vorlies, late Quartermaster 18th O. V. I. 

" Frizell, late Lieutenant-Colonel 11th O. V. L 

" Webster, late Lieutenant-Colonel 25th O, V. L 

" Langworthy, late Captain 49th O. V. L 

" Groom, late Major 84th O. V. I. 

" Casement, late Major 7th O. V. I. 

" Hall, late Lieutenant-Colonel 24th O. V. L 

Tafel, late Captain 9th O. V. I. 

" Limberg, late Captain in Kentucky Regiment. 

" Keifer, late Lieutenant-Colonel .3d O. V. I. 

" Bond, late Lieutenant-Colonel 67th O. V. I. 

" Lucy, late Captain 32d O. V. I. 

" Washburn, late Captain 25th O. V. I. 

" Mott, late Captain 31st O. V. I. 

" French, late Lieutenant-Colonel 65th O. Y. I. 

" Reed, late Brigadier-General of Militia. 

" Wilson, late Lieutenant-Colonel 15th O. V. I. 

" Payne, late Captain in Illinois Regiment. 

" Opdycke, late Captain 41st O. V. I. 

" Smith, late Captain 6th U. S. L, and Colonel 1st O. V. I. 

So far as possible the Governor assiduously sought to secure men for the 
lower offices in the same way. Many obstacles, however, were encountered, 
from the unwillingness of the War Department to grant furloughs to good offi- 
cers in the midst of active campaigns, merely that they might go home on re- 
cruiting duty. Of course the majority of the appointments had to be taken 
from civil life. In the selection of these Governor Tod relied largely upon the 
recommendations of the county military committees. He was quite as success- 
ful as could have been anticipated ; and the troops of the State thus continued 
to bo, in the main, well-officered. 

During the progress of these efforts to fill up the army, difficulties were 
from time to time thrown in the way by persons hostile to the war. The most 
conspicuous perhaps of these was Dr. Edson B. Olds of Lancaster, a Democratic 
politician of some local prominence. His speeches were considered by Gover- 



45th 


Regiment, 


52d 


(( 


79th 


(( 


83d 


(1 


91st 


« 


92d 


(f 


94th 


.( 


98th 


" 


99th 


a 


100th 


(( 


103d 


(1 


105th 


u 


106th 


(1 


108th 


It 


110th 


(C 


111th 


t( 


115th 


(( 


113th 


It 


118th 


" 


120th 


u 


121st 


<( 


123d 


a 


124th 


" 


.125th 


« 


126th 


. u 



ToD's Administeation. 81 

nor Tod as calculated to discourage enlistments so seriously that he recom- 
mended the Washington authorities to arrest him, under the provisions of the 
proclamation suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Dr. Olds was accordingly 
arrested on the evening of the 12th of August by a couj)le of United States 
officers. Some resistance was attempted by one or more members of the family, 
but it proved ti-ifling, and the prisoner was conveyed with little difficulty out of 
town, and sent forward to Fort Lafayette, where the United States authorities 
continued to hold him for many months. 

Arrests of some other parties of less prominence followed. In all, eleven 
were made — only two of which were on the Governor's recommendation. 

He likewise felt constrained, in one instance, to interfere with the organiza- 
tion of a military force. About the time Cincinnati was threatened by the 
Eebel columns operating in Kentucky, a Democratic meeting was held in Butler 
County, in which it was resolved to form a regiment to oppose the threatened 
invasion of the State. Doubting, as it would seem, the entire good faith of this 
procedure, and unwilling, at any rate, to permit the efforts of his officers at re- 
cruiting to be embarrassed by such anomalous organizations, Governor Tod 
addressed a letter to Eobert Christy, Esq., of Hamilton, whom the meeting had 
appointed to take charge of the movement, "Whether it was intended," he said 
in this letter, "by this proceeding to interfere with the voluntary enlistments 
now being made all over the State, in response to the President's recent calls 
for troops, is now immaterial. Believing such to be the effect, I feel it my im- 
perative duty to direct that you, and all associated with you in the effort to 
raise said regiment, at once desist. It is hoped that you and your associates 
will give cheerful obedience to this order, and join all loj^al citizens of the State 
in their efforts to suppress the unholy rebellion in the manner designated bv the 
National authorities." 

The state of affairs in which orders like this are necessary, and in whicli 
arrests of respectable men for interfering with the operations of the Govern- 
ment become common, may generally be taken as betokening a j)opular reac- 
tion. It was more marked now than had been expected. 

The war presented, East and West, but a gloomy prospect. The peninsu- 
lar campaign had ended in failure. The Army of Northern Virginia, which 
next essayed an advance toward Eichmond, had been hurled back in disorder to 
the defenses of Washington. The successful Eebel armj^ had invaded Mary- 
land, and had onl}^ been checked, not beaten, at Antietam. The opening of the 
Mississippi had met with sudden check at Yicksburg. The great army that had 
pressed the Eebel column from Kentucky to North Alabama came hunying 
back to defend the Ohio border. Cincinnati and Louisville were threatened. 
Along the whole Western Virginia and Kentucky border alarms about impend- 
ing invasion were frequent; and* in the midst of this gloomy outlook, the 
President had declared his purpose to abolish slavery throughout the Eebel 
States (with the exception of some inconsiderable localities), hy proclamation 
as a war measure. 

We have seen how nobly, through all discouragements, the people labored at 
YoL. 1.— 6. 



82 Ohio in the War. 

the good work of filling up the army. But the drain of men, the absence of 
large numbers of Eepublican voters in the field, the initial unpopularity of the 
Emancipation Proclamation, the embittered feelings aroused by the arrests, and 
the general gloom that grew out of the military situation, secured the reaction. 
The State which, a year before, had elected Tod Grovernor by a majority of fifty- 
five thousand, now went Democratic by a majority of five thousand five hun- 
dred and seventy-seven. Out of nineteen Eepresentatives in Congress barely 
five Eepublicans were elected. 

There might have been some legitimate ground for fears that Governor 
Tod, as an old Democrat, long trusted in the councils of the party and likely, 
from all past associations and prejudices, to revolt from the Proclamation of 
Emancipation, would now be drawn by this triumph of his old friends to renew 
his connection with them. But his patriotism was made of sterner stuff; the 
motives which had led him to abandon party for country at the outbreak of the 
war were now only strengthened. He made no allusion, in his annual message, 
to the Emancipation Proclamation ; but he dwelt upon the necessity of sustain- 
ing the war, urged the lack of provocation for the rebellion of the insurgent 
States, and fully indorsed the obnoxious arrests. He recommended better pro- 
visions for soldiers' families, efficient militia organization, and the support of a 
military school. For the rest, he proposed to provide against another defeat ai 
the polls by enacting that the soldiers of the State should not be longer disfran- 
chised while fighting the battles of the Country. . 



Siege of Cincinnati. 83 



CHAPTER VIIT. 



THE SIEGE OF CINCINNATT, 



IN the early days of 1862 a new name was growing at once into popular 
favor and popular fear among the prudent Eebels of the Kentucky bor- 
der. It was first heard of in the achievement of carrying off the artil- 
lery belonging to the Lexington company of the Kentucky State Guard into 
the Confederate service. Gradually it came to be coupled with daring " scouts." 
by little squads of the Eebel cavalry, within our contemplative picket lines 
along Green Eiver ; with sudden dashes, like the burning of the Bacon Creek 
Bridge,* which the lack of enterprise, or even of ordinary vigilance on the 
part of some of our commanders permitted ; with unexpected swoops upon iso- 
lated supply-trains or droves of army cattle ; with saucy messages about an 
intention to burn the Yankees out of Woodsonville the next week, and the like. 
Then came dashes within our lines about Nashville, night attacks, audacious 
captures of whole squads of guards within sight of the camps and within half 
a mile of division head-quarters, the seizure of Gallatin, adroit impositions upon 
telegraph operators, which secured whatever news about the National armies 
was passing over the wires. Then, after Mitchel had swept down into North - 

"■* As the burning of this Bacon Creek Bridge was once the subject of newspaper controversy, 
and as it is not elsewhere spoken of in this work, it may be interesting here to show what view 
the Rebels themselves took of it. Colonel Basil W. Duke, Morgan's second in command through- 
out the war, in his "History of Morgan's Cavalry," pp. 106, 107, says : 

"This bridge had been destroyed at the time our forces fell back from Woodsonville. It 
was a small structure and easily replaced, but its reparation was necessary to the use of the road. 
The National army then lay encamped between Bacon and Nolin Creeks, the advance about 
three miles from Bacon Creek, the outposts scarcely half a mile from the bridge. A few days' 
labor served to erect the wood work of the bridge, and it was ready to receive the iron rails, 
when Morgan asked leave to destroy it. It was granted, and he started from Bowling Green on 
the same night with his entire command, for he believed that he would find the bridge strongly 
guarded, and would have to fight for it. . . . Pressing on vigorously, he reached the bridge, 
. . . and to his surprise and satisfaction found it without a guard, that which protected the 
workmen during the day having been withdrawn at night. The bridge was set on fire, and in 
three hours thoroughly destroyed, no interruption to the work being attempted by the enemy. 
The damage inflicted was trifling, and the delay occasioned of little consequence. The benefit 
derived from it by Morgan was twofold : it increased the hardihood of his men in that species 
of service, and gave himself still greater confidence in his own tactics." 



84 Ohio in the War 

ern Alabama, followed incursions upon his rear, cotton-burning ex^Dloits under 
the very noses of his guards, open pillage of citizens who had been encouraged 
by the advance of the National armies to express their loyalt^-.-i^ These acts 
covered a wide range of countrj^, and followed each other in quick succession, 
but they were all traced to John Morgan's Kentucky cavalry ; and such were 
their frequency and daring, that by midsummer of 1862 Morgan and his men 
occupied almost as much of the popular attention in Kentucky and along the 
border as Beauregard or Lee. 

The leader of this band was a native of Huntsville, Alabama, but from 
early boyhood a resident of Kentucky. He had grown up to the free and easy 
life of a slaveholding farmer's son, in the heart of the "Blue Grass country," 
near Lexington ; had become a volunteer for the Mexican war at the age of 
nineteen, and had risen to a First-Lieutenancj^ ; had passed through his share 
of personal encounters and "affairs of honor " about Lexington — not without 
wounds — and had finally married and settled down as a manufacturer and spec- 
ulator. He had lived freel}', gambled freely, shared in all the dissipations of 
the time and place, and still had retained the early vigor of a powerful consti- 
tution, and a strong hold upon the confidence of the hot-blooded young men of 
Lexington. These followed him to the war. They were horsemen by instinct, 
accustomed to a dare-devil life, capable of doing their own thinking in emer- 
gencies without waiting for orders, and in all respects the best material 
for an independent band of partisan rangers the country had produced. 
They were allied by family connections Avith many of the leading people of 
the "Blue Grass" region; and it could not but result that when they ap- 
peared in Kentucky — whatever army might be near — they found themselves 
among friends. 

The people of Ohio had hardly recovered from the spasmodic efl:ort to raise 
regiments in a day for a second defense of the capital, into which they had 
been thrown by the call of the Government in its alarm at Stonewall Jackson's 
rush through the valley. They were now, rather languidly, turning to the effort 
of filling the new and unexj)ected call for seventy-four thousand three j^eai's' 
men. Few had as j^et been raised. Here and there through the State were the 
nuclei of forming regiments, and there were a few arms, but there was no ade- 
quate protection for the Border, and none dreamed that any was necessary, 
Beauregard had evacuated Corinth ; Memphis had fallen ; Buell was moving- 
eastward toward Chattanooga ; the troops latelj^ commanded by Mitchel held 
Tennessee and Northern Alabama ; Kentucky was mainl}^ in the hands of her 
Home-Guards, and, under the. supervision of a State military board, was raising 
volunteers for the National arm3\ 

* " The command encamped that night in a loyal neighborhood, and, mindful always of a 
decorous respect for the opinions of other people, Colonel Morgan made all of his men ' play 
Union.' They were consequently treated with distinguished consideration, and some were fur- 
nished with fresh horses, for which they gave their kind friends orders (on the disbursing officers 
at Nashville) for their back pay. . . . Over one store the stars and stripes were floating re- 
splendent. The men were so much pleased with this evidence of patriotism that they would pat- 
ronize no other store in the place!" Basil W. Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry, pp. 158-9. 



Siege of Cincinnati. 85 

Suddenly, while the newspapers were still trying to explain McCIellan's 
change of base, and clamoring against Buell's slow advances on Chattanooga, 
without a word of warning or explanation, came the startling news that John 
Morgan M^as in Kentucky ! The dispatches of Friday afternoon, the 11th of 
July, announced that he had fallen ui)on the little post of Tompkinsville, and 
killed or captured the entire garrison. By evening it was known that the pris- 
oners were paroled ; that Morgan had advanced unopposed to Glasgow ; that he 
had issued a proclamation calling upon the Kentuckians to rise ; that the author- 
ities deemed it unsafe to attempt sending through trains from Louisville to 
^N'ashville. By Saturday afternoon he was reported marching on Lexington, and 
General Boyle, the commandant in Kentucky, was telegraphing vigorously to 
Mayor Hatch, at Cincinnati, for militia to be sent in that direction. 

A public meeting was at once called, and b}' nine o'clock that evening a 
concourse of several thousand citizens had gathered in the Fifth Street market- 
space. Meantime more and more urgency for aid had been expressed in suc- 
cessive dispatches from General Boyle. In one he fixed Morgan's force at two 
thousand eight hundred ; in another he said that Morgan, with one thousand 
five hundred, had burned Perryville, and was marching on Danville; again, 
that the forces at his command were needed to defend Louisville, and that Cin- 
cinnati must defend Lexington ! Some of these dispatches were read at the 
public meeting, and speeches were made by the Mayor, Judge Saffin, and others. 
Finally a committee was appointed,* headed by ex-Senator Geo. E. Pugh, to take 
such measures for organized effort as might be possible or necessary. Before the 
committee could organize came word that Governor Tod had ordered down such 
convalescent soldiers as could be gathered at Camp Dennison and Camp Chase, 
and had sent a thousand stand of arms. A little after midnight two hundred 
men belonging to the Fifty-Second Ohio arrived. 

On Sunday morning the city was thoroughly alarmed. The streets were 
thronged at an early hour, and by nine o'clock another large meeting had gath- 
dred in the Fifth Street market-space. Speeches were made by ex-Senator 
Pugh, Thos. J. Gallagher, and Benj. Eggleston. It was announced that a bat- 
talion made up of the police force would be sent to Lexington in the evening. 
Arrangements were made to organize volunteer companies Charles F. Wilstach 
and Eli C. Baldwin were authorized to procure rations for volunteers. The 
City Council met, resolved that it would pay any bills incurred by the commit- 
tee appointed at the public meeting, and appropriated five thousand dollars for 
immediate wants. Eleven hundred men— parts of the Eighty-Fifth and Eighty- 
Sixth Ohio from Camp Chase— arrived in the afternoon and went directly on to 
Lexington. The police force, under Colonel Dudley, their chief, and an artil- 
lery company, with a single piece, under Captain Wm. Glass, of the City Fire 
Department, also took the special train for Lexington in the evening. Similar 
scenes were w-itnessed across the river, at Covington, during the same period. 
While the troops were mustering, and the excited people were volunteering, it 

» Consisting of Mayor Hatch, Geo. E. Pugh, Joshua Bates, Thos. J. Gallagher, Miles Green- 
wood, J. W. Hartwell, IPeter Gibson, Bellamy Storer, David Gibson, and J. B. Stallo. 



86 Ohio in the War. 

was discovered that a brother of John Morgan was a guest at one of the prin- 
cipal hotels. He made no concealment of his relationship, or of his sympathy 
with the Eebel cause, but produced a pass from General Boyle. He was 
detained. 

Monday brought no further news of Morgan, and the alarm began to abate. 
Kentuckians expressed the belief that he only meant to attract attention by 
feints on Lexington and Frankfort, while he should make his way to Bourbon 
county, and destroy the long Townsend viaduct near Paris, which might cripple 
the railroad for weeks. The Secretary of "War gave permission to use some 
cannon which Miles Greenwood had been casting for the Government, and Gov- 
ernor Morton furnished ammunition for them.* The tone of the press may be 
inferred from the advice of the Gazette that the "bands sent out to pursue Mor- 
gan " should take few prisoners — " the fewer the better." " They are not worthy 
of being treated as soldiers," it continued; "they are freebooters, thieves, and 
murderers, and should be dealt with accordingly." 

For a day or two there followed a state of uncertainty as to Morgan's 
whereabouts, or the real nature of the danger. In answer to an application for 
artillery, the Secretary of War telegraphed that Morgan was retreating. Pres- 
ently came dispatches from Kentucky that he was still advancing. Governor 
Dennison visited Cincinnati at the request of Governor Tod, consulted with the 
" Committee of Public Safety," and passed on to Frankfort to look after the 
squads of Ohio troops that had been hastily forwarded to the points of danger. 

The disorderly elements of the city took advantage of the absence of so 
large a portion of the police force at Lexington. Troubles broke out between 
the L-ish and negroes, in which the former were the aggressors; houses were 
fired, and for a little time there were apprehensions of a serious riot. Several 
hundred leading property-holder^ met in alarm at the Merchant's Exchange, 
and took measures for organizing a force of one thousand citizens for special 
service the ensuing night. For a day or two the excitement was kept up, but 
there were few additional outbreaks. 

While Cincinnati was thus in confusion, and troops were hurrying to the 
defense of the threatened points, John Morgan was losing no time in idle de- 
bates. He had left Knoxville, East Tennessee, on the morning of the 4th of 
July; on the morning of the 9th he had fallen upon the garrison at Tompkins- 
ville; before one o'clock the next morning be had possession of Glasgow: by the 
11th he had possession of Lebanon. On the Sunday (13th) on which Cincinnati 
had been so thoroughly aroused, he entered Harrodsburg. Then, feigning on 
Frankfort, he made haste toward Lexington, striving to delay re-enforcements 
by sending out parties to burn bridges, and hoping to find the town an easy 
capture. Monday morning he was within fifteen miles of Frankfort; before 

* The Columbus authorities were asked for ammunition, and sent word that it would be fur- 
nished only on the requisition of a United States officer commanding a post. The Indianapolis 
authorities furnished it on the order of the Mayor; and the newspapers commented with some 
severity on what they called "the difference between the red-tapeism of Columbus, and the man- 
ner of doing business at Indianapolis." 



Siege of Cincinnati. 87 

nightfall he was at Yersailles — having marched between three and four hundred 
miles in eight daj^s. 

Moving thence to Midway, between Frankfort and Lexington, he surprised 
the telegraph operator, secured his office in good order, took off the dispatches 
that were flying back and forth; possessed himself of the plans and prepara- 
tions of the Union officers at Frankfort, Lexington, Louisville, and Cincinnati; 
and audaciously sent dispatches in the name of the Midway operator, assuring 
the Lexington authorities that Morgan was then driving in the pickets at Frank- 
fort ! Tlien he hastened to Georgetown — twelve miles from Lexington, eighteen 
from Frankfort, and within easy striking distance of any point in the Blue 
G-rass region. Here, Avith the Union commanders completely mystified as to his 
whereabouts and purposes, he coolly halted for a couple of days and rested his 
horses. Then, giving up all thought of attacking Lexington, as he found how 
strongly it was garrisoned, he decided — as his second in command naively tells 
us* — "to make a dash at Cynthiana, on the Kentuck}' Central Railroad, hoping 
to induce the impression that he was aiming at Cincinnati, and at the same 
time thoroughly bewilder the officer in cpmmand at Lexington regarding his 
real intentions." Thither, therefore, he went; and to some purpose. The 
town was garrisoned by a few hundred Kentucky cavalry, and some home- 
guards, with Captain Glass's firemen's artilleiy company from Cincinnati — in 
all perhaps five hundred men. These were routed after some sharp fighting at 
the bridge and in the streets; the gun was captured, and four hundred and 
twenty prisoners were taken ; besides abundance of stores, arras, and two or 
three hundred horses. At one o'clock he was off for Paris, which sent out a 
deputation of citizens to meet him and surrender. By this time the forces that 
had been gathering at Lexington had moved out against him with nearly double 
his strength ;f but the next morning he left Paris unmolested ; and marching 
through Winchester, Richmond, Crab Orchard, and Somerset, crossed the Cum- 
berland again at his leisure. He started with nine hundred men, and returned 
with one thousand two hundred — having captured and paroled nearly as 
many, and having destroyed all the Government arms and stores in seventeen 
towns. 

Meanwhile the partially-lulled excitement in Cincinnati had risen again. 
A great meeting had been held in Court Street market-space, at which Judge 
Hugh J. Jewett, who had been the Democratic candidate for Governor, made an 
earnest appeal for rapid enlistments, to redeem the pledge of the Governor to 
assist Kentucky, and to prevent Morgan from recruiting a large army in that 
State. Quartermaster-General Wright had followed in a similar strain. The 
City Council, to silence doubts on the part of some, had taken the oath of alle- 
giance as a body. The Chamber of Commerce had memoralized the Council to 
make an appropriation for bounties to volunteers ; Colonel Burbank had been 

® Basile W. Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry, p. 199. The foregoing Btatements of Mor- 
gan's movements are derived from the same source. 

t Under General Green Clay Smith. 



88 Ohio in the War. 

appointed Military Governor of the cit}^,* and there had been rumors of martial 
Jaw and a provost-marshal. The popular ferment largely took the shape of 
clamor for bounties as a means of stimulating volunteers. The newspapers 
called on the Governor to "take the responsibilitj^," and offer twenty-five dol- 
lars bounty for every recruit. Public-spirited citizens made contributions for 
such a purpose — Mr. J. Cleves Short a thousand dollars, Messx-s. Tyler, David- 
eon & Co. one thousand two hundred, Mr. Kugler two thousand five hundred, 
Mr. Jacob Elsas five hundred. Two regiments for service in emergencies were 
hastily formed, which were known as the Cincinnati Eeserves. 

Yet, withal, the alarm never reached the height of the excitement on Sun- 
day, the 13th of July, when Morgan was first reported marching on Lexington. 
The papers said they should not be surprised any morning to see his cavalry on 
the hills opposite Cincinnati; but the people seemed to entertain less apprehen- 
sion. They were soon to have greater occasion for fear. 

For the invasion of Morgan was onl}- a forerunner. It had served to illus- 
trate to the Eebel commanders the ease with whiqh their armies could be planted 
in Kentucky, and had set before them a tempting vision of the rich supplies of 
the '-Blue Grass." 

July and August passed in comparative gloom. McClellan was recalled 
from the Peninsula. Pope was driven back from the Eapidan, and after a be- 
wildering series of confused and blood}^ engagements, was forced to seek refuge 
under the defenses at Washington. In the South-west our armies seemed tor- 
pid, and the enemy was advancing. In the department in which Ohio was 
specially interested there were grave delays in the long-awaited movement on 
Chattanooga, and finally it appeared that Bragg had arrived there before Buell. 

Presently vague rumors of a new invasion began to bo whispered, and at 
last while Bragg and Buell warily watched each the other's maneuvers, Kirby 
Smith, who had been posted at Knoxville, broke camji and marched straight for 
the heart of Iventuckj^ with twelve thousand men and thirty or forty pieces of 
artillery .f With the first rumors of danger, Indiana and Ohio had both made 
strenuous exertions to throw forward the new levies, and Indiana in particular 
had hastily jiut into the field in Kentucky a large number of perfectly raw 
troops, fresh from the camps at which they had been recruited. 

Through Big Creek and Eogers's Gaps Kirby Smith moved without moles- 
tation ; passed the National forces at Cumbei'land Gajj without waiting to 
attempt a reduction of the place, and absolutelj" pushed on into Kentucky un- 
opposed, till within fifteen miles of Eichmond and less than three times that 
distance from Lexington itself, he fell upon a Kentuck}' regiment of cavalry 
under Colonel Metcalf and scattered it in a single charge. The routed cavalry- 

'■■'This was done in response to a dispatch requesting it from Mayor Hatch, Captain .J. H. 
Dickerson (then- Post-Quartermaster, U. S. A.), and Joshua H. Bates, Chairman of the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety. 

tThis statement of Smith's strength follows tiie account of Colonel Basil W. Duke, History 
Morgan's Cavalry, p. 235. He says Smith had in East Tennessee about twenty thousand, and 
that he left eight thousand in front of Cumberland Gap. 



Siege of Cincinnati. 89 

men bore back to Eichmond and Lexington tbe first authentic news of the 
Eebel advance. The new troops were hastily pushed forward, in utter igno- 
rance of the strength of the enemy, and apparently without any well-defined 
plans ; and so, as the victorious invaders came up toward Eichmond, they found 
this force opposing them. Smith seems scarcely to have halted, even to con- 
centrate his command, but precipitating the advance of his column upon the 
raw line that confronted him, scattered it again at a charge.* General Manson, 
who commanded the National troops, had been caught before getting his men 
well in hand. A little farther back, he essayed the formation of another line, 
and the check of the rout : but while the broken line was steadying. Smith 
again came charging up, and the disorderly retreat was speedily renewed. A 
third and more determined stand was made, almost in the suburbs of the town, 
and some hard fighting ensued; but the undisciplined and ill-handled troops 
were no match for their enthusiastic assailants, and when they were this time 
driven, the rout became complete.f The cavalry fell upon the fugitives, whole 
regiments were captured and instantly paroled ; those that escajied fled through 
fields and by-ways, and soon j)Oured into Lexington with the story of the 
disaster. 

Thither now went hurrying General H. G. Wright, the commander of the 
department. A glance at the condition of such troops as this battle of Eich- 
mond had left him, showed that an effort to liold Lexington would be hopeless. 
Before Ivirby Smith could get up he evacuated the place, and was falling back 
in all haste on Louisville," while the railroad company was hurrying its stock 
toward the Cincinnati end of the road ; the banks were sending off their specie ; 
Union men were fleeing, and the predominant Eebel element was throwing off 
all disgviise. 

On the 1st of Sejitember General Kirby Smith entered Lexington in tri- 
umph. Two days later he disjDatched Heath with five or six thousand men 
against Covington and Cincinnati; the next day he was joined bj'John Morgan, 
who had moved through Glasgow and Danville; and the overjoyed people of 
the city thronged the streets and shouted from every door and window their 
welcome to the invaders. | A few days later Buell was at Nashville. Eragg was 
moving into Kentucky, and the "race for Louisville," as it has sometimes been 
called, was begun. So swift was the Eebel rush upon Kentucky and the Ohio 
Border; so sudden the revolution in the aspect of the war in the South-west. 

We have told the simple story of the Eebel progress. It would need more 

*29th August, 1862. 

t General William Nelson arrived in time to command at this last struggle, and to exert all 
his influence in striving to check the rout. He subsequently claimed that the battle was brought 
on by disobedience to orders on the part of General Manson, and that his instructions, if obeyed, 
would have secured such a disposition of the troops as would have kept the Rebels from crossing 
the Kentucky Elver. He was himself wounded. But one Ohio regiment was in the action, 
the Ninety-Fifth. Its share may be found more fully described in Vol. 11, pp. 527-28. 

+ Duke's History Morgan's Cavalry, pp. 233-34. Pollard says the bells of the city were 
rung, and every possible manifestation of joy was made. 



90 Ohio in the Wak. 

vivid colors to give an adequate picture of the state into which Cincinnati and 
the surrounding country were thereby thrown. 

News of the disaster at Eichmond was not received in Cincinnati till a late 
hour Saturday night* It produced great excitement, but the full extent of its 
consequences was not realized. There were soldiers in plent}' to drive back the 
invaders, it was argued, only a few experienced officers were needed. The San- 
itary Commission hastened its shijDments of stores toward the battle-field, and 
the State authorities began preparations for sending relief to the wounded; 
while the newspapers gave vent to the general dissatisfaction in severe criti- 
cisms on the management of the battle, and in wonders as to what Buell could 
be doing. Thus Sunday jjassed. Monday afternoon rumors began to fly about 
that the troops were in no condition to make any sufficient opposition — that 
Lexington and Frankfort might have to be abandoned. Great crowds flocked 
about the newspaper offices and army head-quarters to ask the particulars, but - 
all still thought that in any event there were plenty of troops between the in- 
vaders and themselves. By dusk it was known that instead of falling back on 
Cincinnati the troops were retreating through Prankfort to Louisville — that 
between Kirby Smith's flushed regiments and the banks and warehouses of the 
Queen City stood no obstacle more formidable than a few unmanned siege guns 
back of Covington, and the easily-crossed Ohio Eiver. 

The shock was profound. But none thought of anything save to seek 
what might be the most efficient means of defense. The City Council at once 
met in extra session — pledged the faith of the city to meet any expenses the ' 
military authorities might require in the emergency; authorized the Mayor to 
susi^end all business, and summon every man, alien or citizen, who lived under 
the protection of the Government, to unite in military organizations for its de- 
fense; assured the General commanding the department f of their entire confi- 
dence, and requested him to call for men and means to any extent desired, no 
limit being proposed save the entire capacity of the community. 

While the municij^al authorities were thus tendering the whole resources 
of a city of a quarter of a million people, the Commander of the Department 
was sending them a General. Lewis Wallace was a dashing j^^oung officer of 
volunteers, who had been among the first from Indiana to enter the field at th'^ 
outbreak of the war, and had risen to the highest promotion then attainable in 
the army. He was notably quick to take responsibilities, full of energy and 
enthusiasm, abundantly confident in his own resources, capable of bold plans. 
When the first indications of danger in Kentucky appeared he had waived his 
rank and led one of the raw regiments from his State into the field. Then, 
after being for a short time in charge of the troops about Lexington, he had, on 
being relieved by General Nelson, returned to Cincinnati. Here the Commander 
of the Department seized upon him for service in the sudden emergency, sum- 
moned him first to Lexington for consultation; then, when himself hastening to 
Louisville, ordered Wallace back to Cincinnati, to assume command and defend 
the town with its Kentucky suburbs. He arrived at nine o'clock in the evening. 

* 30th August. 1 Major-General Horatio G. Wright. 



Siege of Cincinnati. 91 

The Mayor waited upon him at once with notice of the action of the City 
Council. The Mayors of Newport and Covington soon came hurrying over. 
The few armj- officers on duty in the three towns also reported; and a few 
hours Avere spent in consultation. 

Then, at two o'clock, the decisive step was taken. A proclamation of mar- 
tial law was sent to the newspapers. JSText morning the citizens read at their 
breakfast-tables — before yet any one knew that the Rebels were advancing on 
Cincinnati, two days in fact before the advance began — that all business must 
be suspended at nine o'clock, that they must assemble within an hour thereafter 
and await orders for work; that the ferr^^-boats should cease plying, save under 
military direction; that for the present the city police should enforce martial 
law; that in all this the principle to be adopted was: "Citizens for labor, sol- 
diers for battle." It was the boldest and most vigorous order in the history of 
Cincinnati or of the war along the Border.* 

"If the enemy should not come after all this fuss," said one of the General's 
friends, "you will be ruined." "Yery well," was the reply, "but they will 
come, or, if the}' do not, it will be because this same fuss has caused them to 
think better of it."f 

The city took courage from the bold course of its General; instead of a panic 
there was universal congratulation. "From the appearance of our streets," said 
one of the newspapers the next day, in describing the operations of martial 
law, "a stranger would imagine that some popular holiday was being celebrated. 
Indeed, were the millennium suddenly inaugurated, the populace could hardly 
seem better pleased." All cheerfully obeyed the order, though there was not 
military force enough present to have enforced it along a single street. Every 
business house was closed; in the unexpectedly scrupulous obedience to the 

*The following is the text of this remarkable order, which practically saved Cincinnati: 

"The undersigned, by order of Major-General Wright, assumes command of Cincinnati, 
Covington, and Newport. 

"It is but fair to inform the citizens that an active, daring, and powerful enemy threatens 
them with every consequence of war; yet the cities must be defended, and their inhabitants 
must assist in the preparations. Patriotism, duty, honor, self-preservation, call them to the labor,, 
md it must be performed equally by all classes. 

"First. All business must be suspended. At nine o'clock to-day every business house must 
be closed. 

" Second. Under the direction of their Mayor, the citizens must, within an hour after the 
suspension of business (ten o'clock A. M.), assemble in their convenient public places ready for 
orders. As soon as possible they will then be assigned to their work. This labor ought to be 
that of love, and the undersigned trusts and believes that it will be so; anyhow it must be done. 
The willing shall be properly credited, the unwilling promptly visited. 

" The principle adopted is : Citizens for the labor, soldiers for the battle. 

" Martial law is hereby proclaimed in the three cities, but until they can be relieved by the 
military, the injunction of this proclamation will be executed by the police. 

" The ferry-boats will cease plying the river after four o'clock, A. M.. until further orders. 

" LEWIS WALLACE, 
" Major- General Commanding." 

t " The Siege of Cincinnati," by Thomas Buchanan Read, in Atlantic Monthly, No. 64, Feb- 
ruary, 1863. Mr. Read served during the siege on General Wallace's staff. 



92 Ohio in the Wae. • 

letter of the proclamation, even the street-cars stopped running, and the teach- I 
ers, closing their schools, reported for duty. But few hacks or wagons were to be ■ 
seen save those on Government service. Working parties of citizens had been 
ordered to report to Colonel J. V. Guthrie; companies of citizen-soldiery to i 
Major Malcom McDowell. Meetings assembled in every ward; great numbers ' 
of military organizations were formed; by noon thousands of citizens in fully^ | 
organized companies were industriously drilling. Meanwhile, back of Newport ,; 
and Covington, breastworks, rifle-pits, and redoubts had been hastily traced. \ 
guns had been mounted, pickets thrown out. Toward evening a sound of ham- j 
mers and saws arose from the landing; by daybreak a pontoon bridge stretched ; 
from Cincinnati to Covington, and wagons loaded with lumber for barracks and i 
material for fortifications were passing over. 

In such spirit did Cincinnati herself confront the sudden danger. Not less 
vigorous was the action of the Governor. While Wallace was writing his 
proclamation of martial law and ordering the suspension of business. Tod was 
hunying down to the scene of danger for consultation. Presently he was tele- 
graphing from Cincinnati to his Adjutant-General to send whatever troops were 
accessible without a moment's delay. "Do not wait," he added, "to have them 
mustered or paid — that can be done here — they should be armed and furnished 
ammunition." To his Quartermaster he telegraphed: "Send five thousand 
stand of arms for the militia of this city, with fifty rounds of ammunition. 
Send also forty rounds for fifteen hundred guns (sixty-nine caliber)." To the 
jDcople along the border through the press and the militarj^ committees he said. 

"Our southern border is threatened with invasion. I have therefore to recommend that all T 
the loyal men of your counties at once form themselves into military companies and regiments 
to beat back the enemy at any and all points he may attempt to invade our State. Gather up 
all the arms in the county, and furni.sh yourselves with ammunition for the same. The service 
will be of but a few days' duration. The soil of Ohio must not be invaded by the enemies of j 
our glorious Government." 

To Secretary Stanton he telegraphed that he had no doubt- a large Eebel 
force was moving against Cincinnati, but it would be successfullj^ met. The 
commander at Camp Dennison he directed to guard the track of the Little Mi- 
ami Railroad against ajiprehended dangers, as far u]3 as Xenia. 

The rural districts were meanwhile hastening to the rescue. Early in the 
day — within an hour or two after tlie arrival of the Cincinnati papers with news 
of the danger — Preble and Butler counties telegraphed offers of large numbers 
of men. Warren, Greene, Franklin, and half a score of others, rapid!}' fol- 
lowed. Before night the Governor had sent a general answer in this j)roclamation : 

" Cincinnati, September 2, 1862. 
"In response to several communications tendering companies and squads of men for the 
protection of Cincinnati, I announce that all such bodies of men who are armed will be received. 
They will repair at once to Cincinnati, and report to General Lew. Wallace, who will complete 
their further organization. None but armed men will be received, and such only until the 5th 
instant. Eailroad companies will pass all such bodies of men at the expense of the State. It is 
not desired that any troops residing in any of the river counties leave their counties. All such 
are requested to organize and remain for the protection of their own counties. 

"DAVID TOD, Governor." 



' 



Siege of Cincinnati. 93 

Before daybreak the advance of the men that were thenceforward to be 
known in the history of the State as the " Squirrel Hunters," were filing through 
the streets. Next morning, throughout the interior, church and fii-e-bells rang; 
mounted men gallojied through neighborhoods to spread the alarm; there was 
a hasty cleaning of rifles, and molding of bullets, and filling of j)Owder-horns, and 
mustering at the villages ; and every city-bound train ran burdened with the 
gathering host. 

While these preparations were in progress perhaps Cincinnati might have 
been taken by a vigorous dash of Kirby Smith's entire force, and held long 
enough for pillage. But the inaction for a day or two at Lexington was fatal 
to such hopes. Within two daj^s after the proclamation of martial law the city 
was safe beyond peradventure. 

Then, as men saw the vast preparations for an enemy that had not come, 
they began, not unnaturally, to w^onder if the need for such measures had been 
imperative. A few business men complained. Some Germans began tearing 
up a street railroad track, in revenge for the invidious distinction which, in 
spite of the danger, had adjudged the street cars indispensable, but not the lager- 
beer shops. The schools had unintentionally been closed by the operation of the 
first sweeping proclamation, and fresh orders had to be issued to open them ; 
bake-shopshad been closed, and the people seemed in danger of getting no bread; 
the drug-stores had been closed, and the sick could get no medicines. Such 
oversights were speedily corrected, but they left irritation.* The Evening 
Times newspaper, giving voice to a sentiment that undoubtedly began to find 
expression among some classes, published a communication which pronounced 
the whole movement " a big scare," and ridiculed the efforts to place the city in 
a posture of defense. f 

To at least a slight extent the Commander of the Department would seem 

•■■•The following order, issued by the Mayor, with the sanction of General Wallace, obviated 
the difRculties involved in the literal suspension of all business in a great city: 

" 1st. The btinks and bankers of this city will be permitted to open their offices from one to 
two P. M. 

"2d. Bakers are allowed to pursue their business. 

" 3d. Physicians are allowed to attend their patients. 

" 4th. Employees of newspapers are allowed to pursue their business. 

" 5th. Funerals are permitted, but only mourners are allowed to leave the city. 

" 6th. All coffee-houses and places where intoxicating liquors are sold are to be closed and 
kept closed. 

"7th. Eating and drinking houses are to close and keep closed. 

" 8th. All places of amusement are to close and keep closed. 
9th. All drug-stores and apothecaries are permitted to keep open and do their ordinary 
business. "GEORGE HATCH, 

" Mayor of Cincinnati." 

t Within an hour or two after this publication, General Wallace suppressed the Times; for 
this article, as was generally supposed, although it was subsequently stated that the offensive 
matter was an editorial reviewing the military management on the Potomac. The zealous loy- 
alty of the paper had always been so marked that General Wallace was soon made to feel the 
popular conviction of his having made a grave mistake, and the next day the Times was per- 
mitted to appear again as usual. 



•94 Ohio in the Wae. 

to have entertained the same opinion. After two days of martial law and mus 
tering for the defense of the city, he directed, on his return from Louisville, ; 
relaxation of the stringency of the first orders, and notified Governor Tod tha 
no more men from the interior were wanted. The next day he relieved Genera 
Wallace of the command in Cincinnati, and sent him across the river to take 
■charge of the defenses ; permitted the resumption of all business save liquor 
selling, only requiring that it should be suspended each afternoon at four o'clock^j 
and that the evenings should be spent in drill ; systematized the drain upon the 
city for labor on the fortifications, by directing that requisitions be made each 
evening for the number to be employed the next day, and that these be equita- 
bly apportioned among the several wards.* 

The day before the issue of this order had witnessed the most picturesque 
and insj^iring sight ever seen in Cincinnati. From morning till night the streets 
resounded with the tramp of armed men marching to the "defense of the city. 
From every quarter of the State they came, in every form of organization, with 
every species of arms. The "Squirrel Hunters," in their homespun, with pow- 
der-horn and buckskin pouch ; half-organized regiments, some in uniform and 
some without it, some having waited long enough to draw their equipments and 
some having marched without them; cavalry and infantry; all poured out 
from the railroad depots and down toward the pontoon bridge. The ladies of 
the city furnished provisions by the wagon-load ; the Fifth Street market- 
house was converted into a vast free eating saloon for the Squirrel Hunters ; 
halls and warehouses were used as barracks. 

On the 4th of September Governor Tod was able to telegrajjh General 
Wright: " I have now sent you for Kentuck}^ twenty regiments. I have twenty- 
one more in process of organization, two of which I will send you this week, 
-five or six next week, and the rest the week after, ... I have no means of 
knowing what number of gallant men responded to my call (on the militia) for 
the protection of Cincinnati, but presume they now count by thousands." And 
the next day he was forced to check the movement." 

■•■■ This order, which was hailed by the business community as sensible and timely, and which 
certainly gave great mitigation to the embarrassments caused by the suspension of business, was 
as follows: 

" Head-Quaetees, Depaetment op the Ohio,-» 

" Cincinnati, September 6, 1862. J 
" General Order No. 11. 

" The resumption of all lawful business in the city of Cincinnati, except the sale of liquor, is 

hereby authorized until the hour of four o'clock, P. M., daily. 

"All druggists, manufacturers of breadstuffs, provision dealers, railroad, express, and transfer 

companies, persons connected with the public press, and all persons doing business for the Gov- 

-ernment, will be allowed to pursue their vocations without interruption. 

" By command of Major-General Wright. 

"N. H. McLEAN, 

" Assistant- Adjutant General and Chief of Staff." 



Siege of Cincinnati 95 

" Columbus, September 5, 1862. 
"To THE Press: 

"The response to my proclamation asking volunteers for the protection of Cincinnati was 
most noble and generous. All may feel proud of the gallantry of the people of Ohio. No more 
•volunteers are required for the protection of Cincinnati. Those now there may be expected 
home in a few days. I advise that the military organizations throughout the State, formed within 
the past few days, be kept up, and that the members meet at least once a week for drill. Ee- 
•cruiting for the old regiments is progressing quite satisfactorily, and with continued effort there 
is reason to believe that the requisite number may be obtained by the 15th instant. For the 
-want of proper accommodations at this point, recruiting officers are directed to report their men 
•to the camp nearest their locality, where they will remain until provision can be made for their 
removal. Commanding officers of the several camps will see that every facility is given neces- 
sary for the comfort of these recruits. 

"DAVID TOD, Governor." 

The exertions at Cincinnati, however, were not abated. Judge Dickson, a 
well-known lawyer of the city, of Eadlcal Eepublican politics, organized a 
negro brigade for labor on the fortifications, which did excellent and zealous 
service. Full details of white citizens, three thousand per day — judges, law- 
yers, and clerks, merchant-prince and day-laborer, artist and artisan, side by 
side — were also kept at work with the spade, and to all payment at the rate of a 
dollar per day was promised. The militia organizations were kept up, " regi- 
ments of the reserve " were formed, and drilling went on vigorously. The 
Squirrel Hunters were entertained in rough but hearty fashion, and the ladies 
■continued to furnish bountiful supplies of provisions. 

Across the river regular engineers had done their best to give shape to the 
hasty fortifications. The trenches were manned every night, and after an im- 
perfect fashion a little scouting went on in the front. General Wallace was 
vigilant and active, and there was no longer a possibility that the force under 
Kirb}^ Smith could take the city. 

At last this force began to move up as if actually intending attack. One 
or two little skirmishes occurred, and the commander of the Department, de- 
ceived into believing that now was the hour of his greatest peril, appealed has- 
tily to Governor Tod for more militia. The Governor's response was prompt : 

, " Columbus, September, 10, 1862. 

" To THE Peess of Cleveland : 

"to the several military committees of northern OHIO. 

"By telegram from Major-General Wright, Commander-in-Chief of Western forces, re- 
ceived at two o'clock this morning, I am directed to send all armed men that can be raised im- 
mediately to Cincinnati. You will at once exert yourselves to execute this order. The men 
should be armed, each furnished with a blanket, and at least two days' rations. 

" Eailroad companies are requested to furnish transportation of troops to the exclusion of 

all other business. 

"DAVID TOD, Governor." 

The excitement in the city once more sprang up. Every disposition was 
made for defense and the attack was hourly expected. The newspapers of Sep- 
tember 11th announced that before they were distributed the sound of artillery 
might be heard on the heights of Covington; assured readers of the safety of 
the city, and exhorted all to "keep cool." Business was again suspended, and 



96 • Ohio in the Wae. 

the milita companies were under arms. The intrenchments back of Covington 
were filled; and, lest a sudden concentration might break through the lines at 
some spot and leave the city at the mercy of the assailants, the roads leading to it 
were guarded, and onlj^ those provided with passes could travel to or fro, while 
the river was filled with gunboats, improvised from the steamers at the wharves. 

But the expected attack did not come. As we now know, Kirby Smith had 
never been ordered to attack, but only to demonstrate; and about this vevy time 
the advance of Buell seemed to Bragg so menacing that he made haste to order 
Smith back to his support. General Wallace gradually pushed out his advance 
a little and the Eebel pickets fell back. By the 11th all felt that the danger 
was over. On the 12th Smith's hasty retreat was discovered. On the 13th Grov- 
ernor Tod checked the movement of the Squirrel Hunters, announced the safety 
of Cincinnati, and expressed his congratulations.* 

On this bright Saturday afternoon the "Eegimentsof the Eeserve" came 
marching across the pontoon bridge, with their dashing commander at the head 
of the column. Joyfull}' these j'oung professional and business men traced their 
wav through Front, Broadway, and Fourth Streets to the points where they 
werp relieved from the restraints of military service, and permitted to seek the 
pleasures and rest of home! An examination of the dockets and day-books 
of that eventful fortnight, will show that the citizens of Cincinnati were absent 
from their usual avocations; but Monday, the 15th, brought again to the count- 
ing-rooms and work-shops the busy hum of labor. 

•» "Columbus, September 13, 1862, eight o'clock A. M. 

"To THE Press'of Cleveland: 

"Copy of dispatch this moment received from Major-General Wright at Cincinnati: 'The 
enemy is retreating. Until we know more of his intention and position do not send any more 
citizen troops to this city. (Signed) H. G. Wright, Major-General.' In pursuance of this order 
all volunteers en route for Cincinnati will return to their respective homes. Those now at Cin- 
cinnati may be expected home so soon as transportation can be secured. The generous response 
from all parts of the State to the recent call, has won additional renown for the people of Ohio. 
The news which reached Cincinnati, that the patriotic men all over the State were rushing to its 
defense, saved our soil from invasion, and hence all good citizens will feel grateful to the patriotic 
men who promptly offered their assistance. It is hoped that no further call for minute-men will 
be neces.sary ; but should I be disappointed in thi.s, it is gratifying to know that the call will 
be again cheerfully and gallantly responded to. Railroad companies will pass all volunteers to 
their homes, at the expense of the State. The Captains of each squad, or company, are requested 
to give certificates of transportation to the superintendents or conductors of the railroads over 
which they may pass. I avail myself of this opportunity to renew the request heretofore made, 
that the several military volunteer organizations, formed within the past few days, be maintained, 
meeting for drill as often as once a week at least. I have further to request, that the command- 
ers of said squads or companies report by letter to the Adjutant-General, the strength of their 
respective commands. "DAVID TOD, Governor." 

"CoLUMBtrs, September 13, 1862. 

"To Hon. E. M. Stanton, Sec'y. of War, Washington, D. C. : 

" The minute-men or Squirrel Hunters responded gloriously to the call for the defense of 

Cincinnati. Thousands reached the city, and thousands more were en route for it. The enemy 

having retreated, all have been ordered back. This uprising of the people is the cause of the 

retreat. You should acknowledge publicly this gallant conduct. Please order Quartermaster 

Burr to pay all transportation bills, upon my approval. 

^ "DAVID TOD, Governor. 




THE SQUIREEL-HUNTER.— KIRBY SMITH'S RAID. 



Siege of Cincinnati. 97 

General Wallace took his leave of the city he had so efficiently served in a 
graceful, and manly address: 

"To the People of Cincinnati, Newport, and Covington .—Fov the present, at least, the enemy 
have fallen back, and your cities are safe. It is the time for acknowledgments, I beg leave to 
make you mine. When I assumed command there was nothing to defend you with, except a few 
half-finished works, and some dismounted guns; yet I was confident. The energies of a great 
city are boundless; they have only to be aroused, united and directed. You were appealed to. 
The answer will never be forgotten. 

"Paris may have seen something like it in her revolutionary days, but the cities of America 
never did. Be proud that you have given them an example so splendid. The most commercial 
of people, you submitted to a total suspension of business, and without a murmur adopted my 
I^rinciple: 'Citizens for labor, soldiers for battle.' 

"In coming time strangers, viewing the works on the hills of Newport and Covington, will 
ask, 'Wiio built these intrenchments?' You can answer, 'We built them.' If they ask, 'Who 
guarded them?' you can reply, 'We helped in thousands.' If they inquire the result, your an- 
swer will be, 'The enemy came and looked at them, and stole away in the night.' 

"Y''ou have won much honor; keep your organizations ready to win more. Hereafter be 
always prepared to defend yourselves. "LEWIS WALLACE, 

"Major-General Commanding." 

He had done some things not wholly wise, and had brought upon the people 
much inconvenience not wholly necessary. But these were the inevitable neces- 
sities of the haste, the lack of preparation, and the pressure of the emergency. 
He took grave responsibilities; adopted a vigorous and needful policy; was 
prompt and peremptory when these qualities were the only salvation of the 
city. He will be held therefor in grateful remembrance so long as Cincinnati 
continues to cherish the memory of those who do her service. 

As the regiments from the city were relieved from duty, so the Squirrel 
Hunters were disbanded and sought the routes of travel homeward, carrying 
with them the hearty thanks of a grateful populace.* 

While the attack Avas expected, there were many in Cincinnati who thought 
that the enemy might really be amusing the force on the front while preparing 
to cross the river at Maysville, above, and so swoop down on the city on the 
undefended side. To the extent of making a raid into Ohio at least, such an 
intention was actually entertained, and was subsequently undertaken by Col- 
onel Basil W. Duke, of John Morgan's command, who was left to occupy the 
forces near Cincinnati as long as possible after Kirby Smith's withdrawal. He 
went so far as to enter Augusta, on the river above Cincinnati, where he was 
encountered by a determined party of home-guards, and given so bloody a re- 
ception that after a desperate little street fight he was glad to abandon his 

"••■The Legislature at its next session adopted the following resolution: 

"Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Ohio, That the Governor be 
and he is hereby authorized and directed to appropriate out of his contingent fund, a suflScient 
sum to pay for printing and lithographing discharges for the patriotic men of the State, who re- 
sponded to the call of the Governor, and went to the southern border to repel the invader, and 

who will be known in history as the Squirrel Hunters. 

"JAMES R. HUBBELL, 

"Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives. 

"P. HITCHCOCK, 

Columbus, March 11, 1863. "President pro t&m of the Senate." 

Vol. I.— 7. 



98 Ohio in the Wak. 

movement, and fall back in haste to Falmouth, and thence, soon after, toward 
the rest of the retreating forces. 

Work on the fortifications was prudently continued, and some little time 
passed before the city lapsed into its accustomed ways; but the "Siege of Cin- 
cinnati" was over. The enemy was before it about eight days — at no time 
twelve thousand strong. 

The following summary of persons in charge of some of the various duties 
connected with the sudden organization for the defense of the city may here be 
given : 

STAFF OF MAJOR-GENERAL LEWIS WALLACE. 

Chief of Staff. Colonel J. C. Elston, jr. 

Chief of Artillery Major C. M. Willard. 

Aid-de-Camps : Captains James M. Eoss, A. J. Ware, jr., James F. Troth, A. G. Sloo, G. P. 
Edgar, E. T. Wallace. 

Volunteer A^id-de-Camps : Colonel J. V. Guthrie ; Lieutenant-Colonel G. W. Neff; Majors 
Malcom McDowell, E. B. Dennison; Captains James Thompson, A. S. Burt, Thomas Buchanan 
Read, S. C. Erwin, J. J. Henderson, J. C. Belman. 

NEGRO BRIGADE — CAMP SHALER. 

Commander Judge Dickson. 

Commissary Hugh McBirney. 

Quartermaster J. S. Hill. 

FATIGUE FORCES. 

In Charge Colonel J. V. Guthrie. 

Commissary Captain Williamson. 

Quartermaster Captain George B. Cassilly. 

Camp Mitchel, under Captain Titus. 

" Anderson, under Captain Storms. 

" Shaler, (back of Newport) under Major Winters. 

RIVER DEFENSE. 

In Charge K. M. Corwine. 

Aid Wm. Wis well, jr. 

Men in Millcreek, Green, Storrs, Delhi, Whitewater, Miami, Columbia, Spencer, and An- 
derson Townsliips, subject to orders of above. 

COLLECTION OF PROVISIONS. 

Committee appointed by General Wallace: Wm. Chidsey, T. F. Eogers, T. Horton, T. F. 
Shaw, and A. D. Rogers. 

IN COMMAND OF CENCINNATI. 

Military Commander Lieut. Col. S. Burbank, U. S. A. 

Aid John D. Caldwell. 

Provost-Marshal A.E.Jones. 

EMPLOYMENT OF LABORERS FOR FORTIFICATIONS. 

Hon. A. F. Perry, assisted by Hon. Benjamin Eggleston, Charles Thomas, and Thomas 
Gilpin. 

About the same time and throughout the autumn, there was much alarm 
along the WestYirginia and the upper part of the Kentucky border. Governor 
Tod was energetic in sending troops to the exposed points, and in enforcing 
upon all officers the duty of preventing invasion. "Stand firm," he telegraphed 
to one Captain commanding a post; "if 3'ou fall I will escort your remains 
home." At one time the danger from Guyandotte seemed imrrJnent; but in 
spite of sad reverses and barbarities in West Virginia it passed away. 



Arrest and Trial of Valla ndigh am. 99 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE ARREST AND TRIAL OF V A L L ANDIGH AM. 



FEOM the outbreak of the war, two Eepresentatives in Congress from 
Ohio were the most conspicuous leaders of the Opposition to Mr. Lin- 
coln's Administration, and to the policy of the party in power. Both 
were able and outspoken. 

One, a gentleman by birth and by education, maintained a relentless hos- 
tility to the prosecution of the war ; but, withal, he brought to his discussions 
of the subject such enlarged views, and so accustomed himself to the modera- 
tion of language habitual with fair-minded men, who, penetrated with strong 
convictions themselves, respect the strength of opposite convictions in others, 
that he was generally popular even among his political antagonists. 

To the other life had been a rougher struggle, and there was, moreover, 
something in the texture of the man's mind that inclined him to the rancor and 
virulence of the most intemperate partisanship. He cherished a boundless am- 
bition, and it was not more his natural fondness for producing sensations and 
saying things that should attract attention, than a shrewd calcuhUion of the 
value of extravagance in times of high excitement as a means of retaining party 
favor, that led to the peculiarly aggressive and defiant nature of his opj)osition 
to the war. We must not fail to add that he was sincere in his position ; that 
all his past political course, and the prejudices of his whole life, combined with 
the natui-al vehemence of his character to make a zealot of him in his advocacy 
of peace by compromise. 

* He had been in Congress for six years, but at the election in 1862, in spite 
of the general triumph of his party, he had been defeated by a soldier in the 
field. From the last session of the Congress to which he had been elected he 
returned, therefore, in the spring of 18C3, a soured politician out of place, whom 
it behooved to be all the more vehement lest he should be gradually forgotten. 

The first ardor with which the people of Ohio had rushed into the war 
seemed to have passed away. The pressure of its burdens displeased some ; the 
gloomy prospects in the field discouraged many more. The armies of the 
South-west were still foiled before Vicksburg; Rosecrans had lain in seeming 
exhaustion ever since his victory at Stone River; the Rebel invasion of Mary- 
land had been followed by the slaughter about Fredericksburg, and new threats 



100 Ohio in the Wae. 

of an advance into Pennsylvania. Their success at the late election had greatly 
encouraged those Democrats who ojiposed the war, and as a new draft began to 
be talked about, there was much popular ferment, with some hints of resist- 
ance. Mr. Yallandigham naturally became the spokesman for the irritated and 
disaffected people. He expressed himself with great boldness of utterance, de-' 
nounced the war, denounced the draft, stirred up the j)eople with violent talk, 
and particularly excited them and himself over alleged efforts on the part of the 
military authorities to interfere with freedom of speech and of the press, which 
he conjured them to defend under any circumstances and at all hazards. 

Possibly with some reference to Mr. Yallandigham, certainly with direct 
reference to the state of public feeling which he was helping to bring about, and 
to the acts that were growing out of it, the new Commander of the Department 
finall}^ felt constrained to issue an order that was to be a noted one in the his- 
tory of the State. This commander was Major-General Ambrose E. Burnside, 
an officer of distinguished personal gallantry, of the most loyal devotion to the 
cause of the country, of great zeal, not always according to knowledge, and of 
very moderate intellectual capacity. He was fresh from the field of a great 
disaster incurred under his management; and this fact helped to increase the 
bitterness with which his efforts to subdue the sympathizers with the South 
were received. His " General Order Xo. 38," some results of which we are now 
to trace, was understood at the time to have the approval of the State and Na- 
tional authorities. It was as follows : 

" Head-Quakters, Department of the Ohio, ■> 

" Cincinnati, April 13, 1863. J 
" General Orders, No. 38. 

"The Commanding General publishes, for the information of all concerned, that hereafter 
all persons found within our lines who commit acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country, 
will be tried as spies or traitors, and, if convicted, will suffer death. This order includes the 
following class of persons : 

"Carriers of secret mails. 

" Writers of letters sent by secret mails. 

" Secret recruiting officers within the lines, 

" Persons who have entered into an agreement to pass our lines for the purpose of joining 
tlie enemy. 

" Persons found concealed within our lines belonging to the service of the enemy, and, in 
fact, all persons found improperly within our lines, who could give private information to the 
enemy. 

"All persons within our lines who harbor, protect, conceal, feed, clothe, or in any way' aid 
the enemies of our country. , 

"The habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy will not be allowed in this Department. 
Persons committing such offenses will be at once arrested, with a view to being tried as above 
stated, or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends. 

"It must be distinctly understood that treason, expressed or implied, will not be tolerated in 
this Department. 

" All officers and soldiers are strictly charged with the execution of this order. 

"By command of Major-General Burnside. 

"LEWIS RICHMOND, 

"Assistant Adjutant-General. 

"Official: D. E. Earned, Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General." ' 

The publication of this order was the signal for a stream of invective from 



Akeest and Trial of Vallandigham. 101 

the bolder of the exponents of the Peace Democratic feeling, in the press and on 
the stump. Mr. Yallandigham was, of course, bitter and outspoken. Some of 
his more intemperate remarks were reported to General Bui-nside. Eegarding 
them as a soldier, and with the tendency to magnify his office common to all pro- 
fessions, the General resolved, on the repetition of the offense, to ai-rest this 
leader of the discontented party and bring him to trial. Presently Mr. Yallan- 
digham was announced to speak at Mount Yernon, in Knox County, to a Dem- 
ocratic mass meeting. A couple of military officers were at once ordered to re- 
pair thither, and, without attracting attention to their presence, to observe what 
was said. 

The meeting was on Friday, the 1st of May. On the ensuing Monday, 
after hearing the reports of the officers, General Burnside gave orders for Cap- 
tain Hutton, of his staff, with a company of the One Hundred and Fifteenth 
Ohio, to proceed to Mr. Yallandigham's residence in Dayton, arrest him as qui- 
etly as possible, and to return to Cincinnati by special train before daylight the 
next morning. Everything had been managed with great caution thus far, but 
on attempting to make the arrest. Captain Hutton found the popular agitator 
apparently suspicious of his impending fate. When, approaching Mr. Yallan- 
digham's door after midnight, he aroused the inmates and explained his errand, 
he was refused admission, while the object of his visit, thrusting his head from 
the second story bed-chamber window, shouted, " Asa, Asa, Asa." Signals, sup- 
posed to bo in answer to this call, were heard, and presently the fire-bells of the 
city began ringing. Fearing an attempt at rescue, the officer waited no longer 
to parley, but, battering in the front door, he entered the house with his sol- 
diers, forced two other doors which Mr. Yallandigham had fastened in his way, 
and finall3'made the arrest. Then, returning to the railroad depot, he departed 
with his prisoner in the special train before the crowds gathering in answer to 
the signals wei-e large enough to make any resistance. 

The unusual circumstances of the arrest were of themselves enough to pro- 
duce great excitement in a community so evenly divided in political sentiment, 
and with such bitterness of feeling on* each side as in that of Dayton. It was 
believed by many at the time that secret societies, formed for purposes hostile 
to the Government, had also much to do in fomenting the agitation. The streets 
were crowded all day with the friends and adherents of Mr. Yallandigham; 
liquor seemed to flow among them freely and without price; and the tone of the 
crowds was very bitter and vindictive. In the afternoon the journal formerly 
edited by Mr. Yallandigham, the Dayton Empire, appeared with the following 
inflammatory article : 

"The cowardly, scoundrelly Abolitionists of this town have at last succeeded in having Hon- 
orable C. L. Yallandigham kidnapped. About three o'clock this morning, when the city was 
quiet in slumber, one hundred and tifty soldiers, acting under orders from General Burnside, ar- 
rived here on a special train from Cincinnati, and, like thieves in the night, surrounded Mr. Yal- 
landigham's dwelling, beat down the doors, and dragged him from his family. The frantic cries 
of a wife, by this dastardly act almost made a maniac; the piteous tears and pleadings of a lit- 
tle child for the safety of its father, were all disregarded, as a savage would disregard the cries 
of a helpless infant he was about to brain. All forms and manner of civil law were disregarded. 



102 Ohio in the War 

Overpowered by one hundred and fifty soldiers, and with pickets thrown out, so as to prevent 
any alarm being giving to his friends, they tore him forcibly from his home and family, and 
marched with all possible speed to a special train in waiting, and before it was known to any of 
his friends they were off like cowardly scoundrels, fearing, as they had reason to, the vengeance 
of an outraged people. 

"Mr. Vallandigham, nor his friends, would have offered no resistance to his arrest by due 
process of law. He had told them, time and again, that if he was guilty of treason under tlie 
Constitution, he was at all times ready to be tried by that instrument. But they have disregarded 
law, and all usage of law, in this arrest. No charges were preferred; he was not told for what 
crime he was dragged, in the dead hour of night, from his family and his friends. He was sim- 
ply informed that Burnsidehad ordered it. Does Burnside, or an^' other man, hold the life and 
liberty of this people in his hands? Are we no longer freemen, but vassals and serfs of a mili- 
tary despotism? These are questions that will now be decided. If the spirit of the men who 
purchased our freedom tiirough the fiery ordeal of the Eevolution still lives in the heart of the 
people, as we believe it does, then all will yet be well, for it will hurl defiance to military des- 
potism, and rescue through blood and carnage, if it must be, our endangered liberties. Cowards 
are not deserving of liberty, brave men can not be enslaved. In our opinion the time is near at 
at hand, much nearer than unthinking men suppose, when it will be decided whether we are to 
remain free, or bare our necks to the despot's heel. The contest will be a fearful one. It will 
involve the loss of many lives, and immense destruction of property. Men in affluence to-day 
will be beggars to-morrow ; there will be more orphans and widows, tears and moans, and suf- 
fering. But the men who love liberty will emulate the spirit and daring of the immortal heroes 
of the Revolution, and make the willing sacrifice. Let cowards, and all who are willing to be 
slaves, seek safety in flight. Let them cast aside the Constitution, and never again look with 
pride upon the glorious folds of that starry banner of freedom; it can awake no glorious feeling 
of emotion within their craven hearts. The men who feel that ' resistance to tyrants is obedi- 
ence to God,' are men for the times; and, regardless of every consideration, will, in the spirit of 
the immortal Patrick Henry, exclaim, 'Give me liberty or give me death.' 

" The kidnapping of Mr. Vallandigham interests every lover of freedom in the land. It 
was against these illegal and arbitrary arrests that the voice of a mighty people was heard in 
thunder tones at the fall elections. That voice carried terror and dismay to the hearts of the des- 
pots at Washington. It opened the prison bars of the bastiles, and gave liberty to hundreds of 
outraged men, who had been imprisoned merely for opinion's sake. Has that warning lesson 
been so soon forgotten by the despots at Washington, and their satraps and minions throughout 
the country? Must they have a more severe and emijliatic lesson taught them? It would seem 
so. They have taken the initiative, and upon them and their tools in this city and elsewliere 
must rest the fearful responsibility of what follows. 

" We know the men who have been mainly instrumental in having this hellish outrage per- 
petrated ; and, by the Eternal, they will yet rue the day they let their party malice lead them as 
accomplices into the scheme of depriving, by force, as loyal a citizen as they dare be of his lib- 
erty. It has come to a pretty pass, when the liberty of Democrats in this city and county and 
district is in the hands, and subject to the caprice of such a petty upstart as Provost-Martial Ed. 
Parrott. Abolition leaders of this town, having some influence with Burnside, have worked out 
the kidnapping of Mr. Vallandigham. He has not been arrested for any offense against the 
laws of his country, for he has committed none. Personal and party malice is at the bottom of 
it all. It is a direct blow at the Democratic party, and the personal liberty of every member of 
that organization. Will they quietly submit to it? That's the question to be settled noAV. Is 
safety to be coveted more than freedom ? Is property, or even life, more to be prized than lib- 
erty? Had the heroes of the Kevoliition so believed and acted, we, their children, never would 
have enjoyed the priceless boon of freedom ; and perhaps it would have been called to feel and 
mourn over its loss. If justice is still abroad in this unhappy country, if truth and right is still 
powerful to combat error and wrong, there is a terrible retribution in store, not far distant, for 
the guilty scoundrels who, possessed of 'a little brief authority,' are seeking to crush out the last 
vestige of American liberty." 

This, of course, tended to aggravate the mob spirit that had already dis- 






Akrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 103 

played itself in numerous personal assaults. About dark a swivel was fired in 
front of the Empire office, around which a crowd soon gathered. They pres- 
ently moved across the street to the office of the Eepublican newspaper, the 
Dayton Journal, and began assailing it with stones and occasional pistol 
shots. Then a rush was made, the doors were burst open, whatever was 
easily accessible was destroyed, and finally the building was set on fire in sev- 
eral different places. The flames spread to neighboring houses, and threatened 
for a time to end in a terrible conflagration. The fire companies found their 
hose cut in dozens of places, and their engines unmanageable, while others were 
held back by force by the rioters, so that the Journal office and several adjacent 
buildings were completely destroyed before anything could be done. 

The next day General Burn side promptly proclaimed martial law in Mont- 
gomery County, and sent up Major Keith, of the One Hundred and Seventeenth 
Ohio, to act as Provost-Martial, with an ample military force to back him. No 
further disturbances were attempted. 

From his confinement in Cincinnati, Mr. Yallandigham, the next day, issued 
the following address to the Democracy of Ohio: 

"I am here in a military bastile,* for no other offense than my political opinions, and the 
defense of them and of the rights of the people, and of your constitutional liberties. Speeches 
made in the hearing of thousands of you, in denunciation of the uisurpations of power, infrac- 
tions of the Constitution and laws, and of military despotism, were the causes of my arrest and 
imprisonment. I am a Democrat; for Constitution, for law, for the Union, for liberty; this is 
my only crime. For no disobedience to the Constitution, for no violation of law, for no word, 
sign, or gesture of sympathy with the men of the South, who are for disunion and Southern 
independence, but in obedience to their demand, as well as the demand of Northern abolition 
disunionists and traitors, I am here in bonds to-day ; but 

'"Time, at last, sets all things even.' 

" Meanwhile, Democrats of Ohio, of the North-west, of the United States, be firm, be true 
to your principles, to the Constitution, to the Union, and all will yet be well. As for myself, I 
adhere to every principle, and will make good, through imprisonment and life itself, every 
pledge and declaration which I have ever made, uttered, or maintained from the beginning. To 
you to the whole people, to time, I again appeal. Stand firm. Falter not an instant ! 

" C. L. VALLANDIGHAM." 

A Military Commission, of which General E. B. Potter was President, was 
then in session in Cincinnati, under General Burnside's orders. Before this Mr. 
Vallandigham was brought to trial on the day after the arrest, on the folloAviug 
charge and specifications : 

" C%ar(/e.— Publicly expressing, in violation of General Orders No. 38, from Head-quarters 
Department of the Ohio, sympathy for those in arms against the Government of the United 
States, and declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions, with the object and purpose of weakening 
the power of the Government in its eflTorts to suppress an unlawful rebellion. 

" 3pecificati07i.—ln this, that the said Clement L. Vallandigham. a citizen of the State of 
Ohio on or about the 1st day of May, 1863, at Mount Vernon, Knox County, Ohio, did publicly 



* At first Mr. Vallandigham was confined in the military prison on Columbia Street, but^ it 
was soon seen that there was no danger of attempted rescue, and the military bastile in which 
he was then immured was the Burnet House. 



104 Ohio in the War. 

address a large meeting of citizens, and did utter sentiments in words, or in effect, as follows, de- 
claring the present war 'a wicked, cruel, and unnecessary war;' 'a war not being waged for the 
preservation of the Union ; ' ' a war for the purpose of crushing out liberty and erecting a despot- 
ism- ' 'a war for the freedom of the blacks and the enslavement of the whites ;' stating ' that if 
the Administration had so wished, the war could have been honorably terminated montlis ago ;' that 
'peace might have been honorably obtained by listening to the proposed intermediation of 
France;' that 'propositions by which the Northern States could be won back and the South 
guaranteed their rights under the Constitution, had been rejected the day before the late battle 
of Fredericksburg, by Lincoln and his minions,' meaning tliereby the President of the United 
States, and those under him in authority ; charging ' that the Government of tlie United States 
was about to appoint military marshals in every district, to restrain the people of their liberties, 
to deprive them of their rights and privileges ; ' characterizing General Orders No. 38, from 
Head-quarters Department of the Ohio, as ' a base usurpation of arbitrary authority,' inviting 
his hearers to resist the same, by saying, 'the sooner the people inform the minions of usurped 
power that they will not submit to such restrictions upon their liberties, the better ; ' declaring 
' that he was at all times, and upon all occasions, resolved to do what he could to defeat the at- 
tempts now being made to build up a monarchy upon the ruins of our free government ; ' as- 
serting 'that he firmly believed, as he said six months ago, that the men in power are 
attempting to establish a despotism in this country, more cruel and more oppressive than ever 
existed before.' 

" All of which opinions and sentiments he well knew did aid, comfort, and encourage those 
in arms against the Government, and could but induce in his hearers a distrust of their own 
Government, sympathy for those in arms against it, and a disposition to resist the laws of the 
land." 

The prisoner was attended by eminent counsel, Hon. Geo. E. Pugh, Hon. 
Geo. H. Pendleton, and others, but he preferred to submit no defense to a tri- 
bunal which he declared to have no right to try him, and contented himself 
with a cross-examination of the few witnesses summoned. The specifications 
were clearly sustained, save that, in order to avoid the delay involved in sum- 
moning Mr. Fernando "Wood, of New York, by whom Mr. Vallandigham wished 
to prove the nature of the propositions for peace which he had charged Mr. 
Lincoln with refusing, this item was abandoned. The testimony of one of the 
witnesses set forth the intemperate language in some detail, as follows : 

["The witness stated that, in order to give his remarks in the order in which they were 
made he would refresh his memory from manuscript notes made on the occasion. These the 
witness produced and held in his hands.] 

" The speaker commenced by referring to the canopy under which he was speaking — the 
stand being covered by an American flag — 'the flag which,' he said, ' had been rendered sacred 
by Democratic Presidents — the flag under the Constitution.' 

" After finishing his exordium, he spoke of the designs of those in power being to erect a 
despotism; that 'it was not their intention to eflect a restoration of the Union ; that previous to 
the bloody battle of Fredericksburg an attempt was made to stay this wicked, cruel, and unneces- 
sary war.' That the war could have been ended in February last. That, a day or two before 
the battle of Fredericksburg, a proposition had been made for the readmission of Southern Sena- 
tors into the United States Congress, and that the refusal was still in existence over the Presi- 
dent's own signature, which would be made public as soon as the ban of secrecy enjoined by the 
President was removed. That the Union could have been saved, if the plan proposed by the 
speaker had been adopted ; that the Union could have been saved upon the basis of reconstruc- 
tion ; but that it would have ended in the exile or death of those who advocated a continuation 
of the war; that 'Forney, who was a well-known correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, had 
said that some of our public men (and he, Forney, had no right to speak for any others than those 
connected with the Administration), rather than bring back some of the seceded States, would 



Akrest and Trial of Valla ndictHam. 105 

Buomit to a permanent separation of the Union.' He stated that ' France, a nation that had al- 
ways shown herself to be a friend of our Government, had proposed to act as a mediator;' but 
'that her proposition, which, if accepted, might have brought about an lionorable peace, was in- 
solently rejected.' It may have been 'instantly rejected;' that 'the people had been deceived as 
to the objects of the war from the beginning;' that 'it was a war for the liberation of the blacks 
and the enslavement of the wiiites. We had been told that it would be terminated in three 
months — then in nine months, and again in a year — but that there was still no prospect of its 
being ended. That Richmond was still in the hands of the enemy ; that Charleston was theirs, 
and Vicksburg was theirs ; that the Mississippi was not opened, and would not be so long as 
there was cotton on its banks to be stolen, or so long as there were any contractors or officers to 
enrich.' I do not remember which word, contractors or officers, he used. He stated that a 
Southern paper had denounced himself and Cox, and the 'Peace Democrats,' as* having 'done 
morfe to prevent the establishment of a Southern Confederacy than a thousand Sewards.' That 
Hhey proposed to operate through the masses of the people, in both sections, who were in favor 
of the Union.' He said that 'it was the purpose or desire of the Administration to suppress or 
prevent such meetings as the one he was addressing.' That ' military marshals were about to be 
appointed in every district, who would act for the purpose of restricting the liberties of the peo- 
ple;' but that ' he was a freeman ;' that he 'did not ask David Tod, or Abraham Lincoln, or Am- 
brose E. Burnside for his right to speak as he had done, and was doing. That his authority for 
so doing was higher than General Orders No. 38 — it was General Orders No. 1 — the Constitution. 
That General Orders No. 38 was a base usurpation of arbitrary power ; that he had the most 
supreme contempt for such power. He despised it, spit upon it ; he trampled it under his feet.' 
That only a few days before, a man had been dragged down from his home in Butler County, by 
an outrageous usurpation of power, and tried for an ofiense not known to our laws, by a self-con- 
stituted court-martial — tried without a jury, which is guaranteed to every one; that he had been 
fined and imprisoned. That two men had been brought over from Kentucky, and tried, contrary 
to express laws for the trial of treason, and were now under the sentence of death. That an order 
had just been issued in Indiana, denying to persons the right to canvass or discuss military pol- 
icy, and that, if it was submitted to, would be followed up by a similar order in Ohio. That he 
was resolvedwiever to submit to an order of a military dictator, prohibiting the free discussion 
of either civil or military authority. 'The sooner that the people inform the minions of this 
usurped power that they would not submit to such restrictions upon their liberties, the better.' 
'Should we cringe and cower before such authority?' That 'we claimed the right to criticise 
the acts of our military servants in power ' That there never was a tyrant in any age who op- 
pressed the people further than he thought they would submit to or endure. That in days of 
Democratic authority, Tom Corwin had, in face of Congress, hoped that our brave volunteers 
in Mexico ' might be welcomed with bloody hands to hospitable graves,' but that he had not been 
interfered with. It was never before thought necessary to appoint a captain of cavalry as pro- 
vost-marshal, as was now the case in Indianapolis, or military dictators, as were now exercising 
authority in j3incinnati and Columbus. He closed by warning the people not to be deceived. 
That * an attempt would shortly be made to enforce the conscription act ; ' that ' they should 
remember that this was not a war for the preservation of the Union;' that 'it was a wicked 
Abolition war, and that if those in authority were allowed to accomplish their purposes, the peo- 
ple would be deprived of their liberties, and a monarchy established ; but that, as for him, he 
was resolved that he would never be a priest to minister upon the altar upon which liis country 
was being sacrificed.'" 

The prisoner, in the cross-examination, brought out the facts that, notwith- 
standing his violent language, he had cautiously added that the remedy for 
these evils was at the ballot-box and in the courts; that he had denounced the 
cheers for Jefferson Davis which some of his remarks had evoked ; that he had 
professed his firm adherence to the Union, his desire to try by compromise to 
restore it as the fathers made it, and his determination not to take any part in 
agreeing to its dissolution. These extenuating circumstances he proposed to 



106 Ohio in the Wae. 

prove a so bj" other witnesses, but the Judge-Advocate admitted them all with- 
out further testimony. 

When the trial was begun, Mr. Yallandigham refused to enter any plea, de- 
nying the jurisdiction of the Court. At the close of the evidence he simply 
read to the Court this protest, with which ho submitted the case : 

"Arrested without due 'process of law,' without warrant from any judicial officer, and now 
in a military prison, I have been served with a ' charge and specifications,' as in a court-martial 
or military commission. 

"I am not in either 'the land or naval forces of the United States, nor in the militia in the 
actual service of the United States,' and therefore am not triable for any cause, by any such 
court, but am subject, by the express terms of the Constitution, to arrest only by due process of 
law, judicial warrant, i-egularly issued upon affidavit, and by some officer or court of competent 
jurisdiction for the trial of citizens, and am now entitled to be tried on an indictment or present- 
ment of a grand jury of such court, to speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the State 
of Ohio, to be confronted with witnesses against me, to have compulsory process for witnesses in 
my behalf, the assistance of counsel for my defense, and evidence and argument according to the 
common laws and the ways of judicial courts. 

"And all these I here demand as my right as a citizen of the United States, and under the 
Constitution of the United States. 

" But the alleged ' ofiense' is not known to the Constitution of the United States, nor to any 
law thereof. It is words spoken to the people of Ohio in an open and public political meeting, 
lawfully and peaceably assembled, under the Constitution and upon full notice. It is words of 
criticism of the public policy of the public servants of the people, by which policy it was alleged 
that the welfare of the country was not promoted. It was an appeal to the people to change 
that policy, not by force, but by free elections and the ballot-box. It is not pretended that I 
counseled disobedience to the Constitution, or resistance to laws and lawful authority. I never 
have. Beyond this protest I have nothing further to submit. 

"C. L. VALLANDIOHAM." 

The Judge-Advocate replied that he had nothing to say as to the jurisdic- 
tion of the Court — that question having been decided by the authority conven- 
ing it; and that as to counsel and witnesses, the prisoner had been enabled to 
have any witnesses he wished summoned, and had three counsel of his own 
choice in an adjacent room, whom he had not chosen, for reasons unknown, to 
bring into the Court. 

And so, after a two daj^s' trial, the case was left to the Court. Eight days 
later the findings were approved by the General Commanding, and published in 
general orders. Mr. Yallandigham was found guilty of the charge and specifi- 
cations (with the excej)tion of the words, "That propositions by which the 
JSTorthern States could be won back, and the South guaranteed their rights under 
the Constitution, had been rejected the day before the late battle of Fredericks- 
burg, by Lincoln and his minions," meaning thereby the President of the United 
States, and those under him in authority, and the words, "asserting that he 
firmly believed, as he asserted six months ago, that the men in power are at- 
tempting to establish a despotism in this country, more cruel and more oppres- 
sive than ever existed before"), and was sentenced to close confinement in some 
United States fort during the continuance of the war. General Burnside named 
Fort Warren in Boston harbor, as the place of confinement ; and forwarded the 
proceedings in the case to the President. 



Arrest and Trial of Vallan digram. 107 

r| There was a general fear that the result of the trial would be to exalt Mr 

:l Vallandigham in public estimation as a martyr to the cause of free speech. On 
this account the entire proceedings had been general!}^ disapproved at the East; 
.1 and even among the supporters of the Government within the State were very 
ij many who regretted that any notice whatever had been taken of the Mount 
Yernon speech. Now that the thing was done, it was held that the least objec- 
tionable course out of the difficulty would be to send Mr. Yallandigham through 
the lines to the South, there to remain " among his friends," as the .newspapers 
j phrased it, till the end of the war. To this view the President acceded. He 
accordingly ordered General Burnside to send Mr. Yallandigham under secure 
i guard to the head-quarters of General Rosecrans, to be put by him beyond the 
military lines. In case of his return he was to be arrested and punished in 
accordance with the original sentence. This oi*der was promptly obeyed; and, 
under a flag of truce, Mr, Yallandigham was sent over into the Rebel lines in 
Tennessee. 

We shall have occasion in reciting the events speedil}- following in the 
State's history to see what course he took, and what was the final result 
of all these proceedings upon the popular action in favor of the prosecution of 
the war. 

Two days after the close of Mr. Yallandigham's trial before, the Military 
Commission, Hon. George E. Pugh, of his counsel, apj)lied to Judge Leavitt of 
the United States Circuit Court for a writ of habeas corpus. The application 
was ably argued — by Mr. Pugh for the prisoner, and by Mr. Aaron F. Perry, 
and the United States District-Attorney, Mr. Flamen Ball, in behalf of General 
Burnside. 

The Clerk had been directed to notif}- General Burnside of the application 
and of the day on which it would be heard. He appeared, not only by counsel, 
but in the following personal statement, which was presented for him by the 
District-Attorney : 

"If I were to indulge in wholesale criticisms of the policy of the Government, it would de- 
moralize the army under my command, and every friend of his country would call me a traitor. 
If the officers or soldiers were to indulge in such criticism, it would weaken the army to the ex- 
tent of their influence ; and if this criticism were universal in the army, it would cause it to be 
broken to pieces, tlie Government to be divided, our homes to be invaded, and anarchy to reign. 
My duty to my Government forbids me to indulge in such criticisms; officers and soldiers are not 
allowed so to indulge, and tbis course will be sustained by all honest men. 

" Now, I will go further. We are in a state of civil war. One of the States of this depart- 
ment is at this moment invaded, and three others have been threatened I command the depart- 
ment, and it is my duty to my country, and to this army, to keep it in the best possible condition; 
to see that it is fed, clad, armed, and, as far as possible, to see that it is encouraged. If it is my 
duty and the duty of the troops to avoid saying any thing that would weaken the army, by pre- 
venting a single recruit from joining the ranks, by bringing the laws of Congress into disrepute, 
or by causing dissatisfaction in the ranks, it is equally the duty of every citizen in the depart- 
ment to avoid the same evil. If it is my duty to prevent the propagation of this evil in the 
army, or in a portion of my department, it is equally my duty in all portions of it ; and it is my 
duty to use all the force in my power to stop it. 

" If I were to find a man from the enemy's country distributing in my camps speeches of 



108 Ohio in the War. 

their public men that tended to demoralize the troops or to destroy their contidence in the consti- 
tuted authorities of the Government, I would have him tried, and hung if found guilty, and all' 
the rules of modern warfare would sustain me. Why should such speeches from our own public 
men be allowed? 

" The press and public men, in a great emergency like the present, should avoid the use of 
party epithets and bitter invectives, and discourage the organization of secret political societies, 
which are always undignified and disgraceful to a free people, but now they are absolutely wrong 
and injurious ; they create dissensions and discord, which just now amount to treason. The simple 
names ' Patriot' and 'Traitor' are comprehensive enough. 

" As I before said, we are in a state of civil war, and an emergency is upon us which re- 
quires the operations of some power that moves more quickly than the civil. 

"There never was a war carried on successfully without the exercise of that power. 

"It is said that the speeches which are condemned have been made in the presence of large 
bodies of citizens, who, if they thought them wrong, would have then and there condemned 
them. That is no argument. These citizens do not realize the eflect upon the army of our coun- 
try, who are its defenders. They have never been in the field ; never faced the enemies of their 
country ; never undergone the privations of our soldiers in the field ; and, besides, they have 
been in the habit of hearing their public men speak, and, as a general thing, approving of what 
they say; therefore, the greater responsibility rests upon the public men and upon the public 
press, and it behooves them to be careful as to what they say. They must not use license and 
plead that they are exercising liberty. In this department it can not be done. I shall use all: 
the power I have to break down such license, and I am sure I will be sustained in this course by ■ 
all honest men. At* all events, I will have the consciousness, before God, of having done my 
duty to my country, and when I am swerved from the performance of that duty by any pressure, 
public or private, or by any prejudice, I will no longer be a man or a patriot. 

" I again assert, that every power I possess on earth, or that is given me from above, will be 
used in defense of my Government, on all occasions, at all times, and in all places within this 
department. There is no party— no community— no State Government— no State Legislative 
body— no corporation or body of men that have the power to inaugurate a war policy that has 
the validity of law and power, but the constituted authorities of the Government of the United 
States; and I am determined to support their policy. If the people do not approve that policy, 
they can change the constitutional authorities of that Government, at the proper time and by the 
proper method. Let them freely discuss the policy in a proper tone ; but my duty requires me 
to stop license and intemperate discussion, which tends to weaken the authority of the Govern- 
ment and army : whilst the Fatter is in the presence of the enemy, it is cowardly to so weaken it. 
This license could not be used in our camps— the man would be torn in pieces who would attempt 
it. There is no fear of the people losing their liberties ; we all know that to be the cry of dema- 
gogues, and none but the ignorant will listen to it : all intelligent men know that our people are 
too far advanced in the scale of religion, civilization, education, and freedom, to allow any power 
on earth to interfere with their liberties ; but this same advancement in these great characteris- 
tics of our people teaches them to make all necessary sacrifices for their country when an emer- 
gency requires. They will support the constituted authorities of the Government, whether 
they agree with them or not. Indeed, the army itself is a part of the people, and is so 
thoroughly educated in the love of civil liberty, which is the best guarantee for the permanence 
of our republican institutions, that it would itself be the first to oppose any attempt to continue 
the exercise of military authority after the establishment of peace by the overthrow of the rebell- 
ion. No man on earth can lead our citizen -soldiery to the establishment of a military despot- 
ism, and no man living would have the folly to attempt it. To do so would be to seal his own 
doom. On this point there can be no ground for apprehension on the part of the people. 

"It is said that we can have peace if we lay down our arms. All sensible men know this to 
be untrue. Were it so, ought we to be so cowardly as to lay them down until the authority of 
the Government is acknowledged? 

" I beg to call upon the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, relatives, friends, 
and neighbors of the soldiers in the field to aid me in stopping this license and intemperate dis- 
cussion, which is discouraging our armies, weakening the hands of the Government, and thereby 
strengthening the enemy. If we use our honest efibrts, God will bless us with a glorious peace 



Arreest and Trial of Yallandigham. 109 

and a united country. Men of every shade of opinion have the same vital interest in the sup- 
pression of this rebellion; for, should we fail in the task, the dread horrors of a rm'ned and dis- 
tracted nation will fall alike on all, whether patriots or traitors. 

"These are substantially my reasons for issuing 'General Order No. 38;' my reasons for the 
determination to enforce it, and also my reasons for the arrest of Hon. C. L. Vallandigham for a 
supposed violation of that order, for which he has been tried. The result of that trial is now in 
my liands. 

" In enforcing this order I can be unanimously sustained by the people, or I can be opposed 
by factious, bad men. In the former event, quietness will prevail ; in the latter event, the re- 
sponsibility and retribution will attach to the men who resist the authority, and the neighbor- 
hoods that allow it. 

"All of which is respectfully submitted. 

"A. E. BURNSIDE, Major-Geneba.l, 

"Commanding Department of the Ohio." 

Mr. Pugh complained that this was in effect a return to the writ, avowing 
the facts detailed in the petition therefor; and that yet, without having the 
body of the petitioner in court, or without any order compelling General Burn- 
side to stay the execution of sentence, he was required to proceed with his 
duties as an advocate. The habeas corpus, he maintained, was a writ of right, 
under which, whenever it appeared on affidavit, that the prisoner was unlaw- 
fully imprisoned the Court had no choice, no latitude, no right even of post- 
ponement. After fortifying this position, asserting that the only question was 
whether upon the allegations of the petition, Mr. Yallandigham was lawfully or 
unlawfully imprisoned, and, quoting the preamble and enacting clause of the 
Constitution, he continued : 

"There can be no Union except as intended by that compact. The people have not agreed 
to any other; and without their consent, it is impossible that any other should be legitimately 
established. The justice to be administered in this court, and in all other tribunals, military 
and civil, must be such as the Constitution requires. Domestic tranquillity is a condition greatly 
to be envied; but it must be secured by observing the Constitution in letter and in spirit. Gen- 
eral Burnside admonishes us of a certain ' quietness' which might prevail as the consequence of 
enforcing his military order : I answer him that quietness attained by the sacrifice of our ances- 
tral rights, by the destruction of our constitutional privileges, is worse than the worst degree of 
confusion and violence. Touch not the liberty of the citizen; and we. in Ohio, at least, will be 
unanimous. We may not concnr as to the causes which induced so mighty a rebellion; we may 
differ as to the best metliods of subduing or of mitigating it; we may quarrel ps partisans, or 
even as factionists ; but we Avill, nevertheless, with one accord, sustain the General in the dark- 
est hour of his despondency as well as in the day of triumph — sustain him by ou** counsels, by 
all our means, and, if necessary, at the expense of our lives. But we can not give liim our lib- 
erties. That sacrifice would be of no advantage to him ; and it would render us and our pos- 
terity forever miserable. It is not necessary to the common defense; it would not — it can not — 
promote the common welfare." 

He quoted the clause of the Constitution prohibiting Congress from passing 
any law abridging freedom of speech, or the right of peaceable assembly, to 
protest against grievances, and continued: 

"General Burnside holds an office created by act of Congress alone — an office which 
Congress may, at any time, abolish. His title, his rank, his emoluments, his distinction above 
his fellow-citizens, are all derived from that source. I take it to be absolutely ce-itain, therefore, 
that he can make no ' law' which Congress could not make. He can not abridge "he freedom of 
speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to assemble and to consider of their grievances. 



110 Ohio in the Wak. 

And yet, sir, of what does he accuse Mr. Vallandigham? Let the specification of Captain Cutts 
answer: Of having addressed a public assembly of the electors of Ohio, at Mount Vernon, in 
Knox County, on the first day of this month. Nothing more ; nothing whatsoever. It was an 
assembly of the people to deliberate upon their grievances, and to advise with each other in what 
way those grievances could be redressed. Into that forum — the holiest of holies in our political 
system — has General Burnside intruded his military dictation. Need I say more? What avails 
a rJo-ht of the people to assemble, or to consult of their public affairs, if, when assembled, and 
that peaceably, they have no freedom of speech?" 

He pointed out the difference between G-eneral Burnside's relation to the 
President as his military Commander-in-Chief, bringing him under the Articles 
of War, which forbid disrespectful language of his superior officers, and that of 
Mr. Yallandigham, as simply a citizen. He answered the complaint as to the 
effect of Mr. Vallandigham's language on the people, by saying in effect that the 
people must do their own thinking after their own fashion, and with such aid 
in the waj^ of speeches as they should choose for themselves ; and the complaint 
as to the effect upon the soldiers, thus : 

"0! — but the effect on the soldiers. Well, sir, let us inquire into that. The soldiers 
have been citizens ; they have been in the habit of attending public meetings, and of listen- 
in<^ to public speakers. They are not children, but grown men — stalwart, sensible, and 
valiant men — with their hearts in the right place, and with arms ready to strike whenever 
and wherever the cause of their country demands. The General assures us of more, even 
than this: 'No man on earth,' 'he says, ' can lead our citizen-soldiery to the establishment 
of a military despotism.' And are these the men to be discouraged, and, es[)ecially, to feel 
weary in heart or limb —unable to cope with an enemy in the field because Mr. Vallandig- 
ham or any other public speaker, may have said something, at Mount Vernon or elsewhere, with 
which they do not agree? The soldiers have not chosen me for their eulogist; but I will say, 
of my own accord, that they are no such tender plants as General Burnside imagines. They 
know exactly, for what they went into the field; they are not alarmed, nor dissatisfied, nor dis- 
couraged, because their fellow-citizens, at home, attend public meetings, and listen to public 
speeches, as heretofore; they have no serious misgivings as to the estimation in which they are 
holden by the people of the Northern and North-western States, without any distinction of 
sects, parties, or factions. 

" Let the officers, and especially those of highest degree, observe their military duties ; let 
them see to it, as General Burnside has well said, and as, I doubt not, he has well done, so far as 
his authority extends, that tlie soldiers are 'fed, clad, and armed,' and ' kept in the best possible 
condition ' for service. Allow them to vote as they please ; allow them to read whatever news- 
papers they like ; cease any attempt to use them for a partisan advantage : I do not accuse Gen- 
eral Burnside of this — but others, and too many, have been guilty of the grossest tyranny in regard 
10 it. Protect the soldier against the greed of jobbers and knavish contractors — against dealers 
in shoddy, in rotten leather, in Belgian muskets, in filthy bread and meat — against all the hide- 
ous cormorants which darken the sky and overshadow the land in times of military prepara- 
tion. Let the party in administration discharge these duties ; and my word for it, sir, that the 
volunteers from Ohio, from Indiana, from Illinois, from every other State, will do and dare as 
much, at least, as the best and bravest soldiers in the world can accomplish." 

Eeviewing the several specifications in the arraignment of Mr. Yallandig- 
ham before the Military Commission, he sought to show how none of the words 
quoted, even in the disjointed, unconnected shape in which they were given, 
passed the lawful latitude of free discussion ; asked how mere words could, in 
G-eneral Burnsides language, "amount to" treason ; and discussed at considera- 



Arrest and Trial of Valla^ndigham. Ill 

ble length the question of constructive treason, and arrayed a formidable pre- 
sentment of authorities on the subject, concluding: 

"But, sir, what become of our safeguards — what avails the experience of seven hundred 
years — where is that Constitution which declares itself to be the supreme law of the land — if 
a Major-General commanding the Department of the Ohio, or any other officer, civil or military, 
can create and multiply definitions of treason at his pleasure? The ancient Ruminalis put forth 
new leaves when all men supposed it to be dying; wliether the tree of American liberty will be 
able to supply tlie place of that splendid foliage which has been stripped from its branches, and 
scattered beneath our feet, by tliis rude blast of arbitrary and unlimited authority, is a question 
hereafter to be determined. That question does not concern my distinguislied client any more 
than it concerns every other citizen. The partisans in power to-day will be the partisans in op- 
position to-morrow; then military command will be shifted from those who oppress to those 
who have been oppressed ; and so, with the mutations of political fortune, must the personal rights 
and rights of property, and even the lives, of all be in constant hazard. I pray that my learned 
friends upon the other side will consider this in time ; that they will use their influence not only 
with the defendant, init with those to whom at present he is amenable, to revoke — ere it be too 

late the dreadful fiat of tyranny, of hopeless confusion, of ultimate anarchy, which has been 

sounded in our midst." 

Then, saying tliat the argument for the prisoner might well be here con- 
cluded, he nevertheless, under his instruction, must proceed to present the bear- 
ings of another article of the Constitution ; that guaranteeing the right of the 
people against unreasonable searches and seizures, and forbidding the issue of 
warrants but upon probable cause, supported bj' oath or affirmation. Arraying 
the authorities on this subject, and enumerating the requisites for arrest and 
trial, he then concluded: 

" And yet, sir, to that we have come — in the first century of our Republic, with a written 
Constitution less than eighty years old, in a country professing to be civilized, intelligent, refined, 
and (strangest of all) to be free ! It is our case— if your Honor please — your own case and mine ; 
and not merely the case of Clement L. Vallandigham. He is the victim to-day; but there will 
be, and must be, other victims to-morrow. Wiiat rights have we, or what security for any right, 
under such a system as this ? 

"'Every minist'ring spy 

That will accuse and swear, is lord of you. 

Of me, of all our fortunes and our lives. 

Our looks are call'd to question, and our words. 

How innocent soever, are made crimes ; 

We shall not shortly dare to tell our dreams. 

Or think, but 't will be treason.' 

" And the excuse for it, as given by General Burnside, is that a rebellion exists in Tennessee, 
in Arkansas, in Louisiana, in Mississippi, in Alabama, in other States a thousand miles distant 
from us. Does any rebellion exist here ? President Lincoln, by his proclamation of January 1, 
1863, has undertaken to ' designate ' the States, and even ' parts ' of States, at present in rebell- 
ion ; but I do not find the State of Ohio, nor the county of Montgomery, nor the city of Dayton 
so designated. How can the Rebels, in addition to disclaiming their own rights under the Con- 
stitution of the United States, also forfeit the rights of my client? I ask General Burnside, or 
his counsel, to answer me that question ; because, until it has been answered, and answered sat- 
isfactorily, there can be no excuse, no apology, not the least degree of palliation, for such extra- 
ordinary proceedings as have been avowed here, and vainly attempted to be justified. 

" You have presided in this court almost thirty years; and, during that time, have heard 
and determined a vast number and variety of important controversies. But never, as I venture 
to affirm, have you been called to the discharge of a greater duty than upon this occasion. I had 
supposed, in the simplicity of my heart and understanding, that all the propositions for which I 



112 Ohio in the War. 

have contended were too firmly established in America, as well as in England, to be disturbed or 
even doubted. It seems otherwise ; and, therefore, at unusual length, and without as lucid an 
order and as close an argument as I could wish, have I descanted upon the mighty themes of 
contest, in all past ages, between the supporters of arbitrary power and the defenders of popular 
rights. I pray that you will command the body of my client to be brought before you, in this 
court of civil judicature, and in the open light of day ; to the end that he may be informed here 
of what he is accused, and may be tried on that accusation, whatever it be, in due form of law. 
Let us know the worst any man has to allege against him ; and then let him stand before a jury 
of his countrymen, in the face of all accusers, for deliverance, or, if guilty, for condemnation. 

" I ask this, sir, in the interest of that Constitution which has been violated by his arrest 
and imprisonment— in the interest of that Union, the fortunes of which now depend on the 
arbitrament of the sword— in the interest of that army which we have sent into the field to 
maintain our cause— in the interest of peace at home, and of unanimity in waging a battle so 
bloody and so hazardous— in the interest of liberty, of justice, of ordinary fairness between man 
and man. 

"I have tried to say what ought to be said, and no more, in vindication of the rights of the 
petitioner. God help me if I have said anything which ought to have been omitted, or omitted 
anything which ought to have been said ! " 

Mr. Perry "began his reply as follows : 

"May it please the Court: When General Burnside requested me to assist the District 
Attorney on this occasion, he forebore to give me any instructions, except to present such consid- 
erations to the judgment of the court as should seem to me right and proper. I have a distinct 
impression that he has no preference that the questions here presented should be heard before 
any other jurisdiction or tribunal rather than this; and that he wishes his proceedings to be here 
discussed by his counsel, chiefly on the broad basis of their merits; that they should be made to 
rest on the solid ground of the performance of a high and urgent public duty. The main argu- 
ment which I shall present to the court will, therefore, be founded on the obligations, duties, and 
responsibilities of General Burnside as a Major-General in command of an army of the United 
States, in the field of military operations, for the purposes of war, and in the presence of the 
enemy. I shall not place it on any ground of apology, excuse, or palliation, but strictly and 
confidently on the ground of doing what he had a lawful, constitutional right to do; and on the 
ground of performing a duty imposed upon him as one of the necessities of his official position. 
I shall make no plea of an exigency in which laws are suspended, and the Constitution forgot- 
ten, but shall claim that the Constitution is equal to the emergency, and has adequately provided 
for 'it; that the act complained of here is an act fully warranted by law, and authorized by the 
Constitution. I shall support this claim by references to more than one opinion of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, and to other authorities." 

After dwelling upon some defects in the application for the writ, and ridi- 
culing its rhetorical features, he laid down the principle that the habeas corpus 
could^jot meddle with arrests legally made, and that arrests under the laws of 
war were legal as well as those under the ordinary forms. Without relying 
upon the President's Proclamation of 24th September, 1862, suspending the writ 
and delaring martial law, he proceeded to maintain that, with the privilege of 
the writ admitted to be still in full force, the application should not be granted • 

"T claim then, that the facts before this court show that the arrest of Clement L. Vallan- 
di-ham by Ambrose E. Burnside, a Major-General in the United States service, commanding in 
the Department of the Ohio, was a legal and justifiable arrest. For the facts showing its legality 
I i-elv—l On the petition and affidavit of the prisoner ; 2. On facts of current public history of 
which the Court is bound to take judicial cognizance. Among the facts of public history I need 
recall but few. Unfortunately, the country is involved in dangers so many and so critical, that 
its people neither do nor can divert their thoughts to other topics." 



Arrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 113 

"The power and wants of the insurrection are not all nor chiefly military. It needs not 
only food, clothing, arms, medicine, but it needs hope and synipatliy. It needs moral aid to sus- 
tain it against reactionary tendencies. It needs argument to represent its origin and claims to 
respect favorably before the world. It needs information concerning the strength, disposition, 
and movements of government force. It needs help to paralyze and divide opinions among those 
who sustain the government, and needs help to hinder and embarrass its councils. It needs that 
troops should be withheld from government, and its financial credit shaken. It needs that gov- 
ernment should lack confidence in itself, and become discouraged. It needs that an opinion 
should prevail in the world that the government is incapable of success, and unworthy of sym- 
pathy. Who can help it in either particular I have named, can help it as effectually as by bear- 
ing arms for it. Wherever in the United States a wish is entertained to give such help, and such 
wish is carried to its appropriate act, there is the place of the insurrection. Since all these helps 
combine to make up the strength of the insurrection, war is necessarily made upon them all, 
when made upon the insurrection. Since each one of the insurrectionary forces holds in check 
or neutralizes a corresponding government force, and since government is in such extremity as 
not safely to allow any part of its forces to withdraw from the struggle, it has no recourse but to 
strike at whatever part of the insurrection it shall find exposed. All this is implied in war, and 
in this war with especial cogency. 'If war be actually levied — that is, if a body of men be actu- 
ally assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable purpose — all those who per- 
form any part, however luinute, or however remote from the scene of action, and who are actu- 
ally leagued in the general conspiracy, are to be considered as traitors.' 4 Cranch, 12G." 

Eulogizing the Generals in comnitind (Burnside and Cox), he then asked: 

"Why are these men here? Have they, at any time since the war begun, sought any other 
but the place of danger ? They are here ; they are sent here for war : to lay the same military 
hand upon this insurrection, wherever they can find it, in small force or large force, before them 
or behind them, which they have laid upon it elsewhere. They are not here to cry peace, when 
there is no peace ; not here to trifle with danger, or be trifled with by it. They are patriot Gen- 
erals, commanding forces in the field in the presence of the enemy, constrained by their love of 
country, and in the fear of God only, to strike. Are they to fold their arms and sleep while the 
incitements to insurrection multiply around them, and until words shall find their way to appro- 
priate acts? Are they to wait until the wires shall be cut, railroad tracks torn up, and this great 
base of supplies, this great thoroughfare for the transit of troops, this great center and focus of 
conflicting elements, is in a blaze, before they can act? Must they wait until apprehended mis- 
chief shall become irremediable befoi-e they can attempt a remedy ? Jeflerson Davis would 
answer, 'Yesl' Traitors and abettors of treason would everywhere answer, 'Yes!' I seem to 
hear a solemn accord of voices rising from the graves of the founders of the Constitution saying, 
'No 1' And I seem to hear the response of loyal and true friends of liberty everywhere swelling 
to a multitudinous and imperative ' Amen !' " 

" I understood the learned counsel to intimate that Government would receive the unani- 
mous support of the people of Ohio, if it would do nothing which displeased any of them. 
'Touch not the liberty of the citizen, and we, in Ohio, at least, will be unanimous.' May it please 
your Honor, the liberty of the citizen is touched when he is compelled, eitiier by a sense of duty 
or by conscription, to enter the army. The liberty of the citizen is touched when he is forbidden 
to pass the lines of any encampment. The liberty of the citizen is touched when he is forbidden 
to sell arms and munitions of war, or to carry information to the enemy. Learned counsel is 
under a mistake. We, in Ohio, could not be unanimous in leaving such liberties untouched. 
The liberty to stay at home from war is at least as sacred as the liberty to make popular ha- 
rangues. But since all these liberties are assailed by war, they must be defended by war. We, in 
Ohio, never could be unanimous in approving the action of a government which should force one 
portion of the population to enter the army, and allow another portion of it to discourage, de- 
moralize, and weaken that army. Unanimity, on such conditions, is impossible. But this sug- 
gestion of unanimity is not quite new. The zeal of the advocate, the charming voice, the stir- 
ring elocution with which it is now reproduced, do all that is possible to redeem it from its early 
associations. But we can not forget that the same thing has played a conspicuous part in the b'p- 
VoL. 1.— 8. 



114 Ohio in the War. 

tory of the last few years. At the last presidential election it happened, as it had on all preceding 
similar occasions, that a majority of lawful votes, constitutionally cast, elected a President of the 
United States, and placed the federal administration in the hands of persons agreeing in opinion, or 
appearing to agree with that majority. It happened, as it had ordinarily happened before, that the 
minority did not agree with the majority, either as to principles oras to the men selected. It claimed 
to believe the majority in the wrong, and no minority could find provocation or excuse for being in 
the minority, unless it did believe the majority in the wrong. It is not now necessary to inquire 
which were right in their preferences and opinions. The minoi'ity were fatally wrong in this, that 
they refused the arbitrament provided in the Constitution for the settlement of such controversies. 
The new Administration must yield, because the minority found itself unwilling to yield. The 
old Constitution must be changed by new conditions, or run the risk of overthrow. In other 
words, it must be overthrown in its most vital principles, by compelling a majority to accept 
terms from a minority, accompanied by threats of war, or it might be nominally kept alive by 
consenting to abdicate its functions. All that the secession leaders proposed was, that they 
should be allowed to administer the Government when elected, and, also, when not elected. They 
were willing to respect the constitutional rights of elections, provided it should be conceded that 
if they were beaten tbey should go on with public aflairs the same as if they had been elected. 
They were willing to take the responsibility of judging what they would like to do, and all they 
asked was the liberty to do it. 'Touch not our liberties, and we can be unanimous! ' The same 
old fallacy reappears in every phase of the insurrection ; sometimes with and sometimes without 
disguise. Neither change of wigs, nor change of clothing, nor presence nor absence of burnt 
cork, can hide its well-known gait and physiognomy. The insurrection will support the Gov- 
ernment, provided the Government will support the insurrection; but the Government must con- 
sent to abdicate its functions, and permit others to judge what ought to be done, before it can be 
supported. One of its favorite disguises is to desire to support the Government, provided it were 
in proper hands ; but to be unable to support it in its present hands. The proper hands, and the 
only proper hands for Government to be in, are the hands in which the Constitution places it. 
If tlie whole country should believe any particular hands to be the most suitable, those hands 
would be chosen. He who can not support the Government on the terms pointed out in the Con- 
stitution, by recognizing as the proper hands for its administration the hands in which the law 
places it, is not a friend, but an enemy of the Constitution. What he means by liberty is not that 
qualified liberty in wliich all may share, but a selfish, tyrannical, irresponsible liberty to liave his 
own way, without reference to the wishes or convenience of others. This notion of selfish and 
irresponsible liberty is an unfailing test and earmark of the insurrection. Whatever other ap- 
pearances it may put on, it can always be known and identified by this. No darkness can con- 
ceal, no dazzling light transform it. Wherever it may be found, there is insurrection, in spirit 
at least, and according to different grades of courage, in action also. This kind of liberty can 
not live at the same time with the liberty which our Constitution was ordained to secure. Gov- 
ernment must lay hands upon it or die. Dangerous as its hostility may be, its embrace would 
be more fatal. Its hostility may, in time, destroy the Government, but any government consent- 
ing to make terms with it is already dead." 

He noticed the cltxim that Mr. ValUmdig-ham's violent language and ap^jeala 
for resistance pointed only to resistance at the ballot-box and in the courts. 
Eeading the specifications, he continued: 

" It appears from this that he publicly addressed a large meeting of citizens. He was not 
expressing in secresy and seclusion his private feelings or misgivings, but seeking publicity and 
influence. The occasion and circmnstances show the i)urpose to have been to produce an efiect on 
the public mind, to mold public feeling, to shape public action. In what direction? Tlie charge 
says, by expressing his sympathies for those in arms against the Government of the United States, 
by declaring disloyal sentiments and opinions. He declared the war to be wicked and cruel, and 
unnecessary, and a war not waged for the preservation of the Union : a war for crushing out lib- 
erty and erecting a despotism. What is this but saying that those who fight against the United 
States are in the right, and that it would be cowardly and dishonorable not to fight against the 
United States? In what more plain or cogent language could he urge his avidience themselves 



Arrest and Trial of Yallandigham. 115 

to take up arms against their Government? If those who heard him conkl not be incited to fight 
against a Government by persuading tliem it was making an unjust and cruel war to crush out 
liberty, how else could he expect to incite them? If he did not hope to persuade them to join 
their sympathies and efforts with the enemies of the United States, by convincing them that these 
enemies are in the right, fighting and suffering to prevent the overthrow of liberty, standing up 
against wickedness and cruelty, what must he have thought of his audience ? What else but the 
legitimate result of his argument can w6 impute fairly as the object of his hopes? To whatever 
extent they believe him, they must be poor, dumb dogs not to rally, and rally at once, for the 
overthrow of their own Government, and for the support of those who make war upon it. But 
he did not leave it to be inferred. He declared it to be a war for the enslavement of the whites 
and the freedom of the blacks. Which of the two was, in his opinion, the greater outrage, he does 
not appear to have stated. It is one of the unmistakable marks of insurrection, by which it can 
always be identified, that its declarations for liberty are for a selfish and brutal liberty, which in- 
cludes the liberty of injuring or disregarding others. If his white audience were not willing to 
be enslaved, that is to say, not willing to endure the last and most degrading outrage possible to 
be inflicted on human nature, they must, so far as they believed him, resist their own Govern- 
ment. If he himself believed what he said, he must take up arms to resist the Government, or 
stand a confessed poltroon. A public man, who believes that his Government is guilty of the 
crimes he imputed, and will not take up arms against it, is guilty of unspeakable baseness. If 
his audience believed what he told them, they must have looked upon advice not to take up arms 
as insincere or contemptible. No public man, no private man, can make such charges and de- 
cently claim not to mean war. All insurrections have their pretexts. The man who furnishes 
these is more guilty than the man who believes them and acts on them. If the statements of 
Vallandigham were true, the pretexts were ample, not merely as pretexts, but as justification of 
insurrection. They were more: they were incitements which it would be disgraceful to resist, 
and which human nature generally has no power to resist. The place where such things are 
done is the place of insurrection, or there is not and can not be a place of insurrection anywhere. 
If these laboratories of treason are to be kept in full blast, they will manufacture traitors faster 
than our armies can kill them. This cruel process finds no shelter under the plea of political 
discussion. Whatever might be said about ballots and elections, the legal inference is that it is 
intended to produce the results which would naturally flow from it. If the President, with all 
the army and navy, and his ' minions,' is at work to overthrow liberty and enslave the whites, 
every good man must fear to see that army victorious, and hail its disasters with joy. Every 
good man must strike to save himself from slavery now while he can. The elections are far off", 
and may be too late. It can not be claimed that the motive was to influence elections, because the 
argument does not fit that motive. It fits to insurrection, and that only. He pronounced General 
Orders No. 38 to be a base usurpation, and invited his hearers to resist it. How resist it? How 
could they resist it, unless by doing what the order forbade to be done? 

" What was there to be complained of except by persons wishing to do, or to have done by 
others, the acts by that order prohibited? He invited to resist the order. The order thus to be 
resisted prohibited the following acts, viz.: Acts for the benefit of the enemies of our country, 
such as carrying of secret mails ; writing letters sent by secret maik ; secret recruiting of sol- 
diers for the enemy inside our lines ; entering into agreements to pass our lines for the purpose 
of joining the enemy ; the being concealed within our lines while in the service of the enemy ; 
being improperly within our lines by persons who could give private information to the enemy ; 
the harboring, protecting, concealing, feeding, clothing, or in any way aiding the enemies of our 
country; the habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy ; treason. These are the things pro- 
hibited in Order No. 38, which Mr. Vallandigham invited his audience to resist. 'The sooner,' 
he told them, ' the people inform the minions of usurped power that they will not submit to such 
restrictions on their liberties, the better.' The 'minions ',here referred to were the commanding 
General of the Department and others charged with official duties under their own Government. 
The 'liberties' not allowed to be restricted were liberties to aid the enemies of the United States. 
He declared his own purpose to do what he could to defeat the attempt now being made to build up 
a monarchy upon the ruins of our free Government. The resistance could mean nothing but re- 
sistance to his own Government, which he had before declared to be making attempts to enslave 
the whites. These appeals to that large public meeting are charged to have been made 'for the 



116 Ohio in the War 

purpose of weakening the power of his own Oovernment in its efforts to suppress mi unlawful rebellion,^ 
all of which opinions and sentiments 'he well kneiv did aid, comfort, and encourage those in arms 
against the Government, and could but induce in his hearers a distrust of their own Government, 
and sympathy for those in arms against it, and a disposition to resist the laws of the land.' Not one 
syllable of all this is denied, and yet the arrest is complained of as unconstitutional." 

He denied the claim that the hiws of war could only apply to military men, 
and that, under them, only those in the military service could be arrested ; 
showed how fatal to all war-making power would be such an admission, and 
that even Rebels in arms, not being in the military service of the Government 
could not be arrested; drew the distinction between military and martial law, 
and arrayed the authorities thereon ; dwelt particularly on the opinion of the 
Supreme Court in cases growing out of the Dorr rebellion, concluding this 
branch of his argument as follows: 

"May it please your Honor! I have pursued this branch of the argument at some length. 
If the view of the Constitution here presented be, as it appears to me, well grounded in reason, 
and sustained by authority, the main proposition on which the petitioner rests his application is 
overthrown, and, with it, the claim to a writ of habeas corpus. 

"I did not understand counsel to argue that, in the case of Vallandigham, there were cir- 
cumstances to render this arrest illegal or unnecessary, provided such arrests can in any case be 
justified. I did distinctly understand him to disclaim the idea that the Constitution permits a 
military arrest to be made, under any circumstances, of a person not engaged in the military or 
naval service of the United States, nor in the militia of any State called into actual service ; and 
to rest his case on that broad denial. The whole petition is framed on this idea, for none of the 
charges are denied. 

"Upon first impression, your Honor may have inclined to the belief that petitioner had as- 
sumed an unnecessary burden, and might have more easily made a case by putting General 
Burnside to show the propriety of this arrest ; admitting the general right to make such arrest as 
were indicated by the necessities of the service, but denying any ground for this arrest. But your 
Honor will find that no mistake has been made by learned counsel on the other side, in this 
particular. The circumstances shown justify the arrest, if any arrest of the kind can be justi- 
fied. If General Burnside might have arrested him for making the speech face to face with his 
soldiers, the distance from them at which it was uttered can make little difierence. He might 
make it in camp; and unless he could be arrested, there would be no way to prevent it. The 
right of publication, of sending by mail and telegraph, are of the same grade with freedom of 
speech. If utterance of the speech could not be checked, its transmission by mail and telegraph 
could not be. And I so understand the argument of the counsel of Vallandigham. It appears 
to claim, and go tlie whole length of claiming that it can do the army no harm to read such ad- 
dresses; nor, of course, to hear them. It is necessary the argument should not stop short of that 
in order to meet the question, and it does not. Yet this is not the whole extent to which it must 
go to avail the petitioner. It must go to the extent of sliowing that this Court is authorized to 
determine that such addresses may be heard by the army, the opinion of the commanding Gen- 
eral to the contrary notwithstanding. It goes and must go the extent of transferring all responsi- 
bility for what is called the morale and discipline of the army from its commanding General to this 
Court. It is not certain that if these addresses shall persuade nobody, their authors will be disap- 
pointed? It is not certain that any soldier persuaded to believe that his Government is striving 
to overthrow liberty, and for that purpose is waging a wicked and cruel war, can no longer, in 
good conscience, remain in the service? The argument leads to one of two conclusions. We are 
to be persuaded by the men who make the speeches, that the speeches will not produce the eSect 
they intend — a persuasion in which their acts contradict their words — or we are to consent to 
the demoralization of the army. The Constitution authorizes and even requires the army to be 
formed, but at that stage of the transaction interposes an imperative prohibition against the usual 
means of making it effective. 

"It is said, however, that the charges against Vallandigham are triable in the civil tribu- 



Arrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 117 

nals. So are a large proportion of all the charges whioh can be brought against any one engaged 
in an insurrection. No Rebel soldier has been captured in this war, no guerrilla, who was not 
triable in the civil tribunals. The argument in this, as in other particulars, necessarily denies 
the applicability of the laws of war to a state of war." 

Then, after mtvintaining the irrelevancy of much of Mr. Pugh's argument 
to the case in hand, he concluded : 

"May it please your Honor! I must bring this argument to a close. Are we in a state of 
war or not? Did the Constitution, when it authorized war to be made, without limitations, mean 
war or something else? The judicial tribunals provided for in the Constitution, throughout 
twelve States of the Union, have been utterly overthrown. In several other States they are 
maintaining a feeble and uncertain hold of their jurisdiction. None of them can now secure to 
parties on trial the testimony from large portions of the country, to which they are entitled by 
the Constitution and laws. The records of none of them can be used in the districts dominated 
bv the insurrection. They are all struck at by this insurrection. Counsel tells us that, except 
the Union provided for in the Constitution, there is no legal Union. Yet that Union is, tempo- 
rarily I hope, but for the present, suspended and annulled. This Court can have no existence 
except under that Union, and that Union now, in the judgment of those who have been intrusted 
by the Constitution with the duty of preserving it, depends upon the success of its armies. The 
civil administration can no longer preserve it. 

"The courts which yet hold their places, with or without military support, may perform 
most useful functions. Their jurisdiction and labors were never more wanted than now. But 
they were not intended to command armies. When Generals and armies were sent here, they 
were sent to make war according to the laws of war. I have no authority from General Burnside 
to inquire, and I have hesitated to inquire, but, after all, will venture to inquire, whether an in- 
terference by this Court with the duties of military command must not tend to disturb that har- 
mony between different branches of government, which, at this time, is most especially to be 
desired? 

"Counsel expresses much fear of the loss of liberty, through the influence of military as- 
cendency. Are we, on that account, to so tie the hands of our Generals, as to assure the over- 
throw of the Constitution by its enemies? I do not share that fear. It has been the fashion of 
society in many countries to be divided into grades, and topped out with a single ruling family. In 
such societies the laws and habits of the people correspond with its social organization. The two 
elements of power — intelligence and wealth — are carefully secured in the same hands with politi- 
cal power. It has happened in a number of instances, that a successful General gained power 
enough to push the monarch from his throne and seat himself there. In such instances the 
change was chiefly personal. Little change was necessary in the social organization, laws, or 
habits. It has also happened that democracies or republics, which have, by a long course of 
corruption, lost the love and practice of virtue, have been held in order by a strong military 
hand. But in this country no man can gain by military success a dangerous ascendency, because 
the change would require to be preceded by a change in the whole body of laws, in the habits, 
opinions, and social organization. History furnishes no example of a successful usurpation under 
similar circumstances, and reason assures me it would prove impossible. Our society has no ele- 
ment on which usurpation could be founded. My sleep is undisturbed, and my heart quite fear- 
less in that direction. I do not fear that we shall lose our respect for the laws of peace by 
respecting the laws of war ; nor our love for the Constitution by the sacrifices we make to uphold 
it. I do not fear any loss of democratic sympathies by the brotherhood of camps. I do not fear 
any loss of the love of peace by the suflerings of war. I am not zealous to preserve, to the ut- 
most punctilio, any civil right at the risk of losing all, when all civil rights are in danger of 
overthrow. The question of civil liberty is no longer within the arbitrament of our civil tri- 
bunals. It has been taken up to a higher court, and is now pending before the God of Battles. 
May he not turn away from the sons whose fathers he favored! As he filled and strengthened 
the hearts of the founders of our liberty, so may he fill and strengthen ours with great con- 
stancy I Now, while awaiting the call of the terrible docket, while drum-beats roll from the At- 
lantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains, while the clear sound of bugles reaches far over our or.ce 



118 Ohio in the War. 

peaceful hills and valleys; now, when the hour of doom is about to strike, let us lose all sense of 
individual danger; let us lay upon a common altar all private griefs, all personal ambitions; let 
ns unite in upholding the army, that it may have strength to rescue from unlawful violence, and 
restore to us the body of the American Union — E Pluribus Union! Above all, O Almighty God I 
if it shall please thee to subject us to still more and harder trials; if it be thy will that we pass 
further down into the darkness of disorder, yet may some little memory of our fathers move thee 
to a touch of pity ! Spare us from that last human degradation! Save ! O save us from the lit- 
tleness to be jealous of our defenders !" 

A briefer argument was made by District-Attorney Ball, and Mr. Pugh 
rejoined. 

The decision of Judge Leavitt was awaited with much interest by all 
classes. He took the ease briefly under advisement, and finally denied the 
writ — giving an opinion, which we quote in full : 

"This case is before the Court on the petition of Clement L. Vallandigham, a citizen of Ohio, 
alleging that he was unlawfully arrested, at his home in Dayton, in this State, on the night of the 
6th of May, instant, by a detachment of soldiers of the army of the United States, acting under the 
orders of Ambrose E. Burnside, a Major-General in the army of the United States, and brought 
against his will, to the city of Cincinnati, where he has been subject to a trial before a military 
commission, and is still detained in custody, and restrained of his liberty. The petitioner also 
avers that he is not in the land or naval service of the United States, and has not been called into 
active service in the militia of any State ; and that his arrest, detention and trial, as set forth in 
his petition, are illegal, and in violation of the Constitution of the United States. The prayer is 
that a writ of habeas corpus may issue, requiring General Burnside to produce the body of the 
petitioner before this Court, with the cause of his caption and detention. Accompanying the pe- 
tition is a statement of the charges and specifications on which he alleges he was tried before the 
Military Commission. For the purposes of this decision it is not necessary to notice these charges 
specially, but it may be stated in brief that they impute to the prisoner the utterance of sundry 
disloyal opinions and statements in a public speech, at the town of Mt. Vernon, in the State of 
Ohio, on the 1st of May, instant, with the knowledge 'that they did aid and comfort and encour* 
age those in arms against the Government, and could but induce, in his hearers, a distrust in 
their own Government, and sympathy for those in arms against it, and a disposition to resist the 
laws of the land.' The petitioner does not state what the judgment of the Military Commission 
is, nor is the Court informed whether he has been condemned or acquitted on the charges exhib- 
ited against him. 

"It is proper to remark here, that, on the presentation of the petition, the Court stated, to 
the counsel of Mr. Vallandigham, that, according to the usage of the Court, as well as of other 
courts of high authority, the writ was not gran table of course, and would only be allowed on a 
sufficient showing that it ought to issue. The Court is entirely satisfied of the correctness of the 
course thus indicated. The subject was fully examined by the learned .lustice Swayne, when 
present, the presiding Judge of this Court, on a petition for habeas corpus, presented at the last 
October term; a case to which further reference will be made. I shall now only note tiie au- 
thorities on this point, which seem to be entirely conclusive. 

" In case Ex parte Watkins (3 Peters, 193), which was an application to the Supreme Court 
for a writ of habeas corpus, Chief-Justice Marshall entertained no doubt as to the power of the 
court to issue the writ, and stated that the only question was whether it was a case in which the 
power ought to be exercised. He says, in reference to that case, 'the cause of imprisonment is 
shown as fully by the petitioner as could appear on the return of the writ ; consequently, the 
writ ought not to be awarded, if the court is satisfied the prisoner would be remanded to prison.' 
The same principle is clearly and ably stated by Chief-Justice Shaw, in the case Ex parte Sims, 
before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. (7 Cushing's Rep. 285). See, also, Hurd on hab. 
corpus, 223, et seq. 

" I have no doubt of the power of this Court to issue the writ applied for. It is clearly con- 
ferred by the fourteenth section of the Judiciary Act of 1789; but the ruling of this Court in 



Aeeest and Trial of Vall an digram. 119 

the cape just referred to, and tlie authorities just cited, justify the refusal of tlie writ, if satisfied 
the petitioner would not be discharged upon a hearing after its return. The Court, therefore, di- 
rected General Burnside to be notified of the pendency of the petition, to the end that he migl\t 
appear, by counsel, or otherwise, to oppose the granting of the writ. 

"That distinguished General has accordingly presented a rcpectful comnuinicat'ion to the 
Court, stating, generally and argumentatively, the reasons of the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham, 
and has also authorized able counsel to represent him in resistance of the application for the 
writ. And the case has been argued at great length, and with great ability, on tlie motion for its 
allowance. 

" It is proper to remark, further, that when the petition was presented, tlie Court made a dis- 
tinct reference to the decision of this Court in the case of Eetliuel Rupert, at October term, 1862 
before noticed, as an authoritative precedent for its action on this application. On full reflection 
I do not see how it is possible for me, sitting alone in the Circuit Court, to ignore the decision 
made upon full consideration by Justice Swayne, with the concurrence of myself, and which, as 
referable to all cases involving the same principle, must be regarded as the law of this Court un- 
til reversed by a higher court. The case of Rupert was substantially the same as that of the 
present petitioner. He set out in his petition, what he alleged to be an unlawful arrest bv the 
order of a military officer, on a charge imputing to him acts of disloyalty to the Government, 
and sympathy with the rebellion against it, and an unlawful detention and imprisonment as the 
result of such order. The application, however, in tlie case of Rupert differed from the one now 
before tlie Court, in this, that aflSdavits were exhibited tending to disprove the charge of disloyal 
conduct imputed to him; and also in this, that there was no pretense or showing by Rupert that 
there had been any investigation or trial by any court of tlie cliarges against him. 

" The petition in this case is addressed to the judges of the Circuit Court, and not to a single 
judge of that Court. It occurs, from the absence of Mr. Justice Swayne, that the District Judge 
is now holding the Circuit Court, as he is authorized to do by law. But thus sitting, would it not 
be in violation of all settled rules of judicial practice, as well as of courtesy, for the District 
Judge to reverse a decision of the Circuit Court, made when both judges were on the bench? It 
is well known that the District Judge, though authorized to sit with the Circuit Judge in the 
Circuit Court, does not occupy the same oflicial position, and that the latter judge, when present 
is ex officio, tlie presiding judge. It is obvious that confusion and uncertainty, which would 
greatly impair the respect due to the adjudications of the Circuit Courts of the United States, 
■would result from the assumption of such a'n exercise of power by the District Judge. It would 
not only be disrespectful to the superior judge, but would evince in the District .Judge an utter 
want of appreciation of his true official connection with the Circuit Court. 

"Now, in passing upon the application of Rupert, Mr. .Justice Swayne, in an opinion of some 
length, though not written, distinctly held that this Court would not grant tlie writ of habeas cor- 
pus, when it appeared that the detention or imprisonment was under military authority. It is 
true, that Rupert was a man in humble position, unknown beyond the narrow circle in which he 
moved ; while the present petitioner has a wide-spread fame as a prominent politician and states- 
man. But no one will insist that there should be any difference in tlie principles applicable to 
the two cases. If any distinction were allowable, it would be against him of admitted intelli- 
gence and distinguished talents. 

" I might, with entire confidence, place the grounds of action I propose in the present case 
upon the decision of the learned judge, in that just referred to. Even if I entertained doubts 
of the soundness of his views, I see no principle upon which I could be justified in treating the 
decision as void of authority. But the counsel of Mr. Vallandigham was not restricted in the 
argument of this motion to this point, but was allowed the widest latitude in the discussion of 
the principles involved. It seemed due to him that the Court should hear what could be urged 
against the legality of the arrest, and in favor of the interposition of the Court in behalf of the 
petitioner. And I have been greatly interested in the forcible argument which has been sub- 
mitted, though unable to concur with the speaker in all his conclusions. 

"Ifitwere my desire to do so, I have not now the physical strength tonoticeor discuss at length 
the grounds on which the learned counsel has attempted to prove the illegality of General Burn- 
siile's order for the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham, and the duty of the Court to grant the writ ap- 
plid for. The basis of the whole argument rests on the assumption that Mr. Vallandigliam, not 



120 Ohio in the Wak. 

being in the military or naval service of the Government, and not, therefore, subject to the Rules 
and Articles of War, was not liable to arrest under or by military power. And the various pro- 
visions of the Constitution, intended to guard the citizen against unlawful arrests and imprison- 
ments, have been cited and urged upon the attention of the Court as having a direct bearing on 
the point. It is hardly necessary to quote these excellent guarantees of the rights and liberties 
of an American citizen, as they are familiar to every reader of the Constitution. And it may be 
conceded that if, by a just construction of the constitutional powers of the Government, in the 
solemn emergency now existing, they are applicable to and must control the question of the 
legality of the arrest of the petitioner, it can not be sustained, for the obvious reason that no 
warrant was issued ' upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation,' as is required in 
ordinary arrests for alleged crimes. But are there not other considerations of a controlling 
character applicable to the question? Is not the Court imperatively bound to regard the present 
state of the country, and, in the light which it throws upon the subject, to decide upon the expe- 
diency of interfering with the exercise of the military power as invoked in the pending applica- 
tion ? The Court can not shut its eyes to the grave fact that war exists, involving the most im- 
minent public danger, and threatening the subversion and destruction of the Constitution itself. 
In my judgment, when the life of the Eepublic is imperiled, he mistakes his duty and obligation 
as a patriot who is not willing to concede to the Constitution such a capacity of adaptation to cir- 
cumstances as may be necessary to meet a great emergency, and save the nation from hopeless 
ruin. Self-preservation is a paramount law, which a nation, as well as an individual, may find 
it necessary to invoke. Nothing is hazarded in saying that the great and far-seeing men who 
framed the Constitution of the United States supposed they were laying the foundation of our 
National Government on an immovable basis. They did not contemplate the existence of the 
state of things with which the nation is now unhappily confronted, the heavy pressure of which 
is felt by every true patriot. They did not recognize the right of secession by one State, or 
any number of States, for the obvious reason that it would have been in direct conflict with the 
purpose in view in the adoption of the Constitution, and an incorporation of an element in the 
frame of the Government which would inevitably result in its destruction. In their glowing 
visions of futurity there was no foreshadowing of a period when the people of a large geograph- 
ical section would be guilty of the madness and the crime of arraying themselves in rebellion 
against a Government under whose mild and benignant sway there was so much of hope and 
promise for the coming ages. We need not be surprised, therefore, that, in the organic law which 
they gave us, they made no specific provision for sucli a lamentable occurrence. They did, how- 
ever, distinctly contemplate the possibility of foreign war, and vested in Congress the power to 
declare its existence, and ' to raise and support armies,' and 'provide and maintain a navy.' 
They also made provision for the suppression of insurrection and rebellion. They were aware 
that the grant of these powers implied all other powers necessary to give them full effect. They 
also declared that the President of the United States ' shall be Commander-in-Chief of the army 
and navy and of the militia of I lie several States when called into actual service,' and they placed 
upon him the solemn obligation 'to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' In refer- 
ence to a local rebellion, in which the laws of the Union were obstructed, the act of the 28th of 
February, 1795 was passed, providing, in substance, that whenever, in any State, the civil author- 
ities of the Union were unable to enforce the laws, the President shall be empowered to call out 
such military force as might be necessary for the emergency. Fortunately for the country, this 
law was in force when several States of the Union repudiated their allegiance to the National 
Government, and placed themselves in armed rebellion against it. It was sufHciently compre- 
hensive in its terms to meet such an occurrence, although it was not a case within the contempla- 
tion of Congress when the law was enacted. It was under this statute that the President issued 
his proclamation of the 15th of April, 1861. From that time the country has been in a state of 
war, the history and progress of which are familiar to all. More than two years have elapsed, 
during which the treasure of the nation has been lavishly contributed, and blood has freely 
flowed, and this formidable rebellion is not yet subdued. The energies of the loyal people of 
the Union are to be put to further trials, and, in all probability, the enemy is yet to be en- 
countered on many a bloody field. 

"It is not to be disguised, then, that our country is in imminent peril, and that the crisis de- 
mands of every American citizen a hearty support of all proper means for the restoration of the 



Arrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 121 

Union anJ the return of an honorable peace. Those placed by the people at the head of the 
Government, it may well be presumed, are earnestly and sincerely devoted to its preservation 
and perpetuity. The President may not be the man of our choice, and the measures of his Ad- 
ministration may not be such as all can fully approve. But these are minor considerations, and 
can absolve no man from the paramount obligation of lending his aid for the salvation of his 
country. .\11 should feel that no evil they can be called on to endure, as the result of war. is 
comparable with the subversion of our chosen Government, and the horrors which must follow 
from such a catastrophe. 

" I have referred thus briefly to the present crisis of the country as having a bearing on the 
question before the Court. It is clearly not a time when any one connected with the judicial de- 
partment of the Government should allow himself, except from the most stringent obligations of 
duty, to embarrass or thwart the Executive in his efforts to deliver the country from the dangers 
which press so heavily upon it. Now, the question which I am called upon to decide is, whether 
General Burnside, as an agent of the executive department of the Government, has transgressed 
his authority in ordering the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham. If the theory of his counsel is sus- 
tainable, that there can be no legal arrest except by warrant, based on an affidavit of probable 
cause, the conclusion would be clear that the arrest was illegal. But I do not think I am bound 
to regard the inquiry as occupying this narrow base. General Burnside, by the order of the 
President, has been designated and appointed to take the military supervision of the Depart- 
ment of the Ohio, composed of the States of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. 
The precise extent of his authority, in this responsible position, is not known to the Court. It 
may, however, be properly assumed, as a fair presumption, that the President has clotiied him 
with all the powers necessary to the efficient discharge of his duties in the station to which he has 
been called. He is the representative and agent of the President within the limits of his De- 
partment. In time of war tlie President is not above the Constitution, but derives his power ex- 
pressly from the provision of that instrument, declaring that he shall be Commander-in-Chief 
of the army and navy. The Constitution does not specify the powers lie may rightfully exercise 
in this character, nor are they defined by legislation. No one denies, however, that the Presi- 
dent, in this character, is invested with very high powers, which it is well known have been 
called into exercise on various occasions during the present rebellion. A memorable instance is 
seen in the emancipation proclamation, issued by the President as Commander-in-Chief, and 
which he justifies as a military necessity. It is, perhaps, not easy to define what acts are prop- 
erly within this designation, but they must, undoubtedly, be limited to such as are necessary to 
the protection and preservation of the Government and the Constitution, which the President 
has sworn to support and defend. And in deciding what he may rightfully do under this power, 
where there is no express legislative declaration, the President is guided solely by his own judg- 
ment and discretion, and is only amenable for an abuse of his authority by impeachment, prosecuted 
according to the requirements of the Constitution. The occasion which justifies the exercise of 
this power exists only from the necessity of the case ; and when the necessity exists there is a 
clear justification of the act. 

" If this view of the power of the President is correct, it undoubtedly implies the right to 
arrest persons who, by their mischievous acts of disloyalty, impede or endanger the military ope- 
rations of the Government. And, if the necessity exists, I see no reason why the power does not 
attach to the ofiicer or General in command of a military department. The only reason why the 
appointment is made is, that the President can not discharge the duties in person. He, there- 
tore constitutes an agent to represent him, clothed with the necessary power for the efficient su- 
pervision of the military interests of the Government throughout the Deijartment. And it is 
not necessary that martial law should be proclaimed or exist, to enable the General in command 
to perform the duties assigned to him. Martial law is well defined by an able jurist to be ' the • 
will of a military commander, operating, without any restraint save his judgment, upon the 
lives, upon the persons, upon the entire social and individual condition of all over whom this law 
extends.' It can not be claimed that this law was in operation in General Burnside's Depart- 
ment when Mr. Vallandigham was arrested. Nor is it necessary that it should have been in 
force to justify the arrest; the power is vested by virtue of the authority conferred by the appoint- 
ment of the President. Under that appointment General Burnside assumed command of this 
Department. That he was a man eminently fitted for the position there is no room for a doubt 



122 Ohio in the War. 

Pie had achieved, during his brief military career, a national reputation as a wise, discreet, pat- 
riotic, and brave General. He not only enjoyed the confidence and respect of the President and 
Secretary of War, but of the whole country. He has nobly laid his party preferences and pre- 
dilections upon the altar of his country, and consecrated liis life to her service. It was known 
that the widely-extended Department, with the military supervision of which he was charged, 
was one of great importance, and demanded great vigilance and ability in the administration of 
its military concerns. Kentucky was a border State, in which there was a large element of disaf- 
fection toward the National Government, and sympathy with those in rebellion against it. For- 
midable invasions have been attempted, and are now threatened. Four of the States have a river 
border, and are in perpetual danger of invasion. The enforcement of the late conscription law 
was foreseen as a positive necessity. In Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois a class of mischievous poli- 
ticians had succeeded in poisoning the minds of a portion of the community with the rankest 
feelings of disloyalty. Artful men, disguising their latent treason under hollow pretensions of 
devotion to the Union, were striving to jlisseminate their pestilent heresies among the masses of 
the people. The evil was one of alarming magnitude, and threatened seriously to impede the 
military operations of the Government, and greatly to protract the suppression of the rebellion. 
General Burnside was not slow to perceive the dangerous consequences of these disloyal efforts, 
and resolved, if possible, to suppress them. In the exercise of his discretion he issued the 
order — No. 38 — which has been brought to the notice of the Court. I shall not comment on that 
order, or say anything more in vindication of its expediency. I refer to it only because General 
Burnside, in his manly and patriotic communication to the Court, has stated fully his motives 
and reasons for issuing it; and also that it was for its supposed violation that he ordered the ar- 
rest of Mr. Vallandigham. He has done this under his responsibility as the commanding Gen- 
eral of this Department, and in accordance with what he supposed to be the power vested in him 
by the appointment of the President. It was virtually the act of the Executive Department un- 
der the power vested in the President by the Constitution ; and I am unable to perceive on what 
principle a judicial tribunal can be invoked to annul or reverse it. In the judgment of the com- 
manding General, the emergency required it, and whether he acted wisely or discreetly is not 
properly a subject for judicial review. 

" It is worthy of remark here that this arrest was not made by General Burnside under any 
claim or pretension that he had authority to dispose of or punish the party arrested, according to 
his own will, without trial and proof of the facts alleged as the ground for the arrest, but witli a 
view to an investigation by a Military Court or Commission. Sucli an investigation has taken 
place, the result of which lias not been made known to this Court. Whether the Military Com- 
mission for the trial of the charges against Mr. Vallandigham was legally constituted and had 
jurisdiction of the case, is not a question before this Court. There is clearly no authority in this 
Court on the pending motion, to revise or reverse the proceedings of the Military Commission, 
if they were before the Court. The sole question is, whether the arrest was legal ; and, as before 
remarked, its legality depends on the necessity which existed for making it ; and of that neces- 
sity, for the reason stated, this Court can not judicially determine. General Burnside is unques- 
tionably amenable to the executive department for his conduct. If he has acted arbitrarily and 
upon insufficient reasons, it is within the power, and would be the duty of the President, not only 
to annul his acts, but to visit him with decisive marks of disapprobation. To the President, as 
commander-in-chief of the army, he must answer for his official conduct. But, under our Con- 
stitution, whicli studiously seeks to keep the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of 
the Government from all interference and conflict with each other, it would be an unwarrantable 
exercise of the judicial power to decide that a co-ordinate branch of the Government, acting 
under its high responsibilities, had violated the Constitution, in its letter or its spirit, by author- 
izing the arrest in question. p]specially in these troublous times, when the national life is in peril, 
and when union and harmony among the difl'erent branches of the Government are so impera- 
tively demanded, such interierence would find no excuse or vindication. Each department of the 
Government must, to some extent, act on a presumption that a co-ordinate branch knows its 
powers and duties, and will not transcend them. If the doctrine is to obtain, that every one. 
charged with, and guilty of, acts of mischievous disloyalty, not within the scope of criminal laws of 
the land, in custody under the military authority, is to be set free by courts or judges on hahnascor- 
pus, and that there is no power by which he may be temporarily placed where he can not per[>etrate 



Arrest and Trial of Vallandigham. 123 

mischief, it requires no argument to prove that the most alarming conflicts must follow, and the 
action of the Government be most seriously impaired. I dare not, in my judicial position, as- 
sume the fearful responsibility implied in the sanction of such a doctrine. 

"And here, without subjecting myself to the charge of trenching upon the domain of polit- 
ical discussion, I may be indulged in the remark, that there is too much of the pestilential leaven 
of disloyalty in the community. There is a class of men in the loyal States who seem to have no 
just appreciation of the deep criminality of those who are in arms, avowedly lor the overthrow 
of the Government, and the establishment of a Southern Confederacy. They have not, I fear, 
risen to any right estimate of their duties and obligations, as American citizens, to a Government 
which has strewn its blessings with a profuse hand, and is felt only in the benefits it bestows., I 
may venture the assertion that the page of history will be searched in vain for an example of a 
rebellion so wholly destitute of excuse or vindication, and so dark with crime, as that which our 
bleeding country is now called upon to confront, and for the suppression of which all her ener- 
o-ies are demanded. Its cause is to be found in the unhallowed ambition of political aspirants 
and agitators, who boldly avow as their aim, not the establishment of a government for the better 
security of human rights, but one in which all political power is to be concentrated in an odious • 
and despotic oligarchy. It is, indeed, consolatory to know that in most sections of the North 
those who sympathize with the rebellion are not so numerous or formidable as the apprehensions 
of some would seem to indicate. It may be assumed, I trust, that in most of the Northern States 
reliable and unswerving patriotism is the rule, and disloyalty and treason the exception. But 
there should be no division of sentiment upon this momentous question. Men should know, and 
lay the truth to heart, that there is a course of conduct not involving overt treason, or any ofiensc 
technically defined by statute, and not, therefore, subject to punishment as such, which, never- 
theless, implies moral guilt and gross otiense against their country. Those who live under the 
protection and enjoy the blessings of our benignant Government, must learn that they can not 
stab its vitals with impunity. If they cherish hatred and hostility to it, and desire its subver- 
sion, let them withdraw from its jurisdiction, and seek the fellowship and protection of those 
with whom they are in sympathy. If they remain luith us, while they are not of us, they must 
be subject to such a course of dealing as the great law of self-preservation prescribes and will 
enforce. And let them not complain, if the stringent doctrine of military necessity should find 
them to be the legitimate subjects of its action. I have no fears that the recognition of this doc- 
trine will lead to an arbitrary invasion of the personal security or personal liberty of the citizen. 
It is rare, indeed, that a charge of disloyalty will be made upon insufficient grounds. But if 
there should be an occasional mistake, such an occurrence is not to be put in competition with 
the preservation of the life of the nation. And I confess I am but little moved by the eloquent 
appeals of those who, while they indignantly denounce violations of personal liberty, look with 
no horror upon a despotism as unmitigated as the world has ever witnessed. 

"But I can not pursue this subject further. I have been compelled by circumstances to pre- 
sent my views in the briefest way. I am aware there are points made by the learned counsel 
representing Mr. Vallandigham, to which I have not adverted. I have had neither time nor 
strength for a more elaborate consideration of the questions involved in this application. For tlie 
reasons which I have attempted to set forth, I am led clearly to the conclusion that I can not ju- 
dically pronounce the order of General Burnside for the arrest of Mr. Vallandigham as a nul- 
lity, and must, therefore, hold that no sufficient ground has been exhibited for granting the writ 
applied for. In reaching this result, I have not found it necessary to refer to the authorities 
which have been cited, and which are not controverted, for the obvious reason that they do not 
apply to the theory of this case, as understood and affirmed by the Court. And I may properly 
add here, that I am fortified in my conclusion by the fact, just brought to my notice, that tiie 
Legislature of Ohio, at its last session, has passed two statutes, in which the validity and legality 
of arrests in this State under military authority are distinctly sanctioned. This is a clear indi- 
cation of the opinion of that body, that the rights and liberties of the people are not put in 
jeopardy by the exercise of the power in question, and is, moreover, a concession that the pres- 
ent state of the country requires and justifies is exercise. It is an intimation that the people of 
our patriotic State will sanction such a construction of the Constitution as, without a clear viola- 
tion of its letter, will adapt it to the existing emergency. 

" There is one other consideration to which I may, perhaps, properly refer, not as a reason 



124 Ohio in the War. 

for refusing the writ applied for, but for the purpose of saying that, if granted, there is no prob- 
ability that it would be available in relieving Mr. Vallandingham from his present position. It 
is, at least, morally certain, it would not be obeyed. And I confess I am somewhat reluctant to 
authorize a process, knowing it would not be respected, and that the Court is powerless to enforce 
obedience. Yet, if satisfied there were sufficient grounds for the allowance of the writ, the con- 
sideration to which I have adverted would not be conclusive against it. 
" For these reasons I am constrained to refuse the writ."* 

The Democmtic party assiiiled this judicial decision with unwonted bitter- 
ness; and the correctness of parts of the opinion was doubted by many earnest 
supporters of the Government. It stood however as the law of the land ; and 
under its influence the utterance of the sentiments to which Mr. Vallandigham 
liad given so free expression, became much more guarded. A strong popular 
reaction set in in favor of the Government, and the soldiers had thenceforward 
less reason to complain of the "fire in the rear." 

Since the war a subject similar in some of its features has been brought 
before the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of the Indiana Con- 
spirators. The decision was adverse to some of the positions assumed by Judge 
Leavitt; and, freed from technical terms, was substantially that, in States not in 
rebellion, where the civil courts were in session and the territory was not the 
actual theater of war, such cases should be tried, not before military commis- 
sions, but in the ordinary tribunals, and with the accustomed forms of law. 

•■The above opinion, and the extracts from the speeches and other documents, have all been 
carefully revised by their respective authors. We are indebted to the courtesy of Mr. E. W. Car- 
roll, whose publishing house brought them out in book form, for permission to use them here. 



Ahmed Resistance to the Authokities. 125 



CHAPTER X. 



ARMED RESISTANCE TO THE AUTHORITIES. 



THE excited feeling among the Peace Democrats, of which Mr. Vallandig- 
ham's inflammatory speech at Mount Vernon was an exponent, continued 
for some months. One outbreak that threatened for a little time to prove 
serious had occurred in Noble County, before his arrest. Two occurred after- 
ward ; one, that in Dayton, growing immediately from it; the other arising in 
Holmes County out of resistance to the enrollment for a draft. 

None of these were so serious or so wide-spread as the similar movements 
about the same time, in Indiana on the West, or in Pennsylvania and New 
York on the East; but they nevertheless rose to the importance of organized 
and armed efforts to resist the authorities ; and no regard for the fair fame of 
the State should now lead to their concealment. 

It was near the middle of March, 1863, that what the newspapers of the 
day called "the speck of war in Noble County " made its appearance. This 
county, in the south-eastern part of the State near the Virginia line, is rough, 
hilly, and sparsely peopled— in great part by an uneducated community of Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky origin. Peace Democracy was the general political faith 
at that time, and the citizens had been not a little excited by seditious teach- 
ings, by their hostility to a draft, and by the indications that the fortune of war 
was going steadily against the Governmei\t. 

Mr. Flamen Ball, then the United States District-Attorney for Southern 
Ohio, came into possession in February, of a letter written by F. W. Brown, a 
school-teacher in the village of Hoskinsville, Noble County, to Wesley McFar- 
ren, a private soldier of company G, Seventy-Eighth Ohio Infantry, denouncing 
the Administration, expressing opposition to the war, and urging McFarren to 
desert. The soldier did desert, and found harbor and concealment near Hos- 
kinsville. 

A Deputy United States Marshal and a corporal's guard from the One 
Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio, were thereupon dispatched from Cincinnati to 
arrest the deserter and the instigator of desertion. This force presently re- 
turned with the report that, at Hoskinsville, they had found the men they sought 
under the protection of nearly a hundred citizens, armed with shot guns, rifles, 
and muskets, and regularly organized and officered. The Captain pleasantly 



126 Ohio in the Wak. 

proposed to the Deputy United States Marshal and squad, that they surrender 
and be paroled as prisoners of the Southern Confederacy! 

On the 16th of March an order was thereupon issued by the post command- 
ant at Cincinnati* to Captain L. T. Hake, to report with companies B and H, 
One Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio, with ten days' rations and fort}" rounds of 
ammunition, to United States Marshal A. C. Sands, to serve as his posse in 
making arrests in Noble County. On the evening of the 18th thej^ reached 
Cambridge, the seat of justice of the adjoining county, where they received all 
possible aid and information from the inhabitants. Leaving the railroad, they 
now marched across the country to Hoskinsviile. On the way word was re 
ceived that the people were still in arms, and were determined to continue their 
resistance to the officers. But, on their arrival on the afternoon of the 20th, 
the}" found no force to meet them. The men had secreted themselves in the 
woods, and only a few frightened women and children were to be found. The 
business of searching for and arresting the parties concerned in the previous 
resistance to the Deputy Marshal was then begun, on the strength of an affida- 
vit, before United States Commissioner Halliday, by Moses D. Hardy, giving 
names of some of them, as follows : 

"William McCune, James McCune, Joseph McCune, Mahlon Belford, Absalom Willey, Wil- 
liam W^illey, Curtis Willey, Wesley Willey, Asher Willey, Milton Willey, Edmund G. Brown, 
William Campbell, Henry Campbell, William Pitcher, Joshua Pitcher, Joseph Pitcher, Andrew 
Coyle, John Coyle, Thomas Eacey, John Racey, George A. Racey, Peter Racey, William Cain, 
Samuel Cain, Abel Cain, A. G. Stoneking, Samuel McFarren, Richard McFarren, Joel McFar- 
ren, David McFarren, Lewis Fisher, Milvin M. Fisher, James McKee, Benton McKee, William 
Archer, James Harkens, George Ziler, Peter Rodgers, William Lowe, Andrew Lowe, Samuel 
Marquis, Arthur Marquis, John Marquis, M. Norwood, Robert Boggs, Elisha Fogle, Abner 
Davis, William Davis, Taylor Burns, John Manifold, George Manifold, Henry Engle, Joshua 
Hillyer, Benton Thorle, Richard Burlingame, George Willey, H. Jones, Joseph Jones, Gordon 
WestcoU, G. E. Gaddis,' William Engle, Jacob Trimble, Charles Brown, Andrew J. Brown, 
William Barnhouse." 

The expedition remained, making arrests and searching for the'^guilty par- 
ties through the 20th, 21st, and 22d. It then marched to Sharon, then to Cald- 
well, the county seat, and thence to Point Pleasant — halting for the night and 
making arrests at each ])lace. After thus marching over nearly the entire dis- 
trict in which the disaffection had been fomented!, the command returned with 
its prisoners to Cambridge, where they were welcomed at a public banquet. 
Messrs. F. Clatworthy and E. Henderson acted as aids to the Marshal thi'oughout. 

Subsequently the following prisoners, thus arrested, were brought before 
the United States Court in Cincinnati, Judges Swayne and Leavitt presiding: 

"Andrew Coyle, George Willey, Henry Engle, Lewis Fisher, Charles Brown, Andrew Brown, 
William Bai-nhouse, Gordon Westcoll, William Engle, Jacob Trimble, Samuel Marquis, William 
McCune, Joseph McCune, James McCune, Joshua Hillyer, Benton Thorle, Richard Burlingame, 
Samuel Cain, John Racey, William Norwood, Robert Boggs, Richard McFarren, Thomas Racey, 
George A. Racey, William Campbell, Henry Campbell, Harrison Jones, Joel McFarren, G E. 
Gaddis, William Lowe, John Willey, James McKee, James Harkens, Mahlon Belford, Samuel 
McFarren." 

* Then Lieutenant-Colonel Eastman. 



Armed Resistance to the Authorities. 127 

These were arraigned on indictment for obstructing process, and those of 
them named below plead guilty, and were fined and imprisoned: 

"Samuel McGennis, Benton Thorle, William McCune, John Willey, James Harkins, William 
Lowe, Joel McFarren, Lewis Fisher, Mahlon Belford." 

In the cases of Samuel McFarren, John Wesley McFarren, Curtis Willey. 
John Eacey, Alexander McBride. Benton McKee, Tertullus W. Brown, Andrew 
Covle, Peter Eacey, and James McKee, indictments for conspiracy were found ; 
and Samuel McFarren, John Eacey, and Andrew Coyle, were convicted, sen- 
tenced, and fined five hundred dollars each. T. W. Brown made his escape, as 
did many others implicated, a number of them going to the territories. 

The Noble County Eepublican (newspaper) stated that, at a meeting held 
by the men engaged in the protection of the deserter, resolutions had been 
passed, declaring. 1st, that they were in favor of the Union as it was, and the 
Constitution as it is; 2d, that they would oppose all arbitrary arrests on the 
part of the Government; 3d, opposition to the enforcement of the conscription 
act; 4th, recommending the raising of money, by contribution, for the purchase 
of arms to enable them successfully to resist a draft, should another be ordered; 
5th, the assassination of an obnoxious person. 

How these brave words ended has been told. Quiet was restored in the 
county, and the healthy influence of the punishments inflicted was soon mani- 
fest in the tone of the community. 

In speaking of Mr. Vallandighanrs arrest, we have already mentioned the 
disturbances and incendiarism following it, which led to the proclamation of 
martial law in Montgomery County. 

The onl}' remaining outbreak of importance was one in resistance to the 
enrollment for a draft in Holmes County, on the south-western verge of the 
Western Eeserve, in the following June. 

On the 5th, while the enrolling officer, Mr. E. W. Eobinson of Loudonville, 
was proceeding with his duty, he was attacked by some of the excited populace. 
Some stones were thrown, and he was told that if he ever returned on such 
work his life w^ould be in danger. He reported the fiicts to Captain J. L. Drake, 
Provost-Marshal of the district, who promptly arrested four of the ringleaders. 
The alarm however spread quicklj^ and before he had conveyed them to prison 
he was encountered near the village of Napoleon, by a force reported at the 
time to number sixty or seventy men, armed with rifles and revolvers. They 
demanded the immediate release of the prisoners, and he was forced to comply. 
Then they proceeded to revile him as a secessionist himself, declared that he 
should never again visit their township in his official capacity, and even levelled 
their guns upon him, ordering him to kneel in the road and take the oath of 
allegiance ! Finally, however, with renewed warnings never to return, the}- 
suftered him to depart. 

These occurrences were reported to Colonel Parrott, then the Provost-Mar- 
shal General of the State, and to Brigadier-General Mason, in command at 
Columbus. Colonel Wallace, of the Fifteenth Ohio, was ordered to the scene 



128 Ohio in the War. 

of disturbance, with a force made up of scraps of commands found at Camp 
Chase — a part of the Third Ohio, the Governor's Guards, Sharp-Shooters from 
Camp Dennison, twenty Squirrel Hunters from Wooster, and a section of Cap- 
tain Neil's Battery — in all about four hundred and twenty men. It was re 
ported that they would find the malcontents in a regular fortified camp, with 
pickets, intrenchments, and cannon. 

Governor Tod, anxious that bloodshed should be avoided if possible, j)rej)ared 
the following judicious proclamation: < 

"Columbus, O., 16th June, 1863. 
"To the men who are now assembled in Holmes County for the purpose of using armed force in resisting 

the execution of the laivs of the National Government: 

"I have heard with pain and deep mortification of your unlawful assemblage, and as Gov- 
ernor of the State to which you owe allegiance, and as the friend of law and order, as well as 
the friend of yourselves and your families, I call upon you at once to disperse and return to your 
quiet homes. This order must be immediately complied with, or the consequences to yourselves 
will be destructive in the extreme. The Government, both of the State and Nation, must and 
shall be maintained. Do not indulge the belief for a moment that there is not a power at hand 
to compel obedience to what I now require of you. Time can not be given you for schemes or 
machinations of any kind whatever. I have felt it my duty to give you this timely warning; and 
having done my duty, I sincerely hope you will do yours. 

"DAVID TOD, Governor." 

This, General Mason was requested to have sent forward under a flag of 
truce, before firing upon any party he might meet. If the party should then 
offer to disperse he asked that they might be permitted to do so. If the}^ re- 
fused, he continued, with the indiscreet language that sometimes got the better 
of him, '•then show them no quarter whatever."^' 

On the morning of the 17th Colonel Wallace landed with his command at 
Lake Station, on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago Railroad, twelve miles 
from Napoleon, where the malcontent camjD was said to be located. Marching 
in that direction, he came upon the pickets about three miles south-east of the 
village, and drove them in. Then, throwing out skirmishers to the front, he 
advanced. A number of men stationed behind a rude stone breastwork de- 
livered a single volley as the skirmishers approached, and then fled to the woods. 
The command pursued, taking two or three prisoners, and wounding two.f No 
organized force, however, was encountered after the first vollej^ from behind the 
stone breastwork. Squads of men scouted through the hills, under the guidance 
of Union men of the neighborhood, and brought in six prisoners before evening. 

Meantime leading Peace Democrats were striving to have all thought of 
resistance abandoned; and one of the rescued prisoners, | visiting the neighbor- 
ing village of Williamsburg that night to ask re-enforcements, met with a very 
cold reception. Finally a committee of both parties was appointed to visit the 
camp and endeavor to adjust the difficulty. Hon. D. P. Leadbetter, ex-sheriff 
John French, Llewellyn Allison, and Colonel D. French represented the Demo- 
crats, and Robert Long and Colonel Baker the Unionists. 

* Ex. Doc. 1863, part I, p. 297. 

t George Butler and • Brown, both shot through the thigh. tWm, Greiner. 



Akmed Resistance to the Authorities. 129 

On the morning of the 18th they waited upon Colonel Wallace, and finally 
agreed to visit the insurgents and try to secure the surrender of the prisoners. 
The Democratic members spent the daj^ in visits to ditferent squads of those in 
arms; and by evening returned with the promise that, the next day, such men 
as were wanted would be delivered. Next morning Mr. Leadbetter and Colonel 
French appeared with the four rescued prisoners, William Greiner, Jacob Stuber, 
Simeon Snow, and Peter Stuber. They promised to deliver the ringleaders in 
the rescue^ Lorenzo Blanchard, Peter Kaufman, James Still, William H. Dyal, 
Emanuel Bach, Godfrey Steiner, and Henderson, and with this under- 
standing Colonel Wallace returned with his command to Columbus. 

. It was reported in the newspapers at the time, and generally believed, that 
over a thousand men had been in the insurgent camp the previous Sunday, 
either as combatants or as auditors to the inflammatory speeches that were then 
made. A considerable store of cooked provisions was found in houses in the 
neighborhood. They had four little howitzers; and, on Colonel French's admis- 
sion, there were nine hundred men fully armed. 

With the subsidence of this difficulty, the violent passions that had been 
engendered were turned into a new channel. The great Yallandigham and 
Brough political campaign absorbed the energies of all; and its result was such 
as to end all efforts at resistance to the authorities. 
Vol. I.— 9. 



130 



Ohio in the Wak. 



CHAPTER XI. 




THE ORGANIZATION OF THE NATIONAL GUARD. 

il 

E have seen that before the outbreak of the war Governor Chase 
had sought to revive the despised militia system of Ohio; that the 
few militia companies thus kept up were seized upon, when the 
g-uns of Sumter rang across the Land, for organizing the first regiments hurried 
to the field ; that thenceforward, in the stern presence of a war that called for 
volunteers by the hundred thousand, militia and musters fell into utter neglect. 
But the alarm along the border in the fall of 1862, and particularly the siege of 
Cincinnati, served to illustrate the mistake thus made. The State, while crowd- 
ing brigades of her sons to the front armed and equipped for battle, was bare 
and defenseless at home. A handful of bold riders could throw a great city into 
a panic; a regiment or two could convulse the State, ring alarm bells through- 
out her limits, and summon the crude, unorganized swarms of Squirrel Hunters 
to read}' but unsatisfactory service in her defense. 

The lesson was not lost upon the people; and their representatives in the 
State Legislature — assembling a few months later in adjourned session — were 
made to understand that a satisfactory organization of the militia of the State, 
and the complete arming and equipment of a sufficient number of them for im- 
mediate service in such sudden emergencies, were popular demands. ■ 

Governor Tod fully appreciated the general feeling, as well as the palpable 
necessity which suggested it. In his message to the Legislature, at the opening 
of the session of 1863, he said : 

" The necessity of a thorough organization of the militia of the State, must now be apparent 
to all, and your attention is earnestly invited to the subject. A plan, embracing my views and 
opinions on this important subjent, will be presented for the consideration of the military com- 
mittee of the House in a few days. I have given the matter much consideration, and hope that 
my labors may prove of service to the committee." 

Throughout the session the committees continued to labor upon the subject. 
At last, after considerable partisan opposition, and only in the last hours of the 
session, a bill was passed "to organize and discipline the militia of Ohio." It 
was the basis of the organization that afterward enabled Governor Brough, al 
scarcely two days' notice, to throw to the front at the critical hour of the East- 
ern campaign, the magnificent re-enforcement of forty thousand Ohio ISTational 
Guards. 



National Guaed. 131 

The bill kept in view throughout two objects : First, it was to secui*e the 
enrollment, organization, and, as far as might be, the drill of the entire military 
strength of the State, including every able-bodied man between the ages of 
eighteen and forty-five ; and, second, it was to provide for a force of volunteers 
raised from this militia, who should be armed, uniformed, and equipped, and 
should be instantly available at any sudden call for the defense of the State. 
These distinct classes were to be designated respectively the Ohio Militia and 
the Ohio Volunteer Militia. 

It was accordingly provided that the assessors should make an enrollment, 
and return the same to the county auditor, and proper penalties were imposed 
for any efforts to deceive the assessors or defeat the enrollment. The township 
trustees were to hear applications for exemption, divide their localities into 
company districts, and order elections for compan}^ officers, the returns of which 
should be made to the county sheriffs. The sheriffs should then organize the 
companies into regiments and order the election of regimental officers ; and the 
Governor was empowered to consolidate these regiments, or order the organiza- 
tion of new ones, as the good of the service should seem to require — while regi- 
mental officers could do the same as to companies. Thus the "Ohio Militia" 
was to be made up. 

The " Ohio Volunteer Militia" was to be composed of such companies or 
batteries as the Governor should choose to accept; it was to be fully armed and 
equipped, and its members were to provide themselves with United States regu- 
lation uniforms; it was to muster on the last Saturday of each September, at 
tlie same time with the militia, and was, beside, to have not less than two addi- 
tional musters each year; it was to be subject to the first call in case of invasion 
or of riot; it was to unite with the officers of the militia in the last two of the 
eight days' encampment for "officers' master" for which the act jjrovided. The 
volunteer companies were to draw two hundred dollars per year from the State 
military fund (batteries at the rate of one hundred dollars for every two guns), 
for the care of arms and incidental expenses; their members were to be held 
for five years, and at the end of that time they were to be exempt from further 
military duty of any kind in time of peace. 

The bill was long and complicated ; it was incumbered with much machin- 
ery for Courts of Inquiiy, fines, elections of company, regimental, and even bri- 
gade commanders, transportation to officers' musters, paj^ment of encampment 
expenses, and all manner of minutise; but the above were its essential features. 

In organizing the militia under this law Governor Tod derived invaluable 
aid from his Adjutant-General. This officer* had been a devoted militia-man in 
the old peaceful times. His little field-service had not been bi*illiant, and, indeed, 
was then resting under weighty, though unjust, censure. But he was earnest, 
laborious, possessed of considerable sj^stem, familiar with the wants of the mili- 
tia service, and capable of infinite attention to small things — peculiarly quali- 
fied, in fact, for the onerous task to which he was now called. 

« General Charles W. Hill. 



132 Ohio in the War. 

He at once undertook the enforcement of the new law. At the outset.it 
was found to be so cumbrous that the newspapers would not print it ; and so 
complicated that, even after it was circulated in pamphlet form, those who had 
most interest in it could scarcely understand its provisions. At last the Adju- 
tant-General had resort to jDublic meetings. He itinerated in the interest of the 
militia system through the State, held meetings and made speeches at Marietta, 
Dayton, Cleveland, Wooster, Mansfield, Norwalk, Elyria, Newark, Zanesville-, 
Lebanon, Cincinnati, Portsmouth, Ironton, Gallipolis, Pomeroy, London, Dela- 
ware, Urbana, Piqua, and Toledo. The Quartermaster-General assisted him at 
some of these places, and made siDeeches alone at some others. Finall}' addi- 
tional meetings were held on the 6th and 7th of July, 1863, in Cincinnati. There 
was trouble in procuring arms, and some slowness among the people in aiding 
to get the system into operation, but hy the end of the first week in Jul}- the 
returns of company elections were beginning to come in. 

Then came the Morgan raid, suspending all work of this kind, and plung- 
ing the State once more into the spasmodic effort of unorganized masses to op- 
pose on the instant an organized and swiftly-moving foe. 

The exhaustion which followed, and the necessary attention to oi'dinaiy 
business which had been neglected during the invasion, wrought still further 
delay. Then scarcely any arms could be secured for cavalry or artillerj-. Uni- 
forms were, however, obtained at less than Government rates,* and the organ- 
izing companies took prompt advantage of this excellent arrangement. 

To the encampments and oflicers' musters the Adjutant-General was par- 
ticularly attentive. He succeeded in getting grounds, fuel, water, and the like 
necessaries free of expense to the State, by convincing the towns at which en- 
campments were to be held of the business advantages that would thus accrue. 
He had competent and experienced officers assigned to each, and at three he 
himself assumed personal command. The militia officers and the volunteer 
companies were kept at drill during the time prescribed by law, and the organ- 
ization was thus given shape and cohesion. 

As the result of these labors, he was able at the end of the year to report 
an organized militia of one hundred and sixty-seven thousand five hundred and 
seventy-two men, and a volunteer militia, equipped and available for duty at 
any hour's call, forty-three thousand nine hundred and thirty strong.f 

Governor Tod justly reported in his last message that the services of the 
Adjutant-General in this work could not be too highly commended. We shall 
have occasion to see how, within a few months, it was to prove a thing of Na- 
tional significance; and we can not better conclude this too brief account of a 
great task well accomplished, than in the words of pregnant advice which Gen- 

* Fatigue suit, cap, lined blouse, and trowsers, at seven dollars and twenty-one cents ; and 
full-dress suit, with hat trimmed, at twelve dollars and seventy-two cents. 

t Of these, thirty-one thousand nine hundred and fifty-three were uniformed before the 1st 
of November, 1863, and thirty-two thousand one hundred and thirty-five had been in attendance 
at the fall encampments. They had voluntarily expended, for uniforms and other articles of 
outfit, up to that time, three hundred and thirty-four thousand two hundred and four dollars and 



iS'ATioNAL Guard 



133 



eral Hill gave, in turning over the subject to his successor. The}^ were to have 
a wider application than he then imagined : 

•' Keephig in mind the probabilities, or even possibilities, of having to call the troops for 
service before midsummer, it is recommended that all of the preparations be made early, and 
tliat the encampments commence in time to be completed by the first week in July. Every or- 
ganization will thus be brought into good working order, and ready for efficient service. If the 
State is menaced, or a raid or invasion comes, its ability to put any requisite number of effective 
troops in the right positions at once, will be a mere question of railroad transportation, and if 
the year brings no such occasion for service, there will be the satisfaction of knowing that the 
State is i-eady." 

eighty-two cents. The Adjutant-General does not report the distribution of these volunteers 
among the several counties, but he gives the following enrollment of the militia in each county : 



COtTNTIES. 



Adams 

Allen 

Ashland 

Ashtabula ... 

Athens 

Auglaize 

Belmont . — 

Brown 

Butler •... 

Carroll 

Champaign . 
Clark.......... 

Clermont ... 

Clinton 

Columbiana 
Coshocton . . . . 
Crawford ••■ 

Cuyahoga... 

Darke 

Defiance 

Delaware ... 

Erie 

Fairfield .... 

Fayette 

Franklin ... 

Fulton 

Gallia. 

Geauga 

Greene 

Guernsey.. •• 

Hamilton ... 

Hancock 

Hardin 

Harrison .... 

Henry 

Highland... 

Hocking 

Holmes 

Huron 

Jackson 

Jefferson 

Knox 

Lake 

Lawrence •• 

Licking 



Number 

of 

Enrollment. 



3,336 

3,356 

3,049 

4,231 

2,574 

2,644 

4,095 

3,861 

5,993 

2,126 

3,769 

4,102 

4,416 

2,991 

4,605 

3,100 

3,122 

11,188 

4,552 

1,802 

2,929 

3,556 

4,432 

2,426 

6,904 

2,563 

2,949 

2,205 

3,728 

2,982 

41,960 

3,098 

2,974 

3,092 

1,172 

3,687 

2,584 

2,549 

5,038 

2,453 

3,905 

3,381 

2,373 

2,965 

5,009 



COUNTIES. 



Logan 

Lorain 

Lucas 

Madison 

Mahoning .... 

Marion 

Medina 

Meigs 

Mercer 

Miami 

Monroe 

Montgomery 

Morgan 

Morrow 

Muskingum . 

Noble 

Ottaway 

Paulding 

Perry 

Pickawav •■•• 

Pike.....' 

Portage 

Preble 

Putnam 

Richland 

Ross 

Sandusky — 

Scioto 

Seneca 

Shelby 

Stark 



Summit 

Trumbull 

Tuscarawas . 

Union 

Van Wert.... 

Vinton 

Warren 

Washington 

Wayne 

Williams 

Wood 

Wyan.dot .... 



Number 

of 

Enrollm't. 



3,518 
4,015 
5,339 
1,894 
3,574 
2,878 
2,917 
3,991 
1,730 
4,485 
2,959 
7,430 
3,157 
2,891 
5,583 
2,830 
1,183 
788 
2,289 
3,561 
1,572 
3,778 
3,573 
1,751 
3,880 
4,620 
3,296 
3,116 
3,808 
2,711 
6,482 
3,643 
4,425 
4,042 
2,631 
1,516 
1,723 
3,872 
4,829 
5,140 
2,659 
2,713 
2,841 



Total ' 345,593 



134 



Ohio in the Was. 



CHAPTER XII. 



THE MORGAN RAID THROUGH OHIO. 



i 



LITTLE progress had been made in the organization of the State Militia, 
when, in July, 1863, there came another sudden and pressing demand 
for it. 

Eosecrans lay at Stone Eiver menacing Bragg at Tullahoma. Burnside 
was at Cincinnati organizing a force for the redemption of East Tennessee, 
which was already moved well down toward the confines of that land of stead- 
fast but sore-tried loyalty. Bragg felt himself unable to confront Eosecrans; 
Buckner had in East Tennessee an inadequate force to confront Burnside. But 
the communications of both Eosecrans and Burnside ran through Kentucky, 
covered mostly by the troops (numbering perhaps ten thousand in all) under 
G-eneral Judah. If these communications could be threatened, this last force 
would at least be kept from re-enforcing Eosecrans or Burnside, and the advance 
of one or both of these officers might be delayed. So reasoned Bragg, as, with 
anxious forebodings, he looked about the lowering horizon for aid in his ex- 
tremity. / 

He had an officer who carried the reasoning to a bolder conclusion. If, 
after a raid through Kentucky, which should endanger the communications and 
fully occupy General Judah, he could cross the Border, and carry terror to the 
peaceful homes of Indiana and Ohio, he might create such a panic as should 
delay the now troops about to be sent to Eosecrans, and derange the plans of 
the campaign. There was no adequate force, he argued, in Indiana or Ohio to 
oppose him ; he could brush aside the local militia like house-flies, and outride 
any cavalry that should be sent in pursuit; while in his career he would in- 
evitably draw the whole Union force in- Kentucky after him, thus diminishing 
the pressure upon Bragg and delaying the attack upon East Tennessee. This 
was John Morgan's plan. 

Bragg did not approve it. He ordered Morgan to make a raid into Ken- 
tucky; gave him carte blanche to go wherever he chose in that State; and par- 
ticularly urged upon him to attempt the capture of Louisville; but forbade the 
crossing of the Ohio. Then he. turned to the perils with which Eosecrans's 
masterly strategy was environing him. 

Morgan prepared at once to execute his ordei's ; but at the same time he 



Morgan Raid. ^^^ 

• 1 • f ^ntinn in Basil W Duke, his next in command, of his 

«^™r"'' ::rt:.trr.:' P^tibition. «; even .... funhe. Wee.s 
intention to di..eg.ud Ji.a 1 ^^_^^^ ^j. ^^^ ^^ 

of Northern Virginia.>^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^_ He 

^^7 ''7 X::^;:^lp^^^vn^ perhaps the boldest that the 
arranged a plan, fai-ieachin , coi i ii^,nensely superior forces 

:::^C:i: e^^rS^ -, he had ha. e— it. 

- - - Of .u. he^^. .;eross the ^^and ^^ ^-— - 
Turkey-Keck Bend, almost n ^^^/^^^^^^^^^.^^ ,i,er as sufficient to render 
.iles away a. Marrowbone, ^-^e^^^ ^^^^^^ 7^,,, before Judah moved down 
the crossing impracticable. The mistake ^ 

.0 resist, two ^^^^^ ^^ ^^i:^^ and was then checked 

attacked, drove the cavaky mto ts camp ^^^^^_^ ^^^^^ 

by the artillery. But his ^l^l^^^^^^^'l^^^^^^^^ .ay to Columbia. He 

..ould get his forces gathered toget^ier Morgan ^^ as ha y ^^^^^^ 

had two thousand four hundred and sixty men 1 -^^. ^jj;. ^^^/^ ^,,, 

States Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, which he meant to traverse o 
hostil' Lops, the others with a hostile and swarming population. 

.T.e aw statement ... w... .o. ^ ^^ ^^ri^^^l^^^^'^:::^ wl^ 
into Indiana and Ohio as a. last ^-perate re or , neve^ on^ ^^^y ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^.^^^ ^^^^_ 

adopted only because the Union cavalry -- ^ f^^^ "^^^^^ i, ,he way of evading pursuers, and 
But to one who remembers what Morgan ^l^llfl^ing cavalry was full forty miles behind 
recalls the fact that when he reached ^^^ ^hio the pursi^^^g ^^^J^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^ 
him, this will seem ^^^^^^^^ly improbable ry ^^^ ^^^ seeming trustworthiness of 

rating circumstances, and partly because o t e ne^ ^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^ .^Istory of 

his account, I have preferred to ^^^ ^^^^^^^f^fXtantially the above version of the conference 
Morgan's Cavalry" (pp. 409, 410 ^ ^^^f^^ :v :^^^^ to disobey Bragg-s order 

between Bragg and Morgan and of the att r s a ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^.^ ^,^ ^^^,, 

against crossing the Ohio; and (p. 4^9 tnus s desperate condition drove him: 

was an afterthought, and an expedient to which ^o ga- ^esp ^^.^ ^.^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ 

"It has been frequently surmised in the North tl a Morgan^ _^^^ ^^^^^^^.^^ 

from Hobson. Of all the many wild and utterly absuid ideas ^nc^^^ ^^^^ P^^ twenty-four to 
the late war. this is perhaps the most V^^VO^^^^^^ ^ , j ^^^. ^^d could learn our 

thirty-six hours behind us-he was ^^^T^IZ'^^^^^^ - escape Hobson, and actuated 
track only by following it closely. General ^«Jj^ ^^^ ,f Kentucky through tne 

by no other motive, would ^^-^^^'^^"^'^./.^^jtlTu^tLed no hostile force t>aniFT^nld not 
western part of the State, where he would ^^l^^ZTelrne general route when we were at 
have easily repulsed. It was not too ^f *°. ^"'^"^Vas a means of escape would have been the 
Garnettsville. ... To rush across the Oh o R ve^ as a me J^^^^^^.^^^^ ^^.^ ^^. ^.^^^^ 

choice of an idiot. . . . That military -^^^^ ^^^fj ^^^^ ^,,y ^en of very small capacity, 
proves only that in armies so vast there --^ "^^ ^^^" ^;; J eare. preserve his men from 
General Morgan certainly believed that he could -^h -^^^^^ ^J^\^ ^,f,,, ,fter having 

capture after crossing the Ohio, but ^^^^^^^Zu^^^it-^ safer in Kentucky than south of 
gained the northern side of the river, than he believea 



the Cumberland." 



^^^ Ohio in the War. j! 

The next day, at the crossing of Green Eiver, he eame ypon Colonel Moor j 
with a Michigan regiment, whom he vainly snmmoned to surrender and yainlvl 
strove to dislodge. The fight was severe for the little time it lasted ; and Mor- 1 
gan, who had no time to spare, drew off, fonnd another crossing, and pushed oni 
lirough Campbellsville to Lebanon. Here came the last opportunity to stop' 
him. Three regiments held the position, but two of them were at some little! 
distance from the town. Falling upon the one in the town he overwhelmed it ■' 
before the others could get up, left them hopelessly in his rear, and double-! 
quieked his prisoners eight miles northward to Springfield before he could stop 
ong enough to parole them.* Then turning north-westward, with his foes fii i 
behind h,m he marched straight for Brandenburg, on the Ohio fiiver some \ 
Bixty miles below Louisville. A couple of companies were sent forward to cap- 
ture boats lor the crossing; others were detached to cross below and effect a 
diversion, and still others were sent toward Crab Orchard to distract the atten 

on of the Union commanders. He tapped the telegraph wires, thereby finding , 
that he was expected at Louisville and that the force there was too sfrong fof 
h,m; captured a train from Nashville within thirty miles of Louisville; picked 
up squads of pr,..oners here and there, and paroled them. By ten o' lock on 
the morning of the 8th his horsemen stood on the banks of the Ohio. They Z 
crossed Kentucky in five days. •' 

d„ 7'"'!,"'\'"'r"°' """P*"''^^' «<="' f"™''--'! to secure boats, entered Bran- 
denburg, they took care to make as little confusion as possible. Presently the 
endorson and Louisville packet, the J. J. McCoombs, came steaming up 
the r■vel^a„d landed as usual at the wharfboat. As it made fast its Hues 
thirty or forty of "Morgan's men" quietly walked on board and took posses on 
Soon afterward the Alice Dean, a fine boat running in the Memphis and C-n.' 
nati trade, came around the bend. As she gave no sign of landing they 
steamed out to meet her, and before captain or crew could comprehend the 
matter, the Alice Dean was likewise transferred to the Confeder servile 
When Morgan rode into town, a few hours later, the boats were ready for Ms 



Indiana had just driven out a previous invader-Captain Hines of Mor- 
gan s command, who, with a small force, had crossed over -to stir up the Cop 
perheads," as the Eebel accounts pleasantly express it. Finding the c unl 
too hot for h.m, he had retired, after doing considerable damage; and in W 
denburg he was now awaiting his chief 

Preparations were at once made for crossing over. But the men crowding 
down incautiously to the river bank, revealed their presence to the militia on 
he Indiana side, whom Captain Hines's recent performance had made unwont" 
ediy watchful. They at once opened a sharp fusillade across the stream with 
musketry and wit an old cannon, which they had mounted on wagon wheels 
Morgan speedily silenced this fire by bringing up his Parrott rifles; ttn hastily 
dismounted two of his regiments and sent them across. The milik retreated 

newspfpronhft':"'''"'''' '° °°^ - "-" °' *='» ^^'-"- "- ^"^'O »K-«' M" - the 



Morgan Raid. 137 

and the two Eebel regiments pursued. Just then a little tin-clad, the Spring- 
field, which Commander Leroy Fitch had dispatched from New Albany- on the 
first news of something wrong down the river, came steaming toward the scene 
of action. "Suddenly checking her way," writes the Eebel historian of the 
raid,* "she tossed her snub nose defiantl}^ like an angry beauty of the coal- 
pits, sidled a little toward the town, and commenced to scold. A bluish-white 
funnel-shaped cloud spouted out from her left-hand bow, and a shot flew at the 
town, and then changing front forward she snapped a shell at the men on the 
other side. I wish I were sufficiently master of nautical phraseology to do 
justice to this little vixen's style of fighting; but she was so unlike a horse, or 
even a piece of light artillerj', that I can not venture to attempt it." He adds 
that the Eebel regiments on the Indiana side found shelter, and that thus the 
gunboat fii'e proved wholly without effect. After a little Morgan trained his 
Parrotts upon her; and the inequality in the range of the guns was such that 
she speedily turned up the river again. 

The situation had seemed sufficiently dangerous. Two regiments were 
isolated on the Indiana side; the gunboat was between them and their main 
body; while every hour of delay brought Hobson nearer on the Kentucky side, 
and speeded the mustering of the Indiana militia. But the moment the gunboat 
turned up the river all danger, for the present, was past. Morgan rapidly 
crossed the rest of his command, burned the boats behind him, scattered the 
militia, and rode out into Indiana. There was j^et time to make a march of six 
miles before nightfall. 

The task now before Morgan was a simple one, and for several days could 
not be other than an eas}- one. His distinctly-formed plan was to march 
through Southern Indiana and Ohio, avoiding large towns and large bodies of 
militia, spreading alarm through the country', making all the noise he could, and 
disappearing again across the upper fords of the Ohio before the organizations of 
militia could get such shape and consistency as to be able to make head against 
him. For some days at least he need expect no adequate resistance; and while 
the bewilderment as to his purposes and uncertainty as to the direction he was 
taking should paralyze the gathering militia, he meant to place many a long 
mile between them and his hard-riders. 

Spreading, therefore, all manner of reports as to his purposes, and assuring 
the most that he meant to penetrate to the heart of the State and lay IndianajDolis 
in ashes, he turned the heads of his horses up the river toward Cincinnati, 
scattered the militia with the charges of his advance brigade, burnt bridges 
and cut telegraph wires right and left, marched twenty-one hours out of the 
twenty-four, and rarely made less than fifty or sixty miles a day. 

His movement had at first attracted little attention. The North was used 
to having Kentucky in a panic about invasion from John Morgan, and had come 
to look upon it mainly as a suggestion of a few more blooded horses from the 
"Blue Grrass" thi\^t were to be speedily impressed into the Eebel service. Getr 

* Duke's History Morgan's Cavalry, p. 433. 



138 Ohio in the Wak. 

tysburg had just been fought; Yicksburg had just fallen — what were John 
Morgan and his horse-thieves? Let Kentuckj- guard her own stables against her 
own outlaws! 

Presently he came nearer, and Louisville fell into a panic. Martial law 
was proclaimed; business was suspended; every preparation for defense was 
hastened. Still few thought of danger bej'ond the river; and the most, remem- 
bering the siege of Cincinnati, were disposed to regard as very humorous the 
ditching and the drill by the terrified people of the Kentuck}" metropolis. 

Then came the crossing. The Governor of Indiana straightway proclaimed 
martial law, and called out the Legion. General Burnside was full of wise plans 
for "bagging" the invader, of Avhich the newspapers gave mysterious hints. 
Thoroughly trustworthy gentlemen hastened with their "reliable reports" of the 
Eebel strength. They had stood on the wharfboat and kept tally as the cav- 
alry crossed ; and thei-e was not a man less than five thousand of them! Others 
had talked with them, and been confidentially assured that they were going up to 
Indianapolis to burn the State House. Others, on the same vei-acious authority, 
wei-e assured that they were heading for New Albany and Jeff'ersonville to burn 
Government stores. The militia everywhere Avere sure that it was their duty 
to gather in their own towns and keep Morgan off; and, in the main, he saved 
them the trouble by riding around. Hobson came lumbering along in the rear — 
riding his best, but finding it hard to keep the trail, harder to procure fresh 
horses, since of these Morgan made a clean sweep as he went, and impossible 
to narrow the distance between them to less than twenty-four hours. 

Still the true purpose of the movement was not divined — its very audacity 
was its protection. General Burnside concluded that Hobson was pressing the 
invaders so hard, forsooth, that the}' must swim their horses across the Ohio 
below Madison, to escape, and his dispositions for intercepting them proceeded 
upon that theory. The Louisville packets were warned not to leave Cincinnati 
lest Morgan should bring them to with his artillery, and force them to ferry 
him back into Kentucky. Efforts were made to raise regiments to aid the 
Indianians — if only to reciprocate the favor they had shown when Cincinnati 
was under siege — but the people were tired of such alarms, and could not be 
induced to believe in the danger. 

By Sunday ,^'^ three days after Morgan's entry upon Northern soil, the author- 
ities had advanced their theory of his plans to correspond with the news of his 
movements. They now thought he would swim the Ohio a little below Cincin- 
nati, at or near Aurora. But the citizens were more apprehensive. They began 
to talk about "a sudden dash into the city." The Mayor requested that busi- 
ness be suspended, and that the citizens assemble in their respective wards for 
defense. Finally General Burnside came to the same view, proclaimed martial 
law, and ordered the suspension of business. Navigation was practically stopped, 
and gunboats scoured the river banks to remove all scows and flatboats which 
might aid Morgan in his escape to the Kentucky shore. 

Later in the evening apprehensions that, after all, Morgan might not be so 

* 12th July. 



MoKGAN Raid. 139 

anxious to escape, prevailed. Grovernor Tod was among the earliest to recog- 
nize the danger; and while there was still time to secure insertion in the news- 
papers of Monday morning, he telegraphed to the press a proclamation calling 
out the militia : 

"CoLUMBtrs, Julv 12, 1863. 
"To THE Press of Cincinnati: 

" Whereas, This State is in imminent danger of invasion by an armed force, now, therefore, 
to prevent the aame, I, David Tod, Governor of the State of Ohio, and Commander-in-Chief of 
the militia force thereof, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of 
said State, do hereby call into active service that portion of the militia force which has been 
organized into companies within the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Montgomery, Clermont 
Brown, Clinton, Warren, Greene, Fayette, Ross, Monroe, Washington, Morgan, Noble, Athens 
Meigs, Scioto, Jackson, Adams, Vinton, Hocking, Lawrence, Pickaway, Franklin, Madison 
Fairfield, Clark, Preble, Pike, Gallia, Highland, and Perry. I do hereby further order all such 
forces residing within the counties of Hamilton, Butler, and Clermont, to report forthwith to 
Major-General A. E. Burnside, at his head-quarters in the city of Cincinnati, who is hereby au- 
thorized and required to cause said forces to be organized into battalions or regiments, and appoint 
all necessary ofBcers therefor. And it is further ordered that all such forces residing in the coun- 
ties of Montgomery, Warren, Clinton, Fayette, Ross, Highland, and Boone, report forthwith to 
Colonel NefF, the military commander at Camp Dennison, who is hereby authorized to organize said 
forces into battalions or regiments, and appoint, temporarily, officers therefor ; and it is further 
ordered, that of all such forces residing in the counties of Franklin, Madison, Clark, Greene, 
Pickaway, and Fairtield, report forthwith at Camp Chase, to Brigadier-General John S. Mason, 
who is hereby authorized to organize said forces into battalions or regiments, and appoint, tem- 
porarily, officers therefor; it is further ordered that all of such forces residing in the counties of 
Washington, Monroe, Noble, Meigs, Morgan, Perry, Hocking, and Athens, report forthwith to 
Colonel William R. Putnam at Camp Marietta, who is hereby authorized to organize said forces 
into battalions or regiments, and appoint, temporarily, officers therefor. 

"DAVID TOD, Governor." 

It was high time. Not even yet had the authorities begun to comprehend 
the tremendous energy with which Morgan was driving straight to his goal. 
While the people of Cincinnati were reading this proclamation, and considering 
whether or not they should put up the shuttei-s on their store-windows,* Morgan 
was starting out in the gray dawn from Summansville, for the suburbs of Cin- 
cinnati. Long before the rural population within fifty miles of the city had 
read the proclamation calling them to arms he was at Harrison. f 

"Here," pleasantly explains his historian,! "General Morgan began to 
maneuver for the benefit of the commanding oflScer at Cincinnati. He took it 
for granted that there was a strong force of regular troops in Cincinnati. Burn- 
side had them not far off, and General Morgan supposed that they would of 
course be brought there. If we could get past Cincinnati safely the dano-er of 
the expedition, he thought, would be more than half over. Here he expected 
to be confronted by the concentrated forces of Judah and Burnside, and he an- 
ticipated great difiiculty in eluding or cutting his way through them. Once 
safely through this peril, his escape would be certain, unless the river remained 

*Many business men wholly disobeyed the orders, and kept their stores or shops open 
through the day. 

THe reached Harrison at one P. M. on this same Monday, 13th July. 
t Duke's History "Morgan's Cavalry," pp. 439, 440. 



140 Ohio in the War. 

so high that the transports could carry troops to intercept him at the upper 
crossings."— Unless, indeed ! "... His object therefore, entertaining these 
views, and believing that the great effort to capture him would be made as he 
crossed the Hamilton and Dayton Eailroad, was to deceive the enemy as to the 
exact point where he would cross this road, and denude that point as much as 
possible of troops. He sent detachments in various directions, seeking however 
to create the impression that he was marching to Hamilton." 

This was Avise and prudent action in the audacious Eebel commander; but, 
well as he generally read the purposes of his antagonists, he here made one mis- 
take. He supposed that he was to be confronted by military men, acting on 
military principles. 

As it was, he deceived everybody. The Hamilton people telegraphed in 
o-reat alarm that Morgan was marching on their town. A fire was seen burning 
at Venice, and straightway they threw out pickets to guard the main roads in 
that direction and watch for Morgan's coming. Harrison sent in word of the 
passage of the Eebel cavalry through that place at one o'clock, and of the belief 
that they were going to Hamilton. Wise deputy sheriffs, who had been cap- 
tured by Morgan and paroled, hastened to tell that the Eebel chief had con- 
versed with them very freely; had shown no hesitation in speaking of his plans, 
and had assured them he was going to Hamilton. All this was retailed at 
the head-quarters, on the streets, in the newspaper ofldces. 

That night, while the much-enduring printers were putting such stories in 
type, John Morgan's entire command, now reduced to a strength of bare two 
thousand,* was marching through the suburbs of this city of a quarter of a 
million inhabitants, within reach of troops enough to eat them up, absolutely 
unopposed, almost without meeting a solitary picket, or receiving a hostile shot! 
"In this night-ma?ch around Cincinnati," writes again the historian of 
Morgan's cavalry,t "we met with the greatest difficulty in keeping the column 
together. The guides Avere all in front with General Morgan, who rode at the 
head of the second brigade, then marching in advance. This brigade had, con- 
sequently, no trouble. But the first brigade was embarrassed beyond measure. 
Cluke's regiment was marching in the rear of the second, and if it had kept 
closed up we would have had no trouble, for the entire column would have been 
directed by the guides. But this regiment, although composed of superb ma- 
terial and unsurpassed in fighting qualities, had from the period of its organiza- 
tion, been under lax and careless discipline, and the effect of it was now observ- 
able. The rear companies straggled, halted, delayed the first brigade— for it 
was impossible to ascertain immediately whether the halt was that of the brigade 
in advance or only of these stragglers— and when forced to move on they would 
go off at a gallop. A great gap would be thus opened between the rear of our 
brigade and the advance of the other; and Ave, Avho Avere behind, Avere forced 
to grope our Avay as Ave best could. When Ave would come to one of the many 

«Duke says less than two thousand; and from what we now know of the extent to which 
straggling and desertion had gone in their ranks, this seems probable, 
tibid, p. 443. 



Morgan Raid. 141 

junctions of roads which occur in the suburbs of a large city, we would be com- 
pelled to consult all sorts of indications in order to hit upon the right road. 
The night was intensely dark, and we would set on fire large bundles of paper 
or splinters of wood to afford a light. The horses' tracks on roads so much 
traveled would give us no clue to the route which the other brigade had taken 
at such points; but wo could trace it by noticing the direction in which the dust 
'settled' or floated. . . . We could also trace the column by the slaver 
dropped from the horses' mouths. It was a terrible, trying march. Strong 
men fell out of their saddles, and at every halt the officers were compelled to 
move continuall}' about in their respective companies, and pull and haul the 
men, who would drop asleep in the road — it was the only way to keep them 
awake. Quite a number crept off into the fields and slept until they were 
awakened by the enemy. ... At length day appeared, just as we reached 
the last point where we had to anticipate danger. We had passed through 
Glendale and across all of the jDrincipal suburban roads, and were near the 
Little Miami Eailroad. Those who have marched much at night will remember 
that the fresh air of morning almost invariably has a cheering effect upon the 
tired and drowsy, and awakens and invigorates them. It had this effect upon 
our men on this occasion, and relieved us also from the necessity of groping our 
way. We crossed the railroad without opposition, and halted to feed the horses 
in sight of Camp Dennison. After a short rest here and a picket skirmish, we 
resumed our march, burning in this neighborhood a park of Government wagons. 
That evening at four o'clock we were at Williamsburg, twenty-eight miles east 
of Cincinnati, having marched, since leaving Summansville in Indiana, in a 
period of about thirty-five hours, more than ninety miles — the greatest march 
that even Morgan had ever made. Feeling comparatively safe here he per- 
mitted the division to go into camp and remain during the night." 

From this picture, by a participant of the march of two thousand Eebel cav- 
alry unopposed through the suburbs of Cincinnati, we turn to the heart of the 
city. Through the day there had been a little excitement and some drilling. 
Part of the business houses were closed, but the attendance at the ward meet- 
ings was very meager. General Cox, under directions from General Burnside, 
had divided the city and county into militia districts, assigned commanders to 
each, and ordered the completion of the organizations.* The district command- 

* The following are the orders in question : 

" Head-Quarters, District of Ohio, -> 
"Cincinnati, July 13, 1863. / 
"Special Orders No. — . 

" I. For the more perfect organization of militia of the city of Cincinnati, the city is divided 
into four districts, as follows : First District, consisting of the First, Third, Fourth, and Seven- 
teenth Wards, under command of Brigadier-General S. D. Sturgis, head-quarters, Broadway 
Hotel. Second District, consisting of Second, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Wards, under com- 
mand of ^lajor Malcora McDowell, head-quarters, Burnet House. Third District, consisting of 
Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Wards, under command of Brigadier-General Jacob Am- 
raen, head-quarters, Orphan Asylum. Fourth District, consisting of the Eighth, Twelfth, Fif- 
teenth, and Sixteenth Wards, imder command of Colonel Granville Moody, head-quarters, Fin- 
ley Methodist Episcopal Chapel, on Clinton, near Cutter Street. 



142 



Ohio in the Wak. 



2,nts had ordered the militia to — "parade to-morrow."* Ey "to-morrow," as 
we have seen, John Morgan, after ridin'g through the suburbs, was twenty-eight 
miles away ! 

Toward midnight glimmerings of how it was being overreached began to 
dawn upon the official mind, as may be seen from the latest bulletins from head- 
quarters, which the newspapers were permitted to publish. While the printers 
were busy with them, Morgan was marching his straggling, exhausted, scat- 
tered column through the suburbs ; about the time city readers were glancing 
over them, he was feeding his horses and driving off the pickets at Camp 
Dennison : 

"11.30 P. M. A courier arrived last evening at General Burnside's head -quarters, having 
left Cheviot at half past eight P. M., with information for the General. Cheviot is only seven 
miles from the city. He states that about five hundred of Morgan's men had crossed the river 



" II. The militia of Covington will report to Colonel Lucy, commandant of that post. Those 
of Newport will report to Colonel Mundy. 

" III. The independent volunteer companies will report to Colonel Stanley Matthews, head- 
quarters at Walnut Street House. 

" IV. The officers of the militia companies are ordered to parade their companies forthwith, 
and to report to the commandants of their districts, severally named above. In districts where 
officers have not been elected, they will be temporarily appointed by the commandants of the 
districts. 

" V. After the militia have been paraded, and their company organization so completed that 
they can be rapidly and systematically called into service, details will be made of such compa- 
nies, etc., as may be needed for immediate use, and the remainder will be allowed to go to their 
homes, subject to future calls. It is, therefore, of advantage to the citizens that the primary or- 
ganization be completed with the greatest speed. 

"By command of Brigadier-General J. D. Cox. 

" G. M. BASCOM, Assistant Adjutant-General." 

Upon the arrival of the Military Committee they were requested to district the county, as 
had been done for the city, and to appoint commanders, and the following was the result : 

" Head-Quarters, District op Ohio, ■» 
" Cincinnati, July 13, 1863. J 
"General Orders No. — . 

" Hamilton County, beyond the limits of the city, will be divided into Military Districts as 
follows, and commandants of militia companies will report to the following-named officers : 

" 1st. Millcreek Township, report to General J. H. Bates, city. 

" 2d. Anderson, Columbia, and Spencer Townships, report to James Peal, Pleasant Eidge. 

" 3d. Sycamore and Symmes Townships, report to C. Constable, Montgomery. 

" 4th. Springfield and Townships, report to Henry Gulick, Bevis P. O. 

"5th. Crosby, Harrison, Miami, and Whitewater Townships, report to W. F. Converse, 
Harrison. 

" 6th. Delhi, Storrs, and Green Townships, report to Major Peter Zinn, Delhi. 

" The above-named officers will immediately assume command and establish their head- 
quarters. 

" By order of Brigadier-General Cox. ,^ ^ NEWTON McELKOY, 

" Lieutenant-Colonel and Acting Assistant Inspector-General, District of Ohio." 

«■ " The Enrolled Ohio State regular militia of the First District of the City of Cincinnati 
will parade to-morrow, July 14, 1863, at eight o'clock A. M., in their respective sub-districts. 
All who fail to comply with the above will be considered as deserters, and treated xccordingly." 
?From order of General Sturgis, commandant of First District. 



MoKGAN Raid. 143 

at Miamitown, and attacked our pickets, killing or capturing one of them. Morgan's main force, 
said to be three thousand strong, was then crossing the river. A portion of the Rebel force had 
been up to New Haven, and another had gone to New Baltimore and partially destroyed both 
of those places. The light of the burning towns was seen by our men. When the coux'ier left, 
Morgan was moving up, it was reported, to attack our advance. 

" 1 A. M. A courier has just arrived at head-quarters from Colerain, with dispatches for 
Oeneral Burnside. He reports that the enemy, supposed to be two thousand five hundred strong, 
with six pieces of artillery, crossed the Colerain Pike at dark at Bevis, going toward New Bur- 
lington, or to Cincinnati and Hamilton Pike, in direction of Springdale. 

" 1.30 A. M. A dispatch from Jones's Station states that the enemy are now encamped be- 
tween Venice and New Baltimore. 

"2 A. M. Another dispatch says the enemy are coming in, or a squad of them, from New 
Baltimore toward Glendale, for the supposed purpose of destroying a bridge over the Cincinnati, 
Hamilton and Dayton Railroad near Glendale. 

"2 A. M. A dispatch from Hamilton says it is believed that the main portion of Morgan's 
force is moving in that direction going east. At this writing — quarter past two A. M. — it is the 
impression that Morgan's main force is going east, while he has sent squads to burn bridges on 
the Cincinnati, Plamilton and Dayton Railroad, and over the Miami River, but he may turn and 
come down this way on some of the roads leading through Walnut Hills or Mount Auburn."* 

The next day, with the revelation that Morgan was gone, began the gath- 
ering of the militia. t Some hurried to Camp Chase, to be there held for the 
protection of the Capital, or thence thrown toward South-eastern Ohio, on his 
front. Others assembled at Camp Dennison, to be hurried by rail after him. 
All over the Southern part of the State was a hasty mustering and crowding 
upon extra trains, and rush to the points of danger. Hobson, who, in s^Dite of 
Morgan's tremendous marching, was now onl}^ a few hours behind, pressed so 
hard upon his trail that the flying band had little time for the burning of rail- 
road bridges, or, indeed, for aught but the impressment of fresh horses. Judah, 
with his ti'oops, was dispatched b}^ boats to gain the front of the galloping col- 
umn and head it off from the river. 

Meantime the excitement and apprehension in all the towns and villages 
within thirty or forty miles of Morgan's line of march was unprecedented in 
the histor}'- of the State. Thrifty farmers drove off their horses and cattle to 
the woods. Thrifty housewives buried their silver spoons. At least one terri- 
fied matron, in a pleasant inland town forty miles from the Rebel route, in her 
husband's absence, resolved to protect the family carriage-horse at all hazards, 
and knowing no safer plan, led him into the house and stabled him in the par- 
lor, locking and bolting doors and windows, whence the noise of his dismal 
tramping on the resounding floor sounded, through the live-long night, like dis- 
tant peals of artillery, and kept half the citizens awake and watching for Mor- 
gan's entrance. 

There was, indeed, sufficient cause for considering property insecure any- 
where within reach of the invaders. Horses and food, of course, they took 
wherever and whenever they wanted them ; our own raiding parties generally 

* Squads of Morgan's men passed from Lockland, through Sharpsburg and Montgomery, and 
even so close to the city as Duck Creek, two miles from the corporation line, stealing all the fine 
horses they could lay their hands upon. 

t Preble County, in the front here, as at the siege of Cincinnati, had sent down a company 
or two the night before. 



144 Ohio in the War. 

did the same. But the mania for plunder which befel this command and made i 
its line of march look like a procession of peddlers, was something beyond all 
ordinary cavalry plundering. We need look for no other or stronger words, in 
describing it, than the second in command has himself chosen to use. " The 
disposition for wholesale plunder," he frankl}^ admits, '-exceeded anything that 
any of us had ever seen before. The men seemed actuated by a desire to pay 
off, in the enemy's country, all scores that the Union ami}' had chalked up in' 
the South. The gi-eat cause for apprehension, which our situation might have 
inspired, seemed only to make them reckless. Calico was the staple article of 
appropriation. Each man (who could get one) tied a bolt of it to his saddle, 
only to throw it away and get a fresh one at the first opportunity. They did 
not pillage with any sort of method or reason ; it seemed to be a mania, sense- 
less and purposeless, One man carried a bird-cage, with three canaries in it, 
for two days. Another rode with a chafing-dish, which looked like a small me- 
tallic coflSn, on the pommel of his saddle till an oflBcer forced him to throw it 
awa3\ Although the weather was intensely warm, another slung seven pairs of 
skates around his neck, and chuckled over the acquisition. I saw very few ar- 
ticles of real value taken ; they pillaged like boys robbing an orchard. I would 
not have believed that such a passion could have been developed so ludicrously 
among any body of civilized men. At Piketon, Ohio, some days later, one man 
broke through the guard posted at a store, rushed in, trembling with excitement 
and avarice, and filled his pockets with horn buttons. They would, with few ex- 
ceptions, throw away their plunder after a while, like children tired of their toys."* 

Some movements of our own were, after their different fashion, scarcely 
less ridiculous. Some militia from Camp Dennison, for example, marched after 
Morgan till near Batavia, when they gravely halted and began felling trees 
across the road to — check him in case he should decide to come back over the 
route he had just traveled ! A worthy militia officer telegraphed to Governor 
Tod Morgan's exact position, and assured him that the Eebel forces numbered 
precisely four thousand seven hundred and fifty men ! Burnside himself tele- 
graphed that it was now definitely ascertained that Morgan had about four 
thousand men. At Chillicothe they mistook some of their own militia for Eebel 
scouts and, by way of protection, burned a bridge across a stream always ford- 
iible. Governor Tod felt sure that only the heavy concentration of militia at 
Camp Chase had kept Morgan from seizing Columbus and plundering the State 
treasury. Several days after the bulk of the invading force had been captured, 
the Governor gravely wrote to a militia officer at Cleveland, whom he was ex- 
horting to renewed vigilance, "I announce to you that Morgan may yet reach 
the lake shore ! " f 

But if there was an error in the zeal displayed, it was on the safe side. 
Over fifty thousand Ohio militia actually took the field against the sore-pressed, 
fleeing band.| Not half of them, however, at any time got within three-score 
miles of Morgan. 

* Duke's History of Morgan's Cavalry, pp. 436, 437. 

t Ex Doc, 1863, part I, p. 230. t Adjutant-General's Eeport for 1863, p. 82. 



i 



1 MoKGAN Raid. 145 

lii " That officer was meantime intent neither upon the lake shore nor yet upon 

i the treasury vaults at Columbus, but, entirely satisfied with the commotion he 
had created, was doing his best to get out of the State. He came very near 
*&i doing ii. 

On the morning of the 14th of July he was stopping to feed his horses in 
sight of Camp Dennison. That evening he encamped at Williamsburg, twenty- 
eight miles east of Cincinnati. Then marching through Washington C. H., 
Piketon (with Colonel Eichard Morgan going through Georgetown), Jackson, 
Vinton, Berlin, Pomeroy, and Chester, he reached the ford at Buffington Island 
on the evening of the 18th. But for his luckless delay for a few hours at Ches- 
ter, it would seem that he might have escaped. 

Until he reached Pomeroy he encountered comparatively little resistance. 
At Camp Dennison there was a little skirmish, in which a Rebel Lieutenant and 
several privates were captured ; but Lieutenant-Colonel Neff, the commandant, 
wisely limited his efforts to the protection of the bridge and camp. A train oi 
the Little Miami Road was thrown off the track. At Berlin there was a skir- 
mish with the militia under Colonel Runkle. Small militia skirmishes were 
constantly occurring, the citizen-soldiery hanging on the flanks of the flying in- 
vaders, wounding two or three men every day, and occasionally killing one. 

At last the daring little column approached its goal. All the troops in Ken- 
tucky had been evaded and left behind. All the militia in Indiana had been 
dashed aside or outstripped. The fifty thousand militia in Ohio had failed ta 
turn it from its predetermined path. Within precisel}' fifteen days from the 
morning it had crossed the Cumberland — nine days from its crossing into Indi- 
ana — it stood once more on the banks of the Ohio. A few hours more of day- 
light and it would be safely across in the midst again of a population to which 
it might look for sympathy, if not for aid. 

But the circle of the hunt was narrowing. Judah, with his fresh cavalry, was 
up, and was marching out from the river against Morgan. Hobson was hard 
on his rear. Colonel Runkle, commanding a division of militia, was north of 
him. And at last the local militia in advance of him were beginning to fell 
trees and tear up bridges to obstruct his progress, j^ear Pomeroy they made a 
stand. For four or five miles his road ran through a ravine, with occasional in- 
tersections from hill roads. At all these cross-roads he found the militia posted; 
and from the hills above him they made his passage through the ravine a jier- 
fect running of the gauntlet. On front, flank, and rear the militia pressed; and, 
as Morgan's first subordinate ruefully expresses it, " closed eagerly upon our 
track." In such plight he passed through the ravine, and, shaking clear of his 
pursuers for a little, pressed on to Chester, where he arrived about one o'clock 
in the afternoon.* 

Here he made the first serious military mistake that had marked his course 
on Northern soil. He was within a few hours' ride of the ford at which he 
hoped to cross ; and the skirmishing about Pomeroy should have given him am- 

* 18th July. 
Vol. L— 10. 



146 Ohio in the Wak. 

• 

pie admonition of the necessity for haste. But he had been advancing through 
the ravine at a gallop. He halted now to breathe his horses, and to hunt a 
guide. The hour and a half thus lost went far toward deciding his fate. 

When his column was well closed up' and his guide was found, he moved 
forward. It was eight o'clock before he reached Portland, the little village on 
the bank of the Ohio nearly opposite Buffington Island. Night had fallen— a 
" night of solid darkness," as the Eebel officers declared. The entrance to the 
ford was guarded by a little earthwork, manned by only two or three hundred 
infantry. This alone stood between him and an easy passage to Virginia. 

But his evil genius was upon him. He had lost an hour and a half at 
Chester in the afternoon — the most prectous hour and a half since his horse's 
feet touched Northern soil ; and he now decided to waste the night. In the 
hurried council with his exhausted officers it was admitted on all hands that 
Judah had arrived— that some of his troops had probably given force to the 
skirmishing near Pomero}'— that they would certainly be at Buffington by 
morning, and that gunboats would accompany them.* But his men were in 
bad condition, and he feared to trust them in a night attack upon a fortified 
position which he had not reconnoitered. The fear was fatal. 

Even yet, by abandoning his wagon-train and his wounded, he might have 
reached unguarded fords a little higher up. This, too, was mentioned by his 
officers. He would save all, he promptly replied, or lose all together. And so 
he gave mortgages to fate. 

By morning Judah was up. At daybreak Duke advanced with a couple of 
Eebel regiments to storm the earthwork, but found it abandoned. He was rap- 
idly proceeding to make the dispositions for crossing when Judah's advance 
struck him. At first he repulsed it and took a number of prisoners,t the Ad- 
jutant-General of Judah's staff among them. Morgan then ordered him to 
hold the force on his front in check. He was not able to return to his com- 
mand till it had been broken and thrown into full retreat before an impetuous 
charge of Judah's cavalry, headed by Lieutenant O'Neil, of the Fifth Indiana. 
He succeeded in rallying them and re-forming his line. But now, advancing 
up the Chester and Pomeroy road, came the gallant cavalry that over three 
States had been galloping on their track— the three thousand of Hobson's com- 
mand—who for now two weeks had been only a day, a forenoon, an hour be- 
hind them. 

As Hobson's guidons fluttered out in the little valley by the river bank 
where they fought, every man of that band that had so long defied a hundred 
thousand knew that the contest was over. They were almost out of ammuni- 
tion, exhausted, and scarcely two thousand strong ; against them were Hob 
son's three thousand and Judah's still larger force. To complete the overwhelm 
ing odds that, in spite of their efforts, had at last been concentrated upon them 
the tin-clad gunboats steamed up and opened fire. 

Morgan comprehended the situation as fast as the hard-riding troopers, 

* Duke's History Morgan's Cav., p. 447. t Forty or fifty, he claims. 



Morgan Raid. 147 

who, still clinging to their bolts of calico, were already beginning to gallop 
toward the rear. He at once essaj-ed to extricate his trains, and then to with- 
draw his regiments by column of fours from right of companies, keeping up, 
meanwhile, as sturdy resistance as he might. For some distance the with- 
drawal was made in tolerable order ; then, under a charge of a Michigan cav- 
alry regiment, everj'thing was broken, and the retreat became a rout. Morgan, 
with not quite twelve hundred men, escaped. His brother, with Colonels 
Duke, Ward, Huffman, and about seven hundred men, were taken prisoners. 

This was the battle of BufRngton Island. It was brief and decisive. But 
for his two grave mistakes of the night before, Morgan might have avoided it 
and escaped. Yet it can not be said that he yielded to the blow that insured 
his fate without spirited resistance, and a courage and tenacity worth}- of a 
better cause. Our superiority in forces was overwhelming and our loss trifling.* 

The prisoners were at once sent down the river to Cincinnati, on the trans- 
ports which had brought up some of their pursuers, in charge of Captain Day, 
of General Judah's staff,t of whose "manly and soldierly courtesy" they made 
grateful mention, albeit not much given to praising the treatment they received 
at the North. The troops, with little rest, pushed on after Morgan and the 
fugitive twelve hundred. 

And now began the dreariest experience of the Eebel chief. Twenty miles 
above Buffington be struck the river again, got three hundred of his command 
across, and was himself midway in the stream, when the approaching gunboats 
checked th-e passage. Eeturning to the nine hundred still on the Ohio side, he 
once more renewed the hurried flight. His men were worn down and exhausted 
by long-continued and enormous work; they were demoralized by pillage, dis- 
couraged by the shattering of their command, weakened most of all by their 
loss of fiiith in themselves and their commander, surrounded by a multitude of 
foes, harassed on every hand, intercepted at every loophole of escape, hunted 
like game night and day, driven hither and thither in their vain eff'orts to 
double on their remorseless pursuers. It was the earl}^ type and token of the 
similar fate, under pursuit of which the great army of the Confederacy Avas to 
fade out ; and no other words are needed to finish the story we have now to 
tell than those with which the historian of the Army of the Potomac decribes 
the tragic flight to Appomattox C. H. : "Dark divisions, sinking in the woods 
for a few hours' repose, would hear suddenly the boom of hostile guns and the 
clatter of the troops of the ubiquitous cavalry, and they had to be up and 
hasten off. Thus pressed on all sides, driven like sheep before prowling 

* Among the few killed, however, was Major Daniel McCook, a patriotic old man, for whose 
fate there was very general regret. He was not in the service, but had accompanied the cavalry 
as a volunteer. He was accorded a military funeral at Cincinnati, which was largely attended. 
He was the father of Eobert L., Alexander M., and George W. McCook, besides several other 
sons, nearly all of whom, with notable unanimity, had been in the service from the outbreak of 
the war, and most of whom had risen to high rank. 

t Afterward on the staff of Governor Cox, at Columbus. 



148 Ohio in the Wae. 

wolves, amid hunger, fatigue, and sleeplessness, continuing day after day, they 
fared towai'd the rising sun : 

"'Such resting found the soles of unblest feet.'"* 

Yet, to the very last, the energy this daring cavalryman displayed was such 
as to extort our admiration. From the jaws of disaster he drew out the rem- 
nants of his command at Buffington. 'When foiled in the attempted crossing 
above, he headed for the Muskingum. Foiled here by the militia under Eunkle, 
he doubled on his track and turned again toward Blennerhassett Island. The 
clouds of dust that marked his track betrayed the movement, and on three sides 
the pursuers closed in upon him. While they slept, in peaceful expectation of 
receiving his surrender in the morning, he stole out along a hillside that had 
been thought impassable — his men walking in single file and leading their 
horses; and by midnight he was out of the toils and once more marching hard 
to outstrip his pursuers. At last he found an unguarded crossing of the Mus- 
kingum, at Eaglesport, above McConnellsville, and then, with an open country 
before him, struck but once more for the Ohio. 

This time Governor Tod's sagacity was vindicated. He urged the shipment 
of troops by rail to Bellaire, near Wheeling, and by great good fortune. Major 
Way, of the Ninth Michigan Cavalry, received the orders. Presently this officer 
was on the scent. "Morgan is making for Hammondsville," he telegraphed 
General Burnside on the 25th, " and will attempt to cross the Ohio Eiver at 
Wellsville. I have my section of battery, and shall follow him closely." He 
kept his word and gave the finishing stroke. " Morgan was attacked Math the 
remnant of his command, at eight o'clock this morning," announced General 
Burnside on the next day (26th July) "at Salincville, by Major Way, who, after 
a severe fight routed the enemy, killed about thirty, wounded some fifty, and 
took some two hundred prisoners." Six hours later the long race ended: "1 
captured John Morgan to-day at two o'clock, P. M.," telegraphed Major Eue of 
the Ninth Kentucky Cavalry on the evening of the 26th, "taking three hun- 
dred and thirty-six prisoners, four hundred horses, and arms." 

Salineville is in Columbiana County, but a few miles below the most north- 
erly point of the State touched by the Ohio Eiver, and between Steubenville 
and Wellsville, nearl}^ two-thirds the way up the eastern border of the State. 
Over such distances had Morgan passed after the disaster at Buffington, which 
all had supposed certain to end his career; and so near had he still come to 
making his escape from the State, with the handful he was still able to keep 
together. 

The circumstances of the final surrender were peculiar, and subsequently 
led to an unpleasant dispute. Morgan was being guided to the Pennsylvania 
line by a Mr. Burbeck, who had gone out with a small squad of volunteers 
against him, but with whom, according to Morgan's statement, an arrangement 
had been made that, on condition that he would disturb no property in the 

*Swinton'8 History Army Potomac, p. 614. 



Morgan Raid. 149 

countj^, he wab to be safely conducted out of it. Seeing, by the clouds of dust 
on a road parallel with the one he was on, that a cavalr}' force was rapidly 
gaining his front, and that thus his escape was definitely cut off, he undertook 
to make a virtue of his necessity, and tr}' to gain terms by volunteering sur- 
render to his guide. Burbeck eagerly swallowed the bait, and accepted the 
surrender upon condition that officers and men were to be immediately paroled. 
In a few minutes Major Eue was upon them. He doubted the propriety of such 
a surrender, and referred the case to General Shackleford (second in command 
in Hobson's column) who at once disapproved and refused to recognize it. 

Morgan thereupon appealed to Governor Tod, as Commander-in-Chief of 
the Ohio militia, claiming to have surrendered upon terms to one of his sub- 
ordinates, and calling upon him to maintain the honor of his officer thus 
pledged. Governor Tod took a little time to examine the case, and on the 1st 
of August responded: "I find the facts substantially as follows: A private citizen 
of New Lisbon, by the name of Burbeck, went out with some fifteen or sixteen 
others to meet your forces, in advance of a volunteer organized military body 
from the same place under the command of Captain Curry. Said Burbeck is 
not and never was a militia officer in the service of this State. He was captured 
by you and traveled with you some considerable distance before your surrender. 
Ul5on his discovering the regular military forces of the United States to be in 
your advance in line of battle, you surrendered to said Burbeck, then your 
prisoner. "Whether you supposed him to be a Captain in the militia service or 
not is entirely immaterial." 

The officers of Morgan's command — not so much perhaps because of the 
alleged lack of other secure accommodations as through a desire to gratify the 
popular feeling that Ihey should be treated rather as horse-thieves than as sol- 
diers,- and with a wish also to retaliate in kind for the close confinement to 
which the officers of Colonel Straight's raiding party were then subjected in 
Eebel prisons — were immured in the cells of the Ohio Penitentiary.* The}^ 
have since made bitter complaints of this indignity, as well as of the treatment 
there received, thereby onl}' illustrating the difl'erent feelings with which men 
guard Andersonvilles and Salisburies, from those with which they themselves 
regard, from the inside, places much less objectionable. 

After some months of confinement, Morgan himself and six other jDrisoners 
made their escape, on the night of the 27th of November, by cutting through 
the stone floors of their cells with knives carried off" from the prison table, till 
they reached the air-chamber below; tunneling from that under the walls of 
the building into the outer yard, and climbing the wall that surrounds the 
grounds by the aid of ropes made from their bed-clothes. The State authorities 
were very much mortified at the escape, and ordered an investigation. It was 
thus disclosed that the neglect which enabled the prisoners to prosecute the 

*The official dispatches requesting the use of the penitentiary for this purpose indicate that 
it was to General Halleck that Morgan and his officers were indebted for the practice of this 
method of treating prisoners of war. 



150 



Ohio in the War, 



tedious task of cutting through the stone floors undiscovered, had its origin in 
the coarse-minded suggestion of one of the directors of the penitentiary that 

the daily sweeping of the cells might be dispensed with, and " the d d Rebels 

made to sweep their own cells." This poor efi'ort to ti*eat the prisoners of war 
worse than he treated the convicts, enabled them to cover uj) their work and 
conceal it from any inspection of cells that was made. It was officially re- 
poi'ted that misunderstandings between the military authorities in Columbus 
and the civil authorities of the penitentiary led to the escape. 

Morgan quietly took the Little Miami train for Cincinnati on the night of 
his escape, leaped off it a little outside the city, made his way across the river, 
and was straightway concealed and forwarded towai'd the Confederate lines by 
his Kentuckj^ friends. He lived to lead one more raid into the heart of his fa- 
vorite " Blue Grass," to witness the decline of his popularity, to be harassed by 
officers in Richmond who did not undei'Stand him, and by difficulties in his com- 
mand, and finally to fall, while fleeing through a kitchen garden, in a morning 
skirmish in an obscure little village in East Tennessee. He left a name second 
onl}' to those of Forrest and Stuart among the cavalrymen of the Confederacy, 
and a character which, amid much to be condemned, was not without traces of 
a noble nature. 

The number of Ohio militia called into service during the Morgan raid has 
already been roughly stated at fift}'' thousand. The Adjutant-General, in his 
next annual report, gave the following tabular statement of the number from 
each count}', and the amount paid for their services: 



COUNTIES. 



Athens 

Adains 

Butler 

Behiioni 

Clarke 

Clinton 

Clermont 

Champaign . 

Delaware 

Franklin 

Fayette 

Fairfield 

Gallia 

Greene 

Guernsey — 
Hamilton ... 
Highland ... 
Hocking — 

Jackson 

Montgomery 



No. of 
Compa- 
nies. 


No. of 

Men on 

duty. 


26 
4 


1,967 

340 


14 


1,202 


6 


378 


27 


2,697 


25 

7 


1,980 
507 


2 




1 




49 


3,952 


20 
25 


1,530 
2,094 


27 


2,032 


16 


1,135 


4 


323 


15 


1,461 


23 


1,898 


15 


1,307 


5 


510 


1 


60 



Amount paid. 



$11,671 74 

1,171 44 

3,220 73 

816 86 

7,947 71 

5,282 64 

1,328 51 

214 41 

45 26 

10,441 59 

7,083 39 

5,091 39 

17,408 50 

3,780 06 

1,147 82 

8,001 00 

6,858 17 

4,554 82 

2,294 92 

102 35 



COUNTIES 



Jefferson 

Lawrence ... 

Licking 

Madison 

Monroe 

Meigs 

Morgan 

Muskingum . 

Noble 

Pickaway .... 

Perrv 

Pike 

Ross 

Scioto 

Vinton 

Washington. 

Knox 

Warren 

Total amounts 



No. of 


No. of 




Compa- 


Men on 


Amount paid. 


nies. 


duty. 




5 


511 


$939 10 


8 


572 


2,783 01 


1 


109 


482 15 


16 


1,478 


4,043 24 


28 


2,449 


11,256 26 


17 


1,661 


11,108 52 


28 


2,409 


10,834 61 


2 


150 


1,161 71 


18 


1,741 


5,620 61 


25 


1,980 


9,627 68 


11 • 


911 


4,665 07 


9 


782 


3,254 51 


48 


4,180 


22,816 18 


7 


639 


3,537 43 


13 


1,059 


5,298 81 


32 


2,542 


13,092 09 


1 




77 60 


10 


807 


2,657 58 


587 


49,357 


$212,318 97 



To this an explanation was added : 



.j'jMany companies that responded promptly and performed efficient service for from one to 



Morgan Raid. 151 

five days, have returned muster-rolls and declined payment for the service rendered in defense 
of their own homes ; still others have never made out rolls for pay, generously donating their 
services to the State. The entire militia force of Harrison County, through Mr. Shotwell, Secre- 
tary of the Military Committee, unanimously declined payment for the very important service 
they rendered. There are, however, rolls outstanding that have been returned on account of some 
defects. I have information of about seventy additional companies that have reported for pay, 
most of which will be ultimately paid ; they will increase the number paid to upward of fifty- 
five thousand men, and add twenty thousand dollars to the sum total," 

The Governor stated some of the expenses of the raid as follows: 

Pay proper of militia $250,000 

Damage by the enemy 495,000 

Damage by our troops 152,000 

$897,000 

This Avas exclusive of the heav}^ expense of subsisting and transporting the 
militia. 

He maintained that there was wisdom in the very heavy concentration of 
this force at Camp Chase to protect the Capital, but at an early period in the 
raid, two daj^s after Morgan's entry upon Ohio soil, he announced to the men 
there assembled that they were not needed, and dismissed one-half of them, 
chosen by lot, to their homes. Four daj-s later, on receipt of news of the ac- 
tion at BuflSngton Island, he discharged all the rest from the camj). Nearly all 
in South-western Ohio were also discharged early in the progress of the raid. 

Two days before the battle at Buffington Island he issued a circular to 
the Military Committees of the several counties through which Morgan passed, 
asking full reports of the losses, public and private, from the raid, and the names 
of the individual sufferers. These amounts were afterward made the subject 
of a claim on the General Government for reclamation. After Morgan's sur- 
render, the Governor issued an address to the people of the State, reciting the 
main facts of the invasion, and congratulating them upon "the capture and de- 
struction of one of the most formidable cavalry forces of the Eebeis; a force 
that had been a terror to the friends of the Union in Tennessee and Kentucky 
for about two years." 

It should not be forgotten, in contrasting the numbers of the Ohio militia 
thus called out with their performance, that they were only being oi'ganized 
when the call was made upon them ; that they Avere utterly without drill, and 
that many of them even took the field before their officers had been commis- 
sioned. 

In 1864 the Legislature ordered the appointment of a Board of Commis- 
sioners to examine and pass upon the claims for damages to property during 
the jMorgan raid. Messrs. Albert McVeigh, Geo. W. Barker, and Henry S. Bab- 
bitt, who were appointed the commissioners, passed over the route of the raid, 
and had public hearings of the claims at each point. They reduced them 
largely in most cases, and classified them into damages done by the Eebeis, by 
United States troops, and by State militia respectively. A summary of their 
report sets forth the results of their investigation in tabular form, as follows: 



152 



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Vallandigham Campaign. 153 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE VALLANDIGHAM CAMPAIGN. 



THE early summer of 1863 was the dead-point of danger in the war. 
We have been seeing how arbitrary arrests, popular disaffection, resist- 
ance to the draft, and an audacious invasion were features of its his- 
tory within the limits of Ohio. Elsewhere the gloom was far greater. The 
worse than failure at Chaneellorsville was followed by the transfer of Lee's en- 
tire army to the soil of Pennsylvania. The long labors before Yicksburg had 
not yet been rewarded with success, and fresh disasters at Galveston and else- 
where had combined to deepen the general gloom. 

It was in the midst of this feeling that General Eurnside, by his arrest of 
My. Yallandigham, lifted that politician into the position of a representative 
man, and, in making him the martyr of his partj% made him also its leader. 
He had scarcely reached the Confederate lines until the Eebel newspapers wei-e 
emphasizing the fiict that he could only be received as a prisoner — as one emi- 
nently deserving kindness and consideration, but none the less a prisoner; that 
it would be the height of folly for him to think of remaining in the Confeder- 
acy ; that his true base of ojierations was Canada, and his true mission to be- 
come the candidate of his party for the Governorship of Ohio.* 

The idea which would thus appear to have been suggested at the South 
was soon found to have taken firm hold upon the minds of the masses in the 
Democratic party. Its leaders regarded such a policj' as unwise in the ex- 
treme, and would greatly have preferred the nomination of a moderate war 
Democrat, like Hugh J. Jewett, their former candidate. But the masses were 
dissatisfied — sore about the draft, inflamed with anger at the treatment of the 
man who had most boldly championed their views, and absorbed to such a de- 
gree in these personal grievances as to consider their redress a question of more 
importance than the prosecution of the war or the preservation of the Nation. 

As the time for the convention approached, the tide of opinion set in 
stronger and stronger for Yallandigham, until it soon became a popular furor. 
For days before the date for the assemblage Columbus was crowded with dele- 
gations from the rural districts, whose intensity of feeling and bitterness of 
expression found no parallel in any previous political excitement in the State. 

* For the earliest expressions of these views the curious reader is referred to the first num- 
bers of the Chattanooga Rebel issued after news of the arrival of Mr. Vallandigham within 
General Bragg's lines had been received. 



154 Ohio in the Wak. 

They denounced, especially, General Burnside's "Order No. 38," declared it II 
an insufferable tyranny, proclaimed their intention of violating it on all.oc-' 
casions, and defiantly threatened resistance to attempted arrests. Governor | 
Tod, General Burnside, and Secretary Stanton were the subjects of peculiarly 
virulent attack. Mr. Vallandigham was the suffering champion of their cause, , 
whose wrongs were to be redressed, whose election as Governor was to be made'i 
the fitting rebuke to his persecutors. His absence made no difference. When- 
elected he could easily gain access to the Boi-der; and then, where was the 
General, or even higher oflScial, who would dare to keep the chosen Governor 
of this great State in exile beyond its limits? Only let that be attempted, and 
the Lieutenant-Governor elect would lead an army of a hundred thousand 
Democrats to the Border to bring him home in triumph ! 

The talk of the masses thus developed a deliberate purpose to provoke the 
gravest issues, and a readiness to embroil the State in civil war. They had re- 
solved on resistance to arrests, resistance as far as might be to the draft and to 
the war, and they were reckless as to consequences. 

The leaders vainly tried to stem the current. As a last resort they strove 
to brino- forward General McClellan, who was still a citizen of Ohio, as a can- 
didate for the Governorship, but he refused the use of his name. When the 
convention assembled an immense crowd took possession, overslaughed the del- 
egates, elected as permanent chairman a man Avho was not a delegate at all,* 
and clamored for the nomination of Vallandigham by acclamation. The most 
of the members fell comjiletely in with the current; a few war Democrats 
made sturdy resistance for a little, demanded a call of the delegates by conn- 
ties, and cast their votes for Judge Jewett. But the pressure was overwhelm- 
ing. Jewett's own county presently insisted upon withdrawing his name, and, 
amid a wild saturnalia of cheering, and embracing, and all manner of extrava- 
gant demonstrations of delight, the convict of General Burnside's Military 
Commission was nominated by acclamation as the candidate of this great party 
for the office of Governor of Ohio. 

A strenuous struggle was made for a resolution in favor of peace in the 
platform, but the most shouted: "Vallandigham is platform enough;" and so 
the leaders were left to fit their declaration of principles to their candidate 
with what skill they might, while the great crowd hung with delight on the 
address of ex-Senator Pugh, who, having been Mr. Vallandigham's legal repre- 
sentative in the trials, was naturally called out to speak for him now. It was 
known that through the morning Mr. Pu^h had been urging moderation ; but 
by this time the air of the convention had infected him. His violent, inflam- 
matory address completely carried away his hearers; and, in the whirlwind of 
enthusiasm which he evoked, he was nominated by acclamation for Lieutenant- 
Governor, in spite of his protests and refusal. Some passages of this remark- 
able speech (as reported in the newspapers of the day) were as follows : 

"The Democracy did not bring the war about — it was by the acts of the Administration in 
power. No one but the abject slave of the Administration would say that this controversy could 

* Ex-Governor Medill. 



Vallandigham Campaign. 155 

not have been settled on honorable terms of peace. He could not, and he did not state this as 
a matter of opinion, but as a fact. The Administration had been warned and implored not to 
launch the country into a civil war. The inevitable result was predicted, and he now called it to 
its account. If the Government should demand untold treasures to suppress the rebellion it 
should have them; it should have all its wants under the Constitution. If then the Administra- 
tion did not succeed, its folly would be apparent, and the judgment of God and history would be 
against it. 

"He would utter no word and commit no act that could be construed as an excuse for its 
failure. Having all the constitutional power, if it succeeded and preserved the Union, it would 
have credit, but if it failed, it should not put on him or his any excuse for the failure. If these 
gentlemen declare martial law, and if the security of himself, his wife, and his children, and his 
property, was to be subject to the whim of General Burnside, or any other General, the time for 
tliem and him had arrived to call a convention, which should never adjourn until it had achieved 
the liberty of the people. He scorned 'Order 38.' He trampled under foot the order of every 
military officer outraging the laws; and if his fellow-citizens were such abject slaves as to hold 
their liberty and right of free speech subject to the dictation of any military man, whether Gen- 
eral, Colonel, Corporal, or private, they deserved to be slaves. He had already said that his 
friend, their nominee for Governor, had dared to express his opinions, and for so doing he had 
been banished. He (Pugh) might not have agreed with all Vallandigham had said, but he in- 
sisted upon his right to express his opinions, and he exhorted them to postpone every other ques- 
tion to the great question of the vindication of our liberties. 

"He would exhori. Mr. Lincoln on the question of war when he (Pugh) had the liberty to 
discuss war or peace. He would express his opinions under the rights guaranteed him by the 
Constitution, even at the hazard of his life. He begged the Democracy to think of this; not to 
go home and think of crops and workshops, and put it off. It ought to fill their hearts every 
hour; it ought to be their business from now until the second Tuesday of October. What was 
tlieir property worth to them — what the safety of their wives and children, and every thing dear 
to them, if they were liable at the dead hour of the night to have their doors broken open and 
to be dragged, from the presence of wife and children, to a mock tribunal and tried? Don't cheer 
and repent to-morrow. It was easy for them to cheer without responsibility. Say what you mean 
and stick to it. Let each man take counsel of his own heart, and then come to the resolution 
that this thing must be stopped peaceably if possible, but stopped it must be. If you do that 
it will be stopped. Don't talk about it; do it and maintain it at all hazards. 

"Somebody must meet the issue. If I, God help me, I will meet it. I am out of political 
life, and will accept no office; but claim my rights as a private citizen, guaranteed to me by the 
Constitution. If we had an honest man as Governor my rights and liberties could have been pre- 
.served. That creature who has licked the dust off the feet of the Administration is less than the 
dust in the balance. We have no Governor. We have a being, and he has the audacity to say, 
and has said to my face, after this war is over he will come back into the Democratic party, and 
jiut such men as Vallandigham and Olds to the wall. I told him if he showed iiis face in a 
Democratic convention I would move to suspend all business until he was expelled. I can par- 
don an honest man who might have been misled, but the man who not only sold himself, but sold 
the birthright of Democracy, his crime is infamous. If General Burnside should arrest me to- 
morrow, will you act? (Cheers, and 'yes.') Then your liberties will be safe. I have considered 
that possibly you might not act; but, whether you will act or not, if it be at the cost of my life, 
1 intend to maintain my rights as a freeman. Our fellow-citizen, for expressing his opinions, was 
seized between night and morning by an overpowering force of soldiers and dragged from Day- 
ton to Cincinnati to be imprisoned. The judicial officer, knowing his duty, refused to interfere 
from personal cowardice, and he trampled the Constitution under his feet. Judge Leavitt's name 
will be handed down to posterity with scorn and shame. I tell you nothing less than the safety 
and necessity of my family brought me here. Life is no longer tolerable under the despotism 
that exists. I would rather be led to the altar than submit to ' Order 38.' The question is, will 
you submit to it ? If, after a fair and honest appeal, a majority of the people decide to submit, 
then I counsel you to sell your goods and chattels and emigrate to some other country, where 
you can find freedom. I say, like Patrick Henry, 'If this be treason make the most of it.' Now, 
my friends, I think I have violated 'Order 38' enough. 



156 Ohio in the War. 

"I knew perfectly well when Lincoln changed the sentence of Vallandigham, that the Ee- 
publicans would say it was done at Vallandighara's request. While on the gunboat with Pen- 
dleton, Dr. Fries, Mr. Ware, and Mr. McLean, I asked Mr. Vallandigham: 'Has the President 
given you a choice?' He replied that he had not. I asked him : 'If he gave you a choice which 
would vou take?' and his answer was, 'I would go to Fort Warren a thousand times rather than 
go South and be placed in the hands of the Rebels.' He authorized me to say this. If General 
Burnside has spies here and should lead me out between a file of soldiers, I have given you my 
opinions. Free speech is the only security for our freedom, and we must assent to this right. If 
I suffer I shall only consider that I have gone in the way of a true patriot; I shall look to the 
Democracy in prosperous times for a vindication in this hour of trial. I will not desert my prin- 
ciples, and if I suffer they will say at least that that man was ever true to the principles he pro- 
fessed. Do not adjourn, I beg of yon, until, in the name of the one hundred and eighty thousand 
Democrats of Ohio, you have demanded of Abraham Lincoln the restoration of Vallandigham to 

his home. 

"We will not talk of war, or peace, or rebellion, until our honored citizen has been restored 
to us. If you make that your platform you will be victorious. If not, I counsel you to seek a 
home where liberty exists." 

This convention was held on the 11th of June. At that time Mr. YaUan- 
digham was still within the Confederate lines, and it is not known that his 
friends had received any communications from him since the party under a flag 
of truce from General Eosecrans had carried him over.* The convention ap- 
pointed a committee to urge upon the President the duty of giving him permis- 
sion to return. A similar appeal from New York Democrats had, a little before, 
drawn from Mr. Lincoln an elaborate vindication of his policy of arbitrary ar- 
rests. He therefoi-e replied now to the Ohio committee with more brevit}'. 
Their address and his reply are subjoined : 

" Washington City, June 26, 1863. 
" To His Excellency, the President of the United States: 

"The undersigned having been appointed a committee, under the authority of the resolutions 
of the State convention held at the city of Columbus, Ohio, on the 11th instant, to communicate 
with you on the subject of the arrest and banishment of Clement L. Vallandigham, most respect- 
fully submit the following as the resolutions of that convention, bearing upon the subject of this 
communication, and ask of your Excellency their earnest consideration. And they deem it proper 
to state that the convention was one in which all parts of the State were represented, and one of 
the most respectable as to numbers and character, one of the most earnest and sincere in support 
of the Constitution and the Union ever held in that State. 

" Resolved, 1. That the will of the people is the foundation of all free government ; that to 
give effect to this will, free thought, free speech, and a free press are indispensable. Without free 
discussion there is no certainty of sound judgment ; without sound judgment there can be no wise 
government. 

" Resolved, 2. That it is an inherent and constitutional right of the people to discuss all meas- 
ures of their Government, and to approve or disapprove, as to their best judgment seems right. 
They have a like right to propose and advocate that policy which, in their judgment, is best, and 
to argue and vote against whatever policy seems to them to violate the Constitution, to impair 
tlieir liberties, or to be detrimental to their welfare. 

" Resolved, 3. That these, and all other rights guaranteed to them by their Constitution, are 
their rights in time of war as well as in the time of peace, and of far more value and necessity 
in war than peace; for in time of peace liberty, security, and property are seldom endangered; 
in war they are ever in peril. 

" Resolved, 4. That we now say to all whom it may concern, not by way of threat, but calmly 

*A report, however, was in circulation at the convention, that his wife had received letters 
from him, saying he would soon be home again. 



Vallandigham Campaign. 157 

and firmly, that we will not surrender these rights, nor submit to their forcible violation. We 
will obey the laws ourselves, and all others must obey them. 

^'Resolved, 11. That Ohio will adhere to the Constitution and the Union as the best, and it 
may be the last, hope of popular freedom, and for all wrongs which may have been committed, 
or evils which may exist, will seek redress under the Constitution, and within the Union, by the 
peaceful but powerful agency of the suffrages of the people. 

" Resolved, li. That we will earnestly support every constitutional measure tending to pre- 
serve the Union of the States. No men have a greater interest in its preservation than we have, 
none desire more; there are none who will make greater sacrifices or endure more than we will 
to accomplish that end. We are, as we ever have been, the devoted friends of the Constitution 
and the Union, and we liave no .sympathy with the enemies of either. 

" Resolved, 15. That the arrest, imprisonment, pretended trial, and actual banishment of Clem- 
ent L. Vallandigham, a citizen of the State of Ohio, not belonging to the land or naval forces 
of the United States, nor to the militia in actual service, by alleged military authority, for no 
other pretended crimes than that of uttering words of' legitimate criticism upon the conduct of 
the Administration in power, and of appealing to the ballot-box for a change of policy — (said 
arrest and military trial taking place where the courts of law are open and unobstructed, and for 
no act done within the sphere of active military operations in carrying on the war) — we regard 
as a palpable violation of the following provisions of the Constitution of the United States : 

" 1. ' Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, 
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of 
grievances.' 

" 2. ' The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against 
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated ; and no warrant shall issue but upon 
probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be 
searched, and the person or things to be seized.' 

" 3. ' No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on 
a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, 
or in the militia when in actual service in time of war or public danger.' 

"4. 'In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public 
trial by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed; 
which district shall have been previously ascertained by law.' 

" And we furthermore denounce said arrest, trial, and banishment, as a direct insult offered 
to the sovereignty of the people of Ohio, by whose organic law it is declared that no person shall 
be transported out of the State for any ofifense committed within the same. 

'^Resolved, 16. That C. L. Vallandigham was, at the time of his arrest, a prominent candidate 
for nomination by the Democratic party of Ohio for the office of Governor of the State ; that the 
Democratic party was fully competent to decide whether he is a fit man for that nomination, and 
that the attempt to deprive them of that right, by his arrest and banishment, was an unmerited 
imputation upon their intelligence and loyalty, as well as a violation of the Constitution. 

^'Resolved, 17. That we respectfully, but most earnestly, call upon the President of the United 
States to restore C L. Vallandigham to his home in Ohio, and that a committee of one from each 
Congressional District of Ohio, to be selected by the presiding officer of this convention, is hereby 
appointed to present this application to the President. 

"The undersigned, in the discharge of the duty assigned them, do not think it necessary to 
reiterate the facts connected with the arrest, trial, and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham; they 
are well known to the President and are of public history ; nor to enlarge upon the positions 
taken by the convention, nor to recapitulate the constitutional provisions which it is believed 
have been contravened ; they have been stated at length, and with clearness, in the resolutions 
which have been recited. The undersigned content themselves with a brief reference to other 
suggestions pertinent to the subject. 

" They do not call upon your Excellency as suppliants, praying the revocation of the order 
banishing Mr. Vallandigham, as a favor, but by the authority of a convention representing a 
majority of the citizens of the State of Ohio, they respectfully ask it as a right due to an Amer- 
ican citizen, in whose personal injury the sovereignty and dignity of the people of Ohio, as a 
free State, has been offended. 



158 Ohio in the War. 

"And this duty they perform the more cordially from the consideration that at a time of 
great national emergency, pregnant with dangers to our Federal Union, it is all-important that 
the true friends of the Constitution and the Union, however they may differ as to the mode of ad- 
ministering the Government, and the measures most likely to be successful in the maintenance of 
the Constitution and the restoration of the Union, should not be thrown into conflict with each 
other. 

"The arrest, unusual trial, and banishment of Mr. Vallandigham have created wide-spread 
and alarming disaffection among the people of the State; not only endangering the harmony of 
the friends of the Constitution and the Union, and tending to disturb the peace and tranquillity 
of the State, but also impairing that confidence in the fidelity of your Administration to the great 
landmarks of free government essential to a peaceful and successful enforcement of the laws of 
Ohio. 

"You are reported to have used, in a public communication on this subject, the following 
language : 

"'It gave me pain when I learned that Mr. Vallandigham had been arrested; that is, I was 
pained that there should have seemed to be a necessity for arresting him, and that it will aflbrd 
me great pleasure to discharge him so soon as I can by any means believe the public safety will 
not sutler by it.' 

"The undersigned assure your Excellency, from our personal knowledge of the feelings of 
the people of Ohio, that the public safety will be far more endangered by continuing Mr. Val- 
landigham in exile than by releasing him. It may be true that persons differing from him in 
political views may be found in Ohio and elsewhere who will express a different opinion; but 
they are certainly mistaken. 

" Mr. Vallandigham may differ with the President, and even with some of his own political 
party, as to the true and most effectual means of maintaining the Constitution and restoring the 
Union; but this difference of opinion does not prove him to be unfaithful to his duties as an 
American citizen. If a man devotedly attached to the Constitution and tlie Union conscientiously 
believes that, from the inherent nature of the Federal compact, the war, in the present condition 
of things in this country, can not be used as a means of restoring the Union ; or that a war to 
subjugate a part of the States, or a war to revolutionize the social system in a part of the States, 
could not restore, but would inevitably result in the final destruction of both the Constitution 
and the Union, is he not to be allowed the right of an American citizen to appeal to the judg- 
ment of the people for a change of policy by the constitutional remedy of the ballot-box? 

" During the war with Mexico many of the political opponents of the Administration then in 
power thought it their duty to oppose and denounce the war, and to urge before the people of 
the country that it was unjust, and prosecuted for unholy purposes. With equal reason it miglit 
have been said of them that their discussions before the people were calculated to discourage 
enlistments, 'to prevent the raising of troops,' and to induce desertions from the army ; and leave 
the Government without an adequate military force to carry on the war. 

"If the freedom of speech and of the press are to be suspended in time of. war, then the es- 
sential element of popular government to effect a change of policy in the constitutional mode is 
at an end. The freedom of speech and of the press is indispensable, and necessarily incident to 
the nature of popular government itself. If any inconvenience or evils arise from its exercise, 
they are unavoidable, 

" On this subject you are reported to have said further : 

"'It is asserted, in substance, that Mr. Vallandigham was, by a military commander, seized 
and tried ' for no other reason than words addressed to a public meeting, in criticism of the 
cour.se of the Administration, and in condemnation of the military order of the General.' Now, 
if there be no mistake about this, if there was no other reason for the arrest, then I concede that 
the arrest was wrong. But the arrest, I understand, was made for a very different reason. Mr. 
Vallandio-ham avows his hostility to the war on the part of the Union, and his arrest was made 
because he was laboring with some effect to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertions 
from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He 
was arrested, not because he was damaging the political prospects of the Administration, or the 
personal interests of the Commanding General, but because he was damaging tiie army, upon 
the existence and vigor of which the life of the Nation depends. He was warring upon the 



Vallandigham Campaign'. 159 

military, and this gave the military ccnstitutional jurisdiction to lay hands upon him. If Mr. 
Vallandigham was not damaging the military power of the country, then his arrest was made 
on mistake of facts, which I would be glad to correct on reasonable satisfactory evidence.' 

"In answer to this, permit us to say — First: That neither the charge, nor the specifications 
in support of the charge on which Mr. Vallandigham was tried, impute to him the act of either 
laboring to prevent tlie raising of troops or to encourage desertions from the army. Secondly: 
No evidence on the trial was offered with a view to support, or even tended to support, any such 
charge. In what instance, and by what act, did he either discourage enlistments or encourage 
desertions from the army? Who is the man who was discouraged from enlisting? and who en- 
couraged to desert by any act of Mr. Vallandigham? If it be assumed that, perchance, some 
person might have been discouraged from enlisting, or that some person might have been 
encouraged to desert, on account of hearing Mr. Vallandigham's views as to the policy of the 
war as a means of restoring the Union, would that have laid the foundation for his conviction 
and banishment? If so, upon the same grounds, every political opponent of the Mexican war 
might have been convicted and banislied from the country. 

"When gentlemen of high standing and extensive influence, including your Excellency, 
opposed, in the discussions before the people, the policy of the Mexican war, were they ' war- 
ring upon the military?' and did this 'give the military constitutional jurisdiction to lay hands 
upon' them? And, finally, the charge of the specifications upon which Mr. Vallandigham was 
tried entitled him to a trial before the civil tribunals, according to the express provisions of the 
late acts of Congress, approved by yourself, .July 17, 1862, and Marcli 3, 1863, which were man- 
ifestly designed to supersede all necessity or pretext for arbitrary military arrests. 

"The undersigned are unable to agree with you in the opinion you have expressed, that the 
Constitution is difl'erent in time of insurrection or invasion from what it is in time of peace 
and public security. The Constitution provides for no limitation upon or exceptions to the 
guarantees of personal liberty, except as. to the writ of habeas corpus. Has the President, at the 
time of invasion or insurrection, the right to engraft limitations or exceptions upon these con- 
stitutional guarantees whenever, in his judgment, the public safety requires it? 

"True it is, the article of the Constitution which defines the various powers delegated to 
Congress declares that 'the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless, 
where, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.' But this qualifica- 
tion or limitation upon this restriction upon the powers of Congress has no reference to or con- 
nection with the other constitutional guarantees of personal liberty. Expunge from the Consti- 
tution this limitation upon the powers of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and yet 
the other guarantees of personal liberty would remain unchanged. 

"Although a man might not have a constitutional right to have an immediate investiga- 
tion made as to the legality of his arrest, upon habeas corpus, yet 'his right to a speedy and pub- 
lic trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been com- 
mitted,' will not be altered; neither will his right to the exemption from 'cruel and unusual 
punishments;' nor Jiis right to be secure in his person, houses, papers, and effects, against un- 
reasonable seizures and searches; nor his right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, 
without due process of law; nor his right not to be held to answer for a capital or otherwise 
infamous offense, unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury be in anywise changed. 

" And certainly the restriction upon the power of Congress to suspend the writ of habeas 
corpus, in time of insurrection or invasion, could not affect the guarantee that the freedom of 
speech and of the press sliall not be abridged. It is sometimes urged that the proceedings in 
the civil tribunals are too tardy and ineffective for cases arising in times of insurrection or inva- 
sion. It is a full reply to this to say that arrests by civil process may be equally as expeditious 
and effective as arrests by military orders. 

"True, a summary trial and punishment are not allowed in the civil courts. But if tiie 
offender be under arrest and imprisoned, and not entitled to a discharge on writ of habeas corpus, 
before trial, what more can be required for the purpose of the Government? The idea that all 
the constitutional guarantees of personal liberty are suspended, throughout the country, at a time 
of insurrection or invasion in any part of it, places us upon a sea of uncertainty, and subjects 
the life, liberty, and property of every citizen to the mere will of a military commander, or what 
he might say that he considers the public safety requires. Does your Excellency wish to have 



160 Ohio in the War 

it understood that you hold that the rights of every man throughout this vast country are sub 
ject to be annulled whenever you may say that you consider the public safety requires it in time 
of invasion or insurrection ? 

" You ai-e further reported as having said that the constitutional guarantees of personal lib- 
erty have ' no application to the present case we have in hand, because the arrests complained of 
were not made for treason; that is, not for the treason defined in the Constitution, and upon the 
conviction of which the punishment is death ; nor yet were the}"^ made to hold persons to answer 
for capital or otherwise infamous crimes; nor were the proceedings following, in any constitu- 
tional or legal sense, criminal prosecutions. The arrests were made on totally different grounds, 
and the proceedings following accorded with the grounds of the arrests,' etc. 

" The conclusion to be drawn from this position of your Excellency is, that where a man is 
liable to ' a criminal prosecution,' or is charged with a crime known to the laws of the land, he 
is clothed with all the constitutional guarantees for his safety and security from wrong and injus- 
tice ; but that where he is not liable to ' a criminal prosecution,' or charged with any crime known 
to the laws, if the President or any military commander shall say that he considers that the pub- 
lic safety requires it, this man may be put outside of the pale of the constitutional guarantees, 
and arrested without charge of crime, imprisoned without knowing what for, and any length of 
time or be tried before a court-martial, and sentenced to any kind of punishment unknown to 
the laws of the land, which the President or military commander may deem proper to impose. 

"Did the Constitution intend to throw the shield of its securities around the man liable to 
be charged with treason as defined by it, and yet leave the man not liable to any such charge un- 
protected by the safeguard of personal liberty and personal security? Can a man not in the mil- 
itary or naval service, nor within the field of the operations of the army, be arrested and impris- 
oned without any law of the land to authorize it ? Can a man thus, in civil life, be punished 
without any law defining the offense and prescribing the punishment? If the President or a 
court-martial may prescribe one kind of punishment unauthorized by law, why not any other 
kind? Banishment is an unusual punishment, and unknown to our laws. If the President has 
the right to prescribe the punishment of banishment, why not that of death and confiscation of 
property? If the President has the right to change the punishment prescribed by the court-mar- 
tial from imprisonment to banishment, why not from imprisonment to torture upon the rack, or 
execution upon the gibbet ? 

" If an indefinable kind of constructive treason is to be introduced and engrafted upon the 
Constitution, unknown to the laws of the land and subject to the will of the President whenever 
an insurrection or invasion shall occur in any part of this vast country, what safety or security 
will be left for the liberties of the people ? 

"The constructive treasons that gave the friends of freedom so many years of toil and trouble 
in England, were inconsiderable compared to this. The precedents which you make will become 
ii part of the Constitution for your successors, if sanctioned and acquiesced in by the people now. 

" The people of Ohio are willing to co-operate zealously with you in every efibrt warranted 
by the Constitution to restore the Union of the Stales, but they can not consent to abandon those 
fundamental principles of civil liberty which are essential to their existence as a free people. 

" In their name we ask that, by a revocation of the order of his banishmeot, Mr. Vallandigham 
may be restored to the enjoyment of those rights of which they believe he has been unconstitu- 
tionally deprived. 

" We have the honor to be, respectfully, yours, etc., 

" M. BIRCHAED, Chairman, 19th District. 

George S. Converse, 
Warren P. Noble, 
George H. Pendleton, 
W. A. Hutchins, 
Abner L. Backus, 
J. F. McKinney, 
F. C. Le Blond, 
Louis Schaefer, 



' David A. Houk, Secretary, 3d Disti 


•ict. 


" George Bliss, 14th District 


" T. W. Bartley, 8th 




" W. J. Gordon, 18th 




" John O'Neill, 13th 




" C. A. White, 6th 




" W. D. Finck, 12th 




" Alexander Long, 2d 




"J.W.White, 16th 




" Jas. R. Morris, 15th 





7th District 


9th 




1st 




11th 




10th 




5th 




5th 


M 


17th 


II 



Vallandigham Campaign. 161 

REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT. 

" Washington, D. 0.; June 29, 1863. 

"Gentlemen: The resolutions of the Ohio Democratic State Convention, A'hich you present 
me, together with your introductory and closing remarks, being in position an(? argument mainly 
the same as the resolutions of the Democratic meeting at Albany, New York, I refer you to my 
response to the latter as meeting most of the points in the former. This response you evidently 
used in preparing your remarks, and I desire no more than that it be used with accuracy. In a 
single reading of your remarks, I only discovered one inaccuracy in matter which I suppose you 
took from that paper. It is where you say, 'the undersigned are unable to agree with you in the 
opinion you have expressed, that the Constitution is difi'erent in time of insurrection or invasion 
from what it is in time of peace and public security.' 

"A recurrence to the paper will show you that I have not expressed the opinion you suppose. 
I expressed the opinion that the Constitution is different in its application in cases of rebellion or 
invasion, involving the public safety from what it is in times of profound peace and public secu- 
rity ; and this opinion I adhere to, simply because by the Constitution itself, things may be done 
in the one case which may not be done in the other. 

"I dislike to waste a word on a merely personal point, but I must respectfully assure you 
that you will find yourselves at fault, should you ever seek for evidence to prove your assumption 
that I 'opposed in discussions before the people the policy of the Mexican War.' 

"You say, 'Expunge from the Constitution this limitation upon the power of Congress to 
suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and yet the other guarantees of personal liberty would remain 
unchanged.' Doubtless if this clause of the Constitution, improperly called as I think a limita- 
tion upon the power of Congress wei'c expunged, the other guarantees would remain the same; 
but the question is not how those guarantees would stand with that clause out of the Constitution, 
but how they stand with that clause remaining in it, in case of rebellion or invasion, involving 
the public safety. If the liberty could be indulged of expunging that clause, letter and spirit, I 
really think the constitutional argument would be with you. 

" My general view on this question was stated in the Albany response, and hence I do not 
state it now. I only add that, as seems to me, the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus is the great 
means through which the guarantees of personal liberty are conserved and made available in the 
last resort; and corroborative of this view, is the fact that Vallandigham in the very case in ques- 
tion, under the advice of able lawyers, saw not where else to go, but to the habeas corpus. But by 
the Constitution the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus itself may be suspended when in cases of 
rebellion and invasion the public safety may require it. 

"You ask in substance whether I really claim that I may override all the guaranteed rights 
of individuals, on the plea of conserving the public safety — when I may choose to say the public 
safety requires it. This question, divested of the phraseology calculated to represent me as strug- 
gling for an arbitrary personal prerogative, is either simply a question who shall decide, or an 
aflirmation that nobody shall decide, what public safety does require in cases of rebellion or in- 
vasion. The Constitution contemplates the question as likely to occur for decision, but it does 
not expressly declare who is to decide it. By necessary implication, when rebellion or invasion 
comes, the decision is to be made from time to time; and I think the man whom, for the time the 
people have, under the Constitution made the Commander-in-Chief of their army and navy, is 
the man who holds the power and bears the responsibility of making it. If he uses the power 
justly, the same people will probably justify him ; if he abuses it, he is in their hands, to be dealt 
with by the modes they have reserved to themselves in the Constitution. 

" The earnestness with which you insist that persons can only in times of rebellion be law- 
fully dealt with, in accordance with the rules for criminal trials and punishments in times of 
peace, induces me to add a word to what I have said on that point in the Albany response. You 
claim that men may, if they choose, embarrass those whose duty it is to combat a giant rebellion 
and then be dealt with only in turn as if there was no rebellion. The Constitution itself rejects 
this view. The military arrests and detentions which have been made, including those of Mr 
Vallandigham, which are not different in principle from the others, have been for prevention and 
not for punishment — as injunctions to stay injury — as proceedings to keep the peace, and hence, 
like proceedings in such cases and for like reasons, they have been accompanied with indictments, 
or trials by juries, nor, in a single case, by any punishment whatever beyond what is purely 

Vol. 1.— 11. 



162 Ohio in the War. 

incidental to tlie prevention. The original sentence of imprisonment in Mr. Vallandigliam's case 
was to prevent injury to the military service only, and the modification of it was made as a less 
disagreeable mode to him of securing the same prevention. 

"I am unable to perceive an insult to Ohio in the case of Mr. Vallandigham, Quite surely 
nothing of this sort was or is intended. I was wholly unaware that Mr. Vallandigham was at the 
time of his arrest, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor, until so informed by 
your reading to me the resolutions of the Convention. I am grateful to the State of Ohio for 
many things, especially for the brave soldiers and officers she has given in the present National 
trial to the armies of the Union. 

"You claim, as I understand, that, according to my own position in the Albany response, Mr. 
Vallandigham should be released ; and this because, as you claim, he has not damaged the mili- 
tary service, by discouraging enlistments, encouraging desertions, or otherwise ; and that, if he 
had, he should have been turned over to the civil authorities under the recent acts of Congress. 
I certainly do not know that Mr. Vallandigham has specifically and by direct language advLsed 
against enlistments, and in favor of desertion and resistance to drafting. We all know tliat com- 
binations, armed in some instances, to resist the arrest of deserters, began several months ago ; 
that more recently the like has appeared in resistance to the enrollment preparatory to a draft; 
and that quite a number of assassinations have occurred from the same animus. These had to be 
met by military force, and tliis again has led to bloodshed and death. And now, under a sense 
of responsibility more weighty and enduring than any which is merely official, I solemnly declare 
my belief that this hindrance of the military, including maiming and murder, is due to the 
course in which Mr. Vallandigham has been engaged in a greater degree than to any other cause, 
and is due to him personally in a greater degree than to any other one man. These things have 
been notorious, known to all, and of course known to Mr. Vallandigham. Perhaps I would not 
be wrong to say they originated with his special friends and adherents. With perfect knowledge 
of them he has frequently, if not constantly, made speeches in Congress and before popular 
assemblies, and if it can be shown that with these things staring him in the face, he has ever 
uttered a word of rebuke or counsel against them, it will be a fact greatly in his favor with me, and 
one of which, as yet, I am totally ignorant. When it is known that the whole burden of his 
speeches has been to stir up men against the prosecution of the war, and that in the midst of 
resistance to it, he has not been known in any instance to counsel against such resistance, it is 
next to impossible to repel the inference that he has counseled directly in favor of it. With all 
this before their eyes, the convention you represent have nominated Mr. Vallandigham for Gov- 
ernor of Ohio, and both they and you have declared the purpose to sustain the National Union 
by all constitutional means. But of course they and you, in common, reserve to yourselves to 
decide what are constitutional means; and, unlike the Albany meeting, you omit to state or inti- 
mate that in your opinion an army is a constitutional means of saving the Union against rebell- 
ion, or even to intimate that you are conscious of an existing rebellion being in progress, with 
the avowed object of destroying that very Union. At the same time your nominee for Governor, 
in whose behalf you appeal, is known to you and to the world to declare against the use of an army 
suppress the rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, encourages desertion, resistance to the 
draft, and the like, because it teaches those who incline to deseit and escape the draft to believe 
it is your purpose to protect them, and to hope that you will become strong enough to do so. 
After a personal intercourse with you, gentlemen of the Union look upon it in this light. It is a 
substantial hope, and, by consequence, a real strength to the enemy. It is a false hope, and one 
which you would willingly dispel. I will make the way exceedingly easy. I send you dupli- 
cates of this letter in order that you, or a majority of you, may, if you choose, indorse your 
names upon one of them, and return it thus indorsed to me, with the understanding that those 
signing are thereby committed to the following propositions, and to nothing else : 

" 1. That there is now a rebellion in the United States, the object and tendency of which is to 
destroy the National Union ; and that, in your opinion, an army and navy are constitutional 
means for suppressing that rebellion. 

"2. That no one of you will do anything which, in his own judgment, will tend to hinder the 
increase or favor the decrease, or lessen the efficiency of the army and navy while engaged in the 
effort to suppress the rebellion ; and, 

''3. That each of you will, in his sphere, do all he can to have the officers, soldiers, and sea- 



Vallandigham Campaign. 163 

men of the army and navy, wliile engaged in the effort to suppress the rebellion, paid, fed, clad, 
and otherwise well provided and supported. 

"And with the further understanding that upon receiving the letter and names thus indorsed, 
I will cause them to be published, which publication shall be, within itself, a revocation of the 
order in relation to Mr. Vallandigham. 

"It will not escape observation that I consent to the release of Mr. Vallandigham upon terms 
not embracing any pledge from him or from others as to what he will or will not do. I do this 
because he is not present to speak for himself, or to authorize others to speak for him, and hence, 
I shall expect, that on returning he would not put himself practically in antagonism with 
the position of his friends. But I do Jt chiefly because I thereby prevail on other influen- 
tial gentlemen of Ohio to so define their position as to be of immense value to the army — thus 
more than compensating for the consequences of any mistake in allowing Mr. Vallandigham to 
return, so that, on the whole, the public safety would not have suffered by it. Still, in regard to 
Mr. Vallandigham and all others, I must hereafter, as heretofore, do so much as the public serv- 
ice may seem to require. 

" I have the honor to be respectfully yours, etc., A. LINCOLN." 

The Committee responded to this proj)osition in another long argument, 
closing as follows : 

"The people of Ohio were not so deeply moved by the action of the President, merely 
because they were concerned for the personal safety or convenience of Mr. Vallandigham,. but 
because they saw in his arrest and banishment an attack upon their own personal rights; and 
they attach value to his discharge chiefly as it will indicate an abandonment of the claim to the 
power of such arrest and banishment. However just the undersigned might regard the prin- 
ciples contained in the several propositions submitted by the President, or how much soever they 
might, under other circumstances, feel inclined to indorse the sentiments contained therein, yet 
they assure him they have not been authorized to enter into any bargains, terms, contracts, or 
conditions with the President of the United States to pi'ocure Xhe release of Mr. Vallandigham. 

"The opinions of the undersigned touching the questions involved in these propositions are 
well known, have been many times publicly expressed, and are sufficiently manifested in the 
resolutions of the convention which they represent, and they can not suppose that the President 
expects that they will seek the discharge of Mr. Vallandigham by a pledge, implying not only 
an imputation upon their own sincerity and fidelity a,s citizens of the United States; and also carry- 
ing with it by implication a concession of the legality of his arrest, trial, and banishment, against 
which they and the convention they represent, have solemnly protested. And while they have 
asked the revocation of the order of banishment, not as a favor, but as a right, due to the people 
of Ohio, and with a view to avoid the possibility of conflict or disturbance of the public tran- 
quillity ; they do not do this, nor does Mr. Vallandigham desire it, at any sacrifice of their dignity 
and self-respect. 

"The idea that such a pledge as that asked from the undersigned would secure the public 
safety sufficiently to compensate for any mistake of the President in discharging Mr. Vallandig- 
ham, is, in their opinion, a mere evasion of the grave questions involved in this discussion, and 
of a direct answer to their demand. And this is made especially apparent by the fact that this 
pledge is asked in a communication which concludes with an intimation of a disposition on the 
part of the President to repeat the acts complained of. 

"The undersigned, therefore, having fully discharged the duty enjoined upon them, leave 
the responsibility with the President. 

The effort of the President to commit these gentlemen to the support of the 
army and the war thus failed. It was well understood that this happened, not 
entirely because they disliked his "evasion of the grave questions involved" in 
the treatment of Mr. Vallandigham, but also and mainly because of the fact 
that, in the temper then prevalent in their party, they were unwilling to give 
any countenance to the war. 



164 Ohio in the Wak. 

Mr. Yallandighani passed through the Confederacy, from Chattanooga to 
Richmond, and thence to Wilmington. Here he took passage on a blockade- 
runner, which, escaping capture, landed him safely at the British port of Nas- 
sau, whence he made his way under the British flag to Canada, taking up his 
quarters on the Canada side at the Niagara Falls. He arrived at Niagara on 
the 15th of July, and on the same day issued the following address, accepting 
the nomination which had been conferred upon him while he was in the 
Confederacy : 

"Niagara Fali.s, Canada West, July 15, 1863. 

" Arrested and confined for three weeks in the United States, a prisoner of state ; banished 
thence to the Confederate States, and there held as an alien enemy and prisoner of war, though 
on parol, fairly and honorably dealt with and given leave to depart, an act possible only by run- 
ning the blockade at the hazard of being fired upon by ships flying the flag of my own country, 
I found myself first a freeman when on British soil. And to-day, under the protection of the 
British flag, I am here to enjoy and in part to exercise the privileges and rights which usurpers 
insolently deny me at home. The shallow contrivance of the weak despots at Washington and 
their advisers has been defeated. Nay, it has been turned against them, and I, who for two 
years was maligned as in secret league with the Confederates, having refused when in their midst, 
under circumstances the most favorable, either to identify myself with their cause, or even so 
much as to remain, preferring rather exile in a foreign land, return now with allegiance to my 
own State and Government unbroken in word, thought, or deed, and with every declaration and 
pledge to you while at home, and before I was stolen away, made good in spirit and to the very 
letter. 

" Six weeks ago, when just going into banishment because an audacious but most cowardly des- 
potism caused it, 1 addressed you as a fellow-citizen. To-day, and from tiie very place then selected 
by me, but after wearisome and most perilous journeyings for more than four thousand miles by 
land and upon sea, still in exile, though almost in sight of my native State, I greet you as your 
representative. Grateful, certainly I am, for the confidence in^ my integrity and patriotism, im- 
plied by the unanimous nomination as candidate for Governor of Ohio, which you gave me while 
I was yet in the Confederate States. It was not misplaced ; it shall never be abused. But this 
is the last of all considerations in times like these. I ask no personal sympathy for the personal 
wrong. No ; it is the cause of constitutional liberty and private right cruelly outraged beyond 
example on a free country, by the President and his servants, which gives public significance to 
the action of your convention. Yours was, indeed, an act of justice to a citizen who, for his devo- 
tion to the rights of the States and the liberties of the people, had been marked for destruction 
by the liand of arbitrary power. But it was much more. It was an example of courage worthy 
of the heroic ages of the world ; and it was a spectacle and a rebuke to the tisurping tyrants who, 
having broken up the Union, would now strike down the Constitution, subvert your present Gov- 
ernment, and establish a formal and proclaimed despotism in its stead. You are the restorers 
and defenders of constitutional liberty, and by that proud title history will salute you. 

"I congratulate you upon your nominations. They whom you have placed upon the ticket 
with me are gentlemen of character, ability, integrity, and tried fidelity to the Constitution, the 
Union, and to liberty. Their moral and political courage, a quality always rare, and now 
the most valuable of public virtues, is beyond question. Every way, all these were uominationi 
fit to be made. And even jealousy, I am sure, will now be hushed, if I especially rejoice with 
you in the nomination of Mr. Pugh as your candidate for Lieutenant-Governor and President of 
the Senate. A scholar and a gentleman, a soldier in a foreign war, and always a patriot; eminent 
as a lawyer, and distinguished as an orator and a statesman, I hail his acceptance as an omen of 
the return of the better and more virtuous days of the Kepublic. 

' I indorse your noble platform ; elegant in style, admirable in sentiment. You present the 
true issue, and commit yourselves to the great mission just now of the Democratic party — to restore 
and make sure first the rights and liberties declared yours by your Constitutions. It is in vain 



I 



Vallandigham Campaign. 165 



to invite the States and people of the South to return to a Union without a Constitution, and dis- 
honored and polluted by repeated and most aggravated exactions of tyrannic powers. It is base 
in yourselves, and treasonable to your posterity, to surrender these liberties and rights to the 
creatures whom your own breath created and can destroy. 

" Shall there be free speech, a free press, peaceable assemblages of the people, and a free 
ballot any longer in Ohio? Shall the people hereafter, as hitherto, have the right to discuss and 
condemn the principles and policy of the party — the ministry — the men who for the time con- 
duct the Government? To demand of their public servants a reckoning of their stewardship, 
and to place other men and another party in power at their supreme will and pleasure? Shall 
Order 38 or the Constitution be the supreme law of the land ? And shall the citizen any more 
be arrested by an armed soldiery at midnight, dragged from wife and child at home to a military 
prison ; thence to a mock military trial ; thence condemned and then banished as a felon for the 
exercise of his rights? This is the issue, and nobly you have met it. It is the very question of 
free, popular government itself. It is the whole question : upon the one side liberty, upon the 
other despotism. The President, as the recognized head of his party, accepts the issue. What- 
ever he wills, that is law. Constitutions, State and Federal, are nothing; acts of legislation 
nothing ; the judiciary less tlian nothing. In time of war there is but one will supreme — his 
will ; but one law — military necessity — and he the sole judge. Military orders supersede the 
Constitution, and military commissions usurp the place of the ordinary courts of justice in the 
land. Nor are these mere idle claims. For two years and more, by arms, they have been 
enforced. It was the mission of the weak but presumptuous Burnside — a name infamous for- 
ever in the ears of all lovers of constitutional liberty — to try the experiment in Ohio, aided by a 
judge whom I name not, because he has brought foul dishonor upon the judiciary of my country. 
In your hands now, men of Ohio, is the final issue of the experiment. The party of the Admin- 
istration have accepted it. By pledging support to the President they have justified his outrages 
upon liberty and the Constitution, and whoever gives his vote to the candidates of that partv 
commits himself to every act of violence and wrong on the part of the Administration which he 
upholds ; and thus, by the law of retaliation, which is the law of might, would forfeit his own 
right to liberty, personal and political, whensoever other men and another party shall hold the 
power. Much more do the candidates themselves. Sufier them not, I entreat you, to evade the 
issue ; and by the judgment of the people we will abide. 

"And now, finally, let me ask, what is the pretext for all the monstrous acts and claims of 
arbitrary power, which you have so nobly denounced? ' Military necessity?' But if indeed all 
these be demanded by military necessity, then, believe me, your liberties are gone, and tyranny 
is perpetual. For if this civil war is to terminate only by the subjugation or submission of the 
South to force and arms, the infant of to-day will not live to see the end of it. No, in another 
way only can it be brought to a close. Traveling a thousand miles and more, through nearly 
one-half of the Confederate States, and sojourning for a time at widely different points, I met 
not one man, woman, or child who was not resolved to perish rather than yield to the pressure 
of arms, even in the most desperate extremity. And whatever may and must be the varying 
fortune of tlie war, in all which I recognize the hand of Providence pointing visibly to the ulti- 
mate issue of this great trial of the States and people of America ; they are better prepared now 
every way to make good their inexorable purpose than at any period since the beginning of the 
struggle. These may, indeed, be unwelcome truths, but they are addressed only to candid and 
honest men. Neither, however, let me add, did I meet any one, whatever his opinions or his 
station, political or private, who did not declare his readiness, when the war shall have ceased, and 
invading armies ^een withdraivn, to consider and discuss the question of re-union. And who shall 
doubt the issue of the argument? I return, therefore, with my opinions and convictions as to 
war or peace, and my faith as to final results from sound policy and wise statesmanship, not only 
unchanged but confirmed and strengthened. And may the God of heaven and earth so rule the 
hearts and minds of Americans everywhere that with a Constitution maintained, a Union 
restored, and liberty henceforth made secure, a grander and nobler destiny shall yet be ours than 
that even which blessed our fathers in the first two ages of the republic. 

"C. L. VALLANDIGHAM." 



166 Ohio in the Wak. 

We have had occasion to notice that Governor Tod's faithful, zealous, and 
generally able administration was occasionally marred by foibles, and once or 
twice \)y serious mistakes. People laughed at some of his exaggerated and 
undignified expressions — as when he announced to the Secretary of War that it 
was well he did not know who was withholding certain supplies from the new 
troops, since, if he did, he " would whip the fellow, though he were as strong as 
Samson" — and it is alwaj's more unfortunate to an aspirant for public favor to 
become ridiculous than to make even serious blunders. But there was also a 
disposition to charge upon him responsibility for some needless expenses, some 
unfounded alarms, some unwise vigor in the business of arrests. The dissatis- 
faction was not general, nor was it very well founded ; but it was sufficient to 
break the force of what might otherwise have proved a spontaneous movement 
for his renomination. 

As the determination pf the Democratic masses to nominate Mr. Yallandig- 
ham became evident, a growing sentiment began to appear in favor of casting 
aside all personal considerations, and nominating the strongest candidate who 
could be found, to head the Union ticket. It appeared that Governor Tod was 
not generally held to be that man ; and it was thought questionable whether, 
even if his ability were conceded, he would, under the peculiar circumstances, 
be the most available candidate. These considerations were having some 
weight, though Governor Tod still seemed to have the best prospects; when the 
managers of the two leading Republican newspapers of Cincinnati, apj^arently 
by a preconcerted plan, united in giving special prominence to a new candidate. 

John Brough had in times past been one of the most honored names among 
the Ohio Democracy. The man had been founder and editor of their great 
party organ, the Cincinnati Enquirer;* had achieved a remarkable financial repu- 
tation as Auditor of State; bad been tendered foreign missions, and even a place 
in the cabinet of a Democratic President. He was reckoned one of their best 
stump speakers. He had been out of politics and engaged in managing rail- 
ways for nearly fifteen years, so that his fame had become almost traditional, 
and his name called up associations with great campaigns and great leaders 
whom the party had canonized. 

He now appeared, almost unheralded, at Marietta, the home of his boy- 
hood, to address an assemblage of supporters of the war. The Cincinnati news- 
papers two days later — on the very day on which they published the report of 
the Yallandigham Convention— spread his speech in full before their readers, 
not forgetting to suggest that the great Democrat who now gave such hearty 
support to the Government in its trials would be an excellent man to put up 
against the "Blue-light Convention and its convict candidate." f The si^eech 
was an admirable poj)ular eifort, and its instant effect was to make Mr. Brough 

* The paper had been in existence long before, but under Mr. Brough's proprietorship its 
name was changed to that which it has ever since borne, and such other changes were made 
as would seem to warrant the treatment of him as its founder. 

tThis was the phrase with which Hon. E. D. Mansfield headed an article in the Gazette on 
the nomination of Mr. Vallandigham. 



Vallandigham Campaign. 167 

the most popular man in the State. The next day the Cincinnati Kepublican 
papers openly came out in advocacy of his nomination ; the feeling spread like 
wild-fire, and when, in the next week, the Union Convention assembled at Co- 
lumbus, it was seen from the outset that Mr. Brough had a majority of the 
delegates. 

Governor Tod's friends, however, gave him an earnest support. The ballot 
stood, for Brough, two hundred and twenty-six; for Tod, one hundred and 
eighty-three and half The Governor behaved handsomely. He addressed the 
convention, giving a frank expression of his natural disappointment, and assur- 
ances of his intention, nevertheless, to do all in his power for the success of 
the ticket. 

The enthusiasm of the convention was greatly excited by the address from 
the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland, presented by Governor Dennison. 
This document, which had no small influence, both upon the nominations and in 
the subsequent canvass, was as follows : 

"Tkione, Tenn., June 9th. 

"Gentlemen: You have been selected by the representatives of a very large number of the 
soldiers of Ohio, now serving with the Army of the Cumberland, to attend the Union Conven- 
tion, called to assemble at Columbus on the 17th inst., for the nomination of Governor and other 
State officers. 

"We sincerely hope that neither the convention nor the people of Ohio, will deem this action 
of her citizen-soldiery as formed upon any mere desire to participate, even in the remotest degree, 
in party or political strifes at home, but solely from a most earnest wish that civil, State, and 
political action may be so conducted as to contribute to the great object which all true patriots, 
whether citizens or soldiers, must have at heart, the maintainance of the Government and the 
restoration of the Union. With parties, as such, we have long since ceased to sympathize, and to- 
day the Army of the Cumberland has but this platform of political principles : ' An unlimited use 
of all the energies and all the resources of the Government for the prosecution of the war until the 
rebellion is subjugated and the Union restored.' Though formerly divided by all the party dis- 
tinctions of their time, we are to-day a ' band of brothers,' standing firmly and unitedly upon this 
broad platform. We ask of each other no reason why we are so united, but we gratefully accept 
the fact and let that suffice. We do not discuss whether slavery be right or wrong ; whether the 
slaveholder or abolitionist is the primary cause of the rebellion ; it is enough for us that the 
rebellion now exists, and that we are bound by the heritage of the past, and the hope of the 
future, to put it down. We did not refuse to sustain the Government before the Administration 
inaugurated the policy of emancipation. We will not desert it now that it has. The efficiency 
and continued harmony of your army depend, in a great measure, upon the State Government at 
home. It has pleased that Government to give us, while yet in the field, a voice at the polls. 
While eminent civilians at home will doubtless be proposed to the convention as candidates for 
the gubernatorial chair, from whom a choice might be made that would command our cordial 
support ; still, if such choice can not be made with harmony, we beg to suggest the propriety of 
selection being made from among the many eminent public men Ohio now has in the field. Such 
a candidate, while being thoroughly acquainted with every want of the soldier, would, at the 
same time, possess equal ability to administer the domestic affiiirs of the State. For such a can- 
didate we can safely pledge the undivided support of Ohio's one hundred thousand soldiers. 

"Once more we call upon our friends at home to stand firmly by the Government and its 
army. Mistakes in policy, if any such occur, are but the straw and foam that whirl and disap- 
pear on the broad river of nationality, sweeping on majestically and undisturbed beneath them. 
Under this Administration the American Union is to fall ingloriously, or be so firmly re-estab- 
lished that the world in arms can not shake it henceforth, and none but traitors can withhold 
their support. Whatever will aid in crushing traitors is orthodox with us, regardless of what 
old political text-books say. We ask you to unite on our simple platform. 



J 



168 Ohio in the Wae. 

" The shifting scenes of National life are now changing with electric swiftness; uld ideas, 
theories, and prejudices are being hurried into their graves. With the stern realities of the liv- 
ing present we must grapple boldly and act earnestly, or history will write over our National tomb 
that we of the North were unequal to the hour in which we lived. Let us labor on, then, patiently 
and zealously, each in his separate sphere of action — you as citizens surrounded by the blessings 
and the quiet of home, striving against traitors there— Ave fighting less dangerous foes on the fields 
which lie between them and the homes we love so well. Over these fields of carnage now we 
hope, by the blessing of God, to re-establish our noble form of American nationality, tliat shall 
yet bless the world as no government before has done. This, with you, we hope to enjoy when 
we have laid aside the character of soldiers and entered again the walks of peaceful life. 
' 'Vith highest regard, gentlemen, we have the honor to remain, 
"Very respectfully, your obedient servants, 

" GEO. P. ESTE, Colonel 14th O. V. I. 
" F. VAN DERVEER, Colonel 15th O. V. I. 
" DURBIN WARD, Lieutenant-Colonel 17th O. V. I. 
"To Hon. Wm. Dennison, Brigadier-General J. D. Cox, Judge Stanley Matthews, Colonel 
John M. Connell, Colonel James H. Godman." 

The following declaration of principles, reported by Senator Wade, wa» 
adopted by acclamation : 

" Resolved, That the calamities of the present rebellion have been brought upon this Nation 
by the infamous doctrines of nullification and secession, promulgated by Clalhoun and denounced 
by General Jackson in 1832, and reiterated by the convention held in the city of Columbus on 
the 11th instant. We denounce them as incompatible with the unity, integrity, power, and glory 
of the American Republic. 

"Resolved, That the war must go on with the utmost vigor, till the authority of the National 
Government is re-established and the old flag floats again securely and triumphantly over every 
State and Territory of the Union. 

"Resolved, That in the present exigencies of the Republic we lay aside personal preferences 
and prejudices, and henceforth, till the war is ended, will draw no party line, but the great line 
between those who sustain the Government and those who oppose it ; between those who rejoice 
in the triumph of our arms and those who rejoice in the triumph of the enemy. 

" Resolved, That immortal honor and gratitude are due to our brave and patriotic soldiers in 
the field, and everlasting shame and disgrace to any citizen or party who withholds it ; that, sym- 
pathizing with the army in its hardships, and proud of its gallantry, the lovers of the Union 
will stand by it, and will remember, aid, and support those who are disabled, and the families 
of those who fall fighting for their country. 

"Resolved, That confiding in the honesty, patriotism, and good sense of the President, we 
pledge to him- our support of his earnest efforts to put down the rebellion. 

" Resolved, That the present Governor, DaviJ Tod, is an honest, able public servant, and 
that his official conduct deserves and receives the approbation of all loyal people. 

Mr. Brough signified his acceptance of the nomination, which he continued 
to protest was unexpected and undesired, in the following letter : 

" Cleveland, Ohio, July 27, 1863. 

"Gentlemen: On my return home last evening I found your favor of 17th instant, an- 
nouncing my nomination, by the Union Convention, as a candidate for Governor of Ohio. 

" You are fully aware, gentlemen, that this nomination has been made, not only without my 
solicitation, but against my personal wishes. The circumstances attending it, and the manner of 
its presentation, scarcely admit of discussion as to the course to be adopted. Personal considera- 
tions must yield to the duty which every man owes to the State ; and therefore, while appreciating 
alike the honors and responsibilities of the position, I assume the standard you present to me, 
and, to the utmost of my ability, will bear it through the contest, whether to victory oi defeat, 
those who have chosen me must determine. 



Vallandigham Campaign. 169 

"I accept and fully approve the resolutions of the convention accompanying your note. 
My own position has been so clearly defined that I consider it unnecessary to restate it on this 
occasion. I have but one object in accepting tiie position your constituents have assigned me — 
and that is to aid you and them in sustaining the Government in the great work of suppressing 
this most wicked rebellion, and restoring our country to its former unity and glory. 

" Very truly yours, JOHN BROUGH. 

"Messrs. Wm. Dennison, Pres't, John D. Caldwell, Sec'y, Union Convention of Ohio. " 

The campaign which ensued will long be remembered in Ohio as one of the 
most exciting ever known in her history. The meetings of both parties were 
unusually large — those of the Democrats being especially noticeable for unpre- 
cedented numbers and enthusiasm. The ablest speakers on both sides traversed 
the State; and the newspapers gave almost as much space to the canvass as to 
the great victories in the field, which soon came to inspire the party of the Gov- 
ernment. The tone of the Democrats, in spite of this revolution in the prospects 
of the war, was one of unabated defiance, and they proclaimed, on all hands, 
their determination to form an army to conduct Mr. Vallandigham home in case 
they should elect him. To the last they appeared confident of success, and the 
vote showed that they polled their full strength. On the other side a fuller vote 
was brought out than ever before at a gubernatorial election. Mr. Chase, then 
Secretary of the Treasury, set the example of "going home to vote"— making 
for that purpose his first visit to Ohio since the outbreak of the war. Large 
numbers of clerks from the departments in Washington imitated his course, as 
did thousands of citizens scattered east and west through other States, on 
business or pleasure. 

The result was as signal as the struggle had been conspicuous. One hun- 
dred thousand was the majority by which the people of Ohio put the seal of 
their condemnation on the course which Mr. Vallandigham had chosen to pur- 
sue, and renewed their vows to continue the war, through good fortune or ill, to 
the end of the utter defeat of the rebellion. 

Mr. Brough's majority on the home vote was sixty-one thousand nine hun- 
dred and twenty. Of the votes of the soldiers, forty-one thousand four hundred 
and sixty-seven were cast for him, and only two thousand two hundred and 
eighty-eight for Mr. Vallandigham.^ Brough's aggregate majority was thus 
swelled to one hundred and one thousand and ninety-nine, in a total vote of 
four hundred and seventy-six thousand two hundred and twenty -three. But 
Mr. Vallandigham had received the startling number of one hundred and 
ci"-hty-seven thousand five hundred and sixtj'-two votes. In the election, one 
year before, the Democrats had carried the State— the soldiers not being per- 
mitted to vote — by a majority of five thousand five hundred and seventy-seven. 
The change in majorities, therefore, on the home vote alone was sixty-seven 
thousand four hundred and ninety-seven ; while, including the soldiers' vote, it 

»Even this the soldiers spoke of as falling many thousands below the majority they would 
have given had the election come before the battle of Chickamauga. Great numbers of men 
who would have voted for Brough were left upon that unfortunate field— to linger out the war in 
Rebel orisons, or to be thenceforth reported " dead on the field of glory." 



170 Ohio in the Wak. 

swelled to the enormous number of one hundred and seven thousand five hun- 
dred and seventT-six. 

The general feeling of iriumph found expression in the editorial of the 
Cincinnati Gazette the morning after the election — which mar be taken as a fair 
indication of the temper of the times, and with which we may fitly close this 
condensation of the salient features of a gi-eat historical campaign : 

" VICTORY ! — SEilESIS I 

■' Thank Grod I The good name of our State is once more free from stain ! It was a disgrace 
to Ohio, loyal mother of us all, that such a man as Clement L. Yallandigham should be nomi- 
nated bv anv considerable party of her citizens for any respectable position in the State ; but 
right nobly has the disgrace been wiped out. Our people forgot party when patriotism was in- 
volved ; and from the river to the lakes their condemnation of traitors and sympathizers with 
traitors has sounded out in tones so clear, so loud, that through the whole limits of this Nation, 
Eebel or Loyal, none can fail to hear. 

" If Ohio furnished the most conspicuous and persistent minion of the great rebellion, Ohio, 
too, has magnificently repudiated her recreant, banished son ! No, exiled citizen, NOT son ! 
Thank God ! he is no son of Ohio, whom her people have loathingly spurned from his crouching 
position beyond the border. 

"Beneath our office windows the people of Cincinnati are thronging the public space in a 
wild exuberance of ecstatic joy they have not shown since the first proud victories of the war 
stirred the great heart of the Nation to its profoundest depths; and the name of the candidate 
whose high honor it has been to become the symbol of a State's loyalty is ringing in exultant 
shouts from square to square. 

■' • Count every ballot a bullet fairly aimed at the heart of the rebellion,' said the great min- 
ister of finance yesterday.* They are counting the bullets thus truly aimed ! In the morning 
the State will count from our bulletins as the city counts to-night ; and as the reckoning is 
footed up, there will come a gush of joy, and of pride that overtops the joy. 

"It is no great victory that prompts this thanksgiving of the Commonwealth. It is simply 
the redemption of our fair fame! It is what we all knew the noble State must do, but what it 
thrills us to find she has done so superbly. 

'' The estimates we thought the wildest are far outstripped. The State Central Committee 
talked of thirty-two thousand majority on the home vote. It will be fifty thousand ! At Colum- 
bus they say it is more likely to be seventy -five thousand ! And this is without our soldiers ! 
"Wait till their voice comes in, and the thtmders of our home guns will be penny fire-crackers 
beside the reverberating roar of their artillery. 

'■ From across the water the echoes will soon come sounding back. There is an end of hopes 
for a desertion of their Government by the people; an end of hopes for a division at the 
North; an end of expectations of peace save through the red gates of a war that knows no close 
but the close of the rebellion it means to crush. 

" So much for the victory I And now for the retributive justice it compels ! 

"It has been no ordinary contest concerning disputed questions of politics. It was a 
grave attempt by certain leading men, enjoying the privileges of citizens of Ohio, to establish 
treason to the Government under the forms of law — to place the State in direct hostility to the 
General Government. For that crime, and for all the consequences that crime would have en- 
tailed, had it been as successful as they strove to make it, we hold these men responsible now and 
through all their lives. For this sin there is no forgiveness. 

"Political opponents from whr>m we ditfer we can yet esteem; but men who sought to dis- 
grace the Nation by base submission to its enemies, or to dishonor the State by placing it with 
the traitors against the Government — why should they be less infamous evermore than the Tories 
and Cowboys of oiu* earlier and less dangerous times of trial ? 

"The prime mover in all the conspiracy is Clement L. Vallandigham. Let him pa-ssl Con- 
victed by two courts, banished by the Chief Magistrate of the Nation, an appellant from that 
tribun^ to the bar of his State, and by her cast off with an ignominy none other of her citizens 

*This phrase had occurred in a speech by Secretary Chase on the election. 



Yallandigham Campaign. 171 

ever received — branded traitor by the rulers, sealed traitor by the people — let him wander, out- 
cast that he is, with the mark of Cain upon his brow, through lands where distance and obscurity 
may diminish, till the grave shall swallow, his infamy. 

"Ohio has had sons whom she deligkted to honor; men crowned with her Senatorial bays, 
or chosen to stand and speak for her among the Representatives of the Nation. How had this 
foul rottenness festered in the State, that it could reach these men and blight them forever? In 
a moment of crazy delirium they permitted vexation at private grievances, or groveling fealty to 
party machinery by which they hoped to rise, or unmanly fear of party drill to conquer their 
consciences ajid their honor ; and to the horror of all who took honest pride in their fair names, 
;hev fell to be the seconds and adherents of the malevolent outcast. It is a hard fate for men 
who might have had large futures before them ; but stern justice demands that henceforth, to 
each one who loves the honor of his State, their names — they rise to all lips, we need not call 
them over — be held rsTA3iOTJS for evermore. 

" There can be, there must be no escape. They will seek to evade the resjwnsibility for 
their bold, bad attempt ; will shuffle, and equivocate, and deny ; but it must not be. As they 
have sowed, so must they reap. For the deceived masses there may be many excuses ; for the 
deceiving' leaders none. To have been a Tory in the Revolution will seem a light thing in the 
yesjs that come, beside having been a Vallandigham leader in the Great Eebellion. ' 



172 Ohio ix the War. 



CHAPTER XIY. 



THE CLOSING FEATURES OF TOD'S ADMINISTRATION. 



THEOUGHOUT his term of service Governor Tod was zealous, watch- 
ful, and pains-taking to a degree not common among oflScials of any grade. 
After his defeat in the effort for renomination these qualities were more 
conspicuous than ever. None could fail to see that he was wounded by the 
treatment he had received ; but none could fail also to see that his efforts to 
serve faithfully the people who had elected him continued unabated till the last 
hour of his official career. 

We have already passed in review most of the events which make the 
period of his administration memorable in our history. It remains to speak 
of his continued efforts for recruiting the army ; of his continued care of the 
wounded; of his relations with the officers in the field; of his efforts for the 
protection of the border from minor raids ; of the discharges to the Squirrel 
Hunters, and the re-enlistment of the veterans. 

The large numbers of men put into the field in 1862 left comj)aratively lit- 
tle work to be done in the way of raising troops in Ohio in 1863. Throughout 
the year fifteen thousand and sixty new men were enlisted who, according to 
the Governor's calculation, raised the entire number furnished by the State to 
two hundred thousand six hundred and seventy-one. Of these a few were for 
missing companies in infantry regiments sent to the field before their numbers 
were completed, and a few for missing battalions in cavalry regiments in the 
field. A couple of six months' regiments were raised under the unwise call of 
the Government for such troops in June. A couple of heavy artillery regi- 
ments were raised — one of them having for a nucleus a regiment of infantry 
already in the service ; and one or two new batteries of light artillery were 
formed. A regiment or two for service in guarding prisoners, and a negro reg- 
iment completed the list of new organizations. Several that had been per- 
mitted to enter the service as coming from other States, in the great rush for 
acceptance in 1861, were reclaimed. The rest of the recruiting, conducted by the 
aid of the military committees,* but mainly under the authority of United 

*The services of these military committees throughout the war were most valuable, and 
were entirely gratuitous. They were originally appointed by Governor Dennison, and contin- 



Closing Featuees of Tod's Administkation. 



173 



Suites officers, was for the old regiments, and under the stimulus of a desire to 

avoid the draft. The grand total of these various efforts we have already given. 

But the grand feature of the enlistments for 1863 was one with which, from 

the nature of the case, the State authorities could have little to do. The Ohio 

ued by his successors, with a few occasional changes caused by deaths or disabilities. The names 
of their members deserve an honorable record; and their organization at the close of 1863 gives 
about as fair a statement of the general working force as is attainable. We present the list, 
therefore, as it stood at that date : 



ADAMS. 

E. P. Evans, Ch'n. 
G. W. McKee. 
J. N. Huuk, Sec'y. 
T. J. Milieu. 
H. Sprowl. 

ALLEN. 

T. Cunningham, Ch. 
Shelby Taylor, Sec'y. 
A. N. Smith. 
Isaiah S. Pillars. 
Joseph W. Hunt. 

ASHLAND. 

L. J. Sprengle, Sec'y. 
William Osborn. 
W. H. H. Potter. 
John T>. Jones. 
R. D. Frew. 
W. A. Roller. 
C. C. Wick. 

ASHTABULA. 

Abner Kellogg. 
John A. Prentice. 
Edwin R. Williams. 
Edward A.Wright. 
J. D. Ensign, Sec'y. 

ATHENS. 

M.M. Greene, Ch'n. 
Hon. J. W. Bayard. 
H. S. Brown. 
Hon. L. L. Smith. 
S. W. Pickering, Sec'y 
Capt. J. M. Dana. 
E. H. Moore. 
W. R. Golden. 



AUGLAIZE. 

B. A.Wendlon.Ch'n, 
Col. John Walkup. 
John G. Bennett. 
David Simpson. 
William Bush. 
S. B. Avres. 
John Keller, Sec'y. 



BELMONT. 

D. D. T.('owen,Ch'n. 
Jolm Lippeucott. 
Alex. Brannum. 
St. Clair Kelly. 
Lewis Boyer. 
William Smith. 
■"'^Hon. Wm. Keunon. 



BROWN'. 

G. W. King, Chairm'n 

Jacob Heriuann. 

E. Blair. 

S. Hemphill. 

J. P. Biehn, Sec'y. 

BUTLEB. 

N. C. McFarland, Ch. 
Alex. F. Hume. 
Israel Williams, Sec'y 
Henry Beardsley. 
J. M. Millikin. 



CARROLL 

George Hardesty 
William Dcford. 
George Bi'atty. 
Edwin Forrell. 
0. A. Shober, Sec'y. 



CLARK. 

John B. Hagau, Ch'n. 
Alex. Waddle. 
Samuel E. Sturrell. 
D. A. Harrison, Sec'y. 
Charles M. Clark. 
William S. Meranda. 
Kreider Mower. 

CLERMONT. 

Philip B. Swing, Ch'n. 
R. W. Clark. 
John Goodwin. 
Dr. Cyrus Gaskins. 
Dr. John P. Emrie. 

CLINTON. 

R. B. Harlan, Ch'n. 
William C. Fife. 
C. jM. Bosworth. 
William B. Fisher. 
A. W. Miller. 
J. Q. Smith. 

COLUMBIANA. 

Hon. L.W. Potter. 
John Voglesong. 
J. J. Boone. 
Josiah Thompson. 
iToseph G. Laycock. 

COSHOCTON. 

Dr. A. L. Cass, Ch'n. 
Hcmston Hay. 
Capt. E. Shaffer. 
Col. J. Irvine, Sec'y. 
Seth McChiin. 
Hon. John Johnson. 



CRAWFORD. 

_4_T. J. Orr, Chairman. 
Jacob Scroggs. 
George Quinby, Sec'y. 
H. C. Carhart. 
W. W. Bagley. 

CUYAHOGA. 

W.B. Castle, Ch'n. 
William Bingham. 
F. JJicola. 
E. Hessenmueller. 
Col. George B. Senter. 
StiUman Witt. 
--^1. Barlow, Sec'7. 
William Edwards. 
William F. Cary. 



DAEKE. 

Daniel It. Davis. " 
Capt. Charles Calkins 
Capt. B.B. Allen. 
W. M. Wilsoa, Sec'y. 

DEFIANCE. 

Jonas Colby, Ch'n. 

John Crowe. 

S. A. Strong. 

John Paul. 

J. P. Buffington, Sec'y 



DELAWARE. 

Hon. T.W. Powell, Ch 
Robert McKinney. 
Charles Sherman. 
James W. Stark. 
John W. Ladd. 
B. C. Waters. 
— [-George F. Stayman. 
Hugh Cole. 
Burton Moore. 



CHAMPAIGN. 

Wm. McDonald, Ch'n. 
John H. Bryan. 
Thomas Chance. 
Isaac .lohnson. 
R. C. Fulton, Sec'y. 



ERIE. 

Hon. J. M. Root, Ch. 
Henry C. Bush. 
Walter F. Stone. 
Capt. Thomas Fernald 
Charles Bosford. 



FAIRFIELD. 

M. A. Daugherty, Ch. 

A. Syfert. 

John Reber. 

P. B. E«iug. 

John B. McNeil, Sec'y, 

FAYETTE. 

Hon. J. Pursell, Ch'n. 
Peter Wen del. 
H. B. iNlaynard, Sec'y. 
Gilbert Terrill. 
James M. Edwards. 

FRANKLIN. 

John Miller, Ch'n. 
David Taylor. 
L. W. Babbitt. 
•Peter Ambos. 
John Field. 



j>. Jierrni, t nan 
Octavius Waters. 

D. W. H. Howard. 
O. B. Verity, Sec'y. 
Joel Brigham. 
William Sutton. 

GALLIA. 

Joseph Bradbury. 
James Harper. 
Amos Kepley. 
Robert Black. 
Wm. Nash, Sec'y. 

GEAUGA. 

Hon. D.Woodbury, Ch. 
Erastus Spencer. 
Chester Palmer. 
Hon. P. Hitchcock, Sec, 
David Robinson. 

GREENE. 

B. Nesbitt, Chairman. 
Capt. A. McDowell. 

E. H. Munger. 
Horace Brelsford. 
Joseph W'ilson. 



GUERNSEY. 

Hon.C.J.Albright,Ch 
Joseph D. Taylor. 
Thomas Oldham. 
Isaac Morton. 
Joseph Ferrell. 

HAMILTON. 

Gen. J. H. Bates, Ch. 
Hon. N. W. Thomas. 
Col. .\. E. Jones. 
W. W. Lodwick. 
John W. Ellis. 
Francis Weisnewski. 
W. H. Davis, Sec'y. 
Thomas Sherlock. 
Eli Muchmore. 
Amzi Magill. 

HANCOCK. 

Edson Goit, Ch'n. 
J. F. Peiky. 
Henrv Brown, Sec'y. 
J. S. Pattr^rson. 
J. B Rothschild. 

HARDIN. 

Henry Harris. 
Brnj. R. Brunson. 
Hugh Letson. 
R. L. Chase. 
David Goodin. 
C. H. Gatch, Sec'y. 

HARRISON. 

0. Slemnions, Ch'n. 
James M. Paul. 
John Jamison. 



UARinsos— Continued. 
Charles Warfell. 
S. B. Shotwell, Sec'y. 

HENEY. 

E. Sheffield, Chairm'n. 
Cyrus Howard. 
Achilles Smith. 
James Durban. 
L. H. Bigelow, Sec'y. 

HIGHLAND. 

Dr. Wm. Smith, Ch'n. 
Dr. Enos Holmes. 
James H. Thompson. 
Col. Jacob Hyer. 

HOCKING. 

James R, Grdzan, Ch. 
Alex. White. 
C. W. James. 
Capt. G. M. Webb. 

HOLMES. 

Col. A. Baker, Ch'n. 
Dr. John G, Bingham. 
John Corbus. 

B. C. Brown, Sec'y. 
Trayer Anderson. 
John yv . Vorhes. 

HURON. 

C. L. Boalt, Esq., Ch. 
John Dewey. 
George G. Baker. 
John Gardiner. 

J. BI. Farr. 

C. A. Preston, Sec'y. 

JACKSON. 

Davis Mackley, Ch'n. 
Joshua E. Ferrell. 
George W. Johnson. 
James Tripp. 
J. E. .Tones. 
John M. Martin. 



Col 



JEFFERSON. 

G.W.McCook, Ch. 
R. C. Hoffman. 
Joseph 3Ieans. 
Charles Mather. 
Beatty McFarlane. 

KNOX. 

James Blake. 
C. H. Scribner. 
T. P. Frederick. 
Adam Weaver. 
S. L. Taylor. 
Sherman Pyle, Sec'y. 

LAKE. 

Hon. S. S. Osborn, Ch. 

C. C. Jennings. 

Chas, D. Adams, Sec'y. 
Sellick Warren. 

D. R. Page. 

LAWRENCE. 

John ('ampbell. 
Hon. H. S. Neal. 
Benj. F. Cory. 
Ralph Leet. 
Thomas McCarthy. 
Wm. W. Kirker. 
John MerriU. 

LICKING. 

Joseph White. 
Col. Andrew Legg. 
Michael Blorath. 
Dr. J. N. Wilson. 
Noah Wilkins. 

LOGAN. 

I. S. Gardner, Ch. 
John Underwood. 



LOGAN — Continued, 
■R. E. Runkle. 
J. B. McLauhlin, Sec'y. 
John Emery. 
Isaac Smith. 

LOEAIN. 

H. E. Mussey, Ch'n. 
G. G. Washburn. 
R. A. How. 
Conrad Reid. 
J. H. Dickson. 

LtJCAS. 

Gen. John E. Hunt, Ch. 
John .1. Manor. 
George W. Reynolds. 
Capt. R. Waite, Sec'y. 
Peter Lent. 
James W. Brigham. 
Peleg T. Clarke. 

MADISON. 

Thomas P. Jones, Ch. 
Gabriel Prugh. 
Benj. F. Clark, Sec'y. 
Oliver P. Crabb. 
Robert Armstrong, 

MAHONING. 

Hosea Hoover. 
Fred. W. Whitslar. 
John M. Edwards. 
0. Fitch Kirtland. 
F. 0. Arms 

MARION. 

John Merrill, Ch'n. 
Amos H. King. 
IraOhler, Secy. 
Adam Ault. 
B. W. Davis. 

MEDINA. 

Hon. H. G. Blake, Ch. 
William Shakespear. 
N. H. Bostwick. 
Asaph Severance, jr. 
Ephraim Briggs. 

MEIGS. 

Hiram G. Daniel, Ch. 
David R. Jacobs. 
H. B. Smith, Sec'y. 
Nicholas Stanberry. 
Ed. Tiffany. 

MERCER. 

Dr. J. Tayler, Ch n 
Wm. 0. A. Munsel. 
Oliver Ellis, Sec'y. 
William Dickman. 
Adam Jewitt. 



MIAMI. 

Hon.M.6.MitcheU,Ch. 
Dr. Harrison, 
Robert L. Douglass. 
Charles Morris. 
William W. Crane. 
John Wiggin. 
James M. Rowe. 

MONROE. 

Hon. Wm. F. Hunter. 
Hon. J. A. Davenport. 
John Keir, Esq. 
Stephen S. Ford. 
J. M. Kirkbride, Sec'y. 



MONTGOMERY. 

Hon. D. A. Haynes. 
James Turner. 
T. A. Philips. 
Geo. Startsman. 
Henry Fowler. 
R. W. Steele, Sec'y. 



174 



Ohio in the Wak. 



regiments in the field had dwindled from a thousand to an average of from two 
to four hundred each. They had been decimated in battle, had languished in 
hospitals, had borne the manifold sufferings of the camp and the march, had 
gone through a Eed Sea of troubles, and even yet were far from the sight of 
the promised land. They had left families, unprotected, behind them ; they 
felt that others at home should be in the ranks beside them; they saw as yet 
little reward for all their toils, privations, and wounds. 

With such a past and such prospects to contemplate, they heard the demand 
of the Generals for more troops. Their own terms of enlistment were expiring; 
long before the great campaign to which they were then looking forward should 
be ended many of them would have the right to turn their faces homeward. 
But, with a patriotism to which the history of the war furnishes no equal dis- 
play, they turned from this alluring prospect, resolved that the vacant places by 
the loved firesides should remain vacant still, perhaps for the war, perhaps for- 
ever, and pledged themselves to the Government once more as its soldiers to the 
end. Over twenty thousand veterans, the thin remnants of nearly eight}^ i-eg- 
iments of Ohio soldiers, re-enlisted for the war within a few weeks after the 
subject was first proposed to them. It was the most inspiring act since the 
uprising after Sumter. 

The Sixty-Sixth was the first of these regiments to return to the State after 
its re-enlistment, on the veteran furlough of thirt}' days, by which the Govern- 
ment wisely marked its gratitude for their unexampled fidelity. It reached 

Mllitaky Committees for 1863 — Continued.. 



MORGAN. 

Gen. Jas. Cornelius. 

John B. Stone. 

Enoch Dye. 

Hon. W. r. Sprague. 

Hon. J. M. Gaylord, 

Joshua Davis. 

F. W. Wood. 

MORROW. 

A. K. Dunn, Ch'n. 
J. G. Miles. 
Wm. Chase. 
Bertrand Andrews. 
Dr. J. M. Briggs, Sec. 

MUSKIMGUM. 

Hon. T. J. Maginnis. 
A'alentine Best. 
MaJ. K. W. P. Muse. 
D. McCarty. 
Perry Wiles. 

NOBLE. 

J. Belford. 
.lohn M. Bound. 

B. F. Spriggs. 
Wra. Fras'jr. 
John W. Tipton. 

OTTAWA. 

James Lattimore. 
Dr. W. W. Stedman. 
Cyrus Williams. 
Ira Dutcher, Sec'y. 
John Ryder. 
Aug. W. Lucky. 

PAULDING. 

F. T. Mellinger, Ch'n 
Is.aiah Richards. 
S. R. Brown, Sec'y. 
John W. Ayres. 
'Samuel Forder. 

PERRT. 

Col.N.B.Colborn. Ch 
£. Rose. 



PERRY — Continued. 
T. Selby. 
William Spencer. 
J. L. Sheridan, Sec'y. 

PICKAWAY. 

Geo. W. Gregg, Ch'n. 
James Reber. 
Joseph P. Smith. 
Isaac N. Ross. 
Nelson J. Turney. 
P.O. Smith, Sec'y. 

PIKE. 

Andrew Gilgore, Ch'n, 

PORTAGE. 

S. E. M. Kneeland. 
Alphonso Hart. 
Col. H. L. Carter. 
Philo B. Conant. 

5. D. Harris, jr.. Sec. 

PREBLE. 

6. W. Thompson, Ch. 
Robert Miller. 

L. C. Abbott. 

PUTNAM. 

James L. Olney. 
John Dixon. 
Thos. J. Butler. 
JohnB.Fruckly. 
Jacob Shafl'. 

RICHLAND. 

James Purdy, Ch'n. 
Thomas Mickey. 
Henry C. Hedges. 
B. S. Runyan. 
A. B. Beverstock. 
H. P. Davis, Esq. 

ROSS. 

John Hough, Ch'n. 
Addison Pearson. 
Wm. T. McClintick. 



nosa— Continued . 
Job E. Stevenson. 
John R. AUston. 
M. R. Bartlett. 
D. A. Schutte, Sec'y. 

SANDUSKY. 

Dr. L. Q. Rawson, Ch. 
James .lustice. 
Oliver Mcliityre. 
Isaac Knapp. 

C. 0. Tillotson, Sec'y. 

SCIOTO. 

A. W. Buskirk. 
Samuel Macklen. 
Martin B. Gillret. 
John P. Torry, Sec'y. 

SENECA. 

J. M. Navlor, Ch'n. 
G. M. Ugden. 
Charles Foster. 
JohnT. Huss. 
Michael Sullivan. 

SHELBY. 

J. Cummins, Ch'n. 
John F. Eraser. 
Chas. W. Wells. 
J. S. Conklin. 
J. J. Elliott, Sec'y. 
G. M. Russell. 

.STARK. 

Hon. J. W. Under- 

hill, Ch'n. 
John C. Mong. 
6. G. B. Greenwood. 
Anson Pease. 
S. Molby. 
H. Knoblock. 
Jus. S. Kelly. 

D. B. Wyant. 
John F. Reynolds. 
John P. Bix. 

H. S. Martin. 



SUMMIT. 

Col.L. P. Buckley.Ch. 
Henry McKinney. 
Henry Baldwin. 
Wm. (.'. Saekett. 
Archibald .Shields. 

TRUMBULL. 

G. T. Tovvnsend, Ch'n. 
John M. Stull. 
John R. Woods. 
Jacob W. Pattengill. 
G. F. Townsend, Sec. 

TUSCARAWAS. 

John Sargent, Ch'n. 
John H. Baruhill. 
John HiUlt. 
Clark H. Robinson. 
E. Burnett. 

UNION. 

P. B. Cole, Ch'n. 
J. A. Henderson, Sec. 
J. R. Smith. 
A. F. Wilkins. 
Joseph Newlove. 

VAN WERT. 

E. P. Edf.on, Ch'n. 
A. McGavren. 
Robert Conn, jr. 
James Webster. 
Wm. Patterson, Sec'y. 

VINTON. 

Francis Shades, Ch'n. 
Isaac Brown. 
Charles Brown. 
E. P. Ambrose. 
J. S. Hawk, Sec'y. 

WARREN. 

R. W. Gilchrist, Ch'n. 
Wm. H. Clement. 
Thomas Allen. 



WAREEN — Continued. 
Dr. J. Scott. 
J. S. Reese. 
J. S. Totter, Sec'y. 

WASHINGTON. 

Col. W.R. Putnam, Ch. 
George W. Baker. 
S. T. Cooke. 
Mark Greene. 
John Newton. 



WAYNE. 

Dr. L. Firestone, Ch. 
J. H. BuDigarduer. 
David Robinson. 
Robert Donelly. 
R. B. Stibbs. 
Constant Luke 
Aug. McDonald. 

WILLIAMS. 

S. E. Blakslee, Ch'n. 

James Bell. 

A. M. Pratt. 

J. N. How. 

J. Pollett. 

J. Youse, Sec'y. 

WOOD. 

Dr. H. A. Hamilton 

Chairman. 
Jas. W. Ross. 
E. Graham. 
George Laskoy. 
Col. J. T. Norton. 

WYANDOT. 

J. Y. Roberts, Ch'n. 

S. H. Hunt. 

J. D. Sears. 

S. H. White. 

T. E. Grisoll, Sec'y. 



Closing Features of Tod's Administration. 



175 



Columbus on the 2Gth of December, 1863, The Twenty-Ninth soon followed, 
and after it in rapid succession came a stream of them — the Twelfth, the Four- 
teenth, the Seventeenth, the Nineteenth, the Twenty-Third, the Twenty-Seventh, 
the Thirty-First, the Thirty-Sixth, the Thirty-Eighth, the Thirty -Ninth, the 
Forty-Third, the Forty-Fourth, the Fifty-First, and all the rest of the noble 
list. The Twenty-Third, Colonel E. B. Hayes, was the first in which re-enlist- 
ments had begun — the work being fairly commenced in its ranks in October. 
The Thirtj^-Ninth, Colonel B. F. Noj^es, furnished a larger number of veterans 
than any other regiment from the State. The number from each, as well as 
from several organizations credited to other States, but wholly or in part raised 
in Ohio, may be found set forth in the following table :* 

INFANTRY. 



No. Rogiinent. 



1st. 

2d.. 

4th 

5th 

7th 

8th 

9th 

10th 

11th 

12th 

13th 

14th 

15th 

17th 

18th 

19th 

20th, 

21st. 

22d.. 

23d.. 

24th 

25th 

26th 

27th. 



No. 
Men. 



3 
33 

47 
127 

20 
6 
3 
4 

70 
204 
181 
322 
302 
366 

62 
312 
306 
275 

31 
257 

65 
203 
187 
437 



No. Regiment. 



No. 
Men. 



28th 62 

29th ' 269 

30th ; 301 

31st ! 277 

32d 304 

33d 229 

34th 312 

35th 38 

36th 364 

37th ' 218 

38th j 360 

39th I 534 

40th I 179 

41st I 211 

42d 2 

43d ! 436 

44th : 453 

45th i 2 

46th ' 288 

47th 233 

48th 254 

49th , 314 

51st I 260 

52d 4 



No. Regiment. 



53d. 
54th 
55th 
56th 
57th 
58th 
59th 
61st. 
62d.. 
63d., 
64th 
65th 
66th 
67th 
68tli 
69th 
70th 
71st. 
72d., 
73d.. 
74th 
75th 
76th. 
77th 



No. 
Men. 



No. Regiment. 



380 
153 
310 
280 
213 
109 
1 
243 
292 
455 
226 
171 
269 
246 
300 
348 
332 
313 
261 
247 
321 
66 
252 
304 



78th 

80th 

81st 

82d 

90ih 

95th 

104th 

110th 

113th 

2dBat.V.R.C. 
18th Indiana.. 
52d " 

57th 

10th Tenn 

14tli Kentucky 

1st West Va... 

4th " 

5th 

9th 

11th 

66th Ilinois.... 



No. 
Men. 



303 

245 

136 

291 

1 

2 

1 

1 

4 

1 

1 

1 

2 

18 

1 

4 

87 

126 

58 

2 

92 



CAVALRY. 



No. Regiment. 



No. 
Men. 



1st I 285 

2d I 358 

3d 307 

4th I 205 

5th 127 



No. Regiment. 



No. 
Men. 



6th 

11th 

M'Lauglin'sSq 
5th Indp. Batt. 
Merrill's H'se. 



264 

44 

81 

1 

62 



No. Regiment. 



4th Pa. Cav .. 
11th " 
2nd Ind. Cav. 
11th " 
9th Ills. Cav.. 



No. 
Men. 



3 

36 
3 
4 
1 



No. Regiment. 



5th Iowa Cav. 
1st W. V. Cav. 

2d " 
5th " 
7th " 



No 
Men. 



1 

29 

333 

3 

51 



''Adjutant-General's Report for 1864. 



176 



Ohio in the War. 
aetillery. 



Xo. Regiment. 


No. 

Men. 


No. Kegiment. 


No. 
3Ien 


No. Eegiment. 


No. 

Blen. 


No. Regiment. 


No. 
Men. 


1st— Light 

1st — ^Heavy 

1st — Mounted... 
1st Ind'pt Eat... 
2d " .. 
3d " .. 


515 

17 

115 

17 
31 
46 


4th Ind't Batt. 

5th " 

6th 

7th " 

8th " 

9th 


26 
9 
66 
22 
24 
41 


lOthlnd't Batt. 

12th 

14th 

15th 

16th 

17th 


34 
33 

77 

10 

80 

1 


25th Ind't Batt 
1st Ky. Batt... 
1st Mo. L. A... 
lstW.Va.L.A 
l.st Pa. L. A.... 


109 
17 

1 

14 
9 



Total number 20,708. 

They rekindled the firea of a glowing iDatriotism throughout the State. 
Thej' fanned the work of recruiting to a flame. They shamed out the sullen 
spirit of opposition to the losses and inconveniences of the war which had culmi- 
nated in the Yallandigham movement. They secured the devotion anew of the 
State, and all that it contained, to the great struggle. And for themselves, they 
found how warm was the ^^opular gratitude, how tender the care for the soldier, 
how lavish the generous regards of those fi'om whose homes they had been 
beating back the horrors of war. They were the honored guests of the State, 
were feasted at every table, were toasted at every assemblage, were pointed out 
to the little children wherever they passed as the men who were saving the 
Nation, were showered with the smiles of beauty and the blessings of age. 

It has been said that one negro regiment was raised in 1863. More ought 
to have been secured ; let it never be said that it was the fault of the coloi"ed 
men themselves that they were not. 

At the first call for troops in 1861, Governor Dennison was asked if he 
would accept negro volunteers. In deference to a sentiment then almost uni- 
versal, not less than to the explicit regulations of the Government, he replied 
that he could not. When the Emancipation Proclamation changed the status 
of negroes so completely, and the Government began to accept their services, 
they resumed their applications to the State authorities. Governor Tod still 
discouraged them. He had previously committed himself, in repelling the 
importunities of their leaders, to the theory that it Avould be contrary to our 
laws, and Avithout warrant either in their spirit or letter, to accept them, even 
under calls for militia. He now did all he could to transfer such as wished to 
enlist to the Massachusetts regiments. 

The Adjutant-General, in his report for 1863, professed his inability to say 
why Massachusetts should be permitted to make Ohio a recruiting-ground for 
filling her quotas. If he had looked into the correspondence which the Gov- 
ernor gave to the public in connection with his message, he would have found 
out. As early as May 11th the Governor said, in a letter to Hon. Wm. Porter, 
Millon, Ohio : " I do not propose to raise any colored troops. Those now being 
recruited in this State are recruited by authority from Governor Andrew, of 
Massachusetts." * 

« Ex. Doc, 1863. Part I, p. 270. 



Closing Scenes of Tod's Administration. 177 

A few days later he wrote to John M. Langston : ''As it was uncertain 
what number of colored men could be jDromptly raised in Ohio, I have advised, 
and still do advise, that those disposed to enter the service promptlj^ join the 
Massachusetts regiments. . . . Having requested the Governor of Massa- 
chusetts to oi'ganize the colored men from Ohio into separate companies, so far 
as practicable, and also to keep me fully advised of the names, age, and place 
of residence of each, Ohio will have the full benefit of uU enlistments from the 
State, and the recruits themselves the benefit of the State associations to the 
same extent nearly as if organized into a State regiment." * And to persons 
proposing to recruit said companies he wrote that all commissions would be 
issued by the Governor of Massachusetts. In this course he had the sanction 
if not the original suggestion of the Secretary of War. Afterward his applica- 
tions for authority to raise an Ohio regiment were for some time refused, but 
finally he secured it, and the One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh was the quick 
result. Unfortunately it was numbered as the Fifth United States Colored. 
The result of all this was that Ohio received credit for little over a third of her 
colored citizens who volunteered for the war. 

To the end Governor Tod continued to add to the weight of the debt the 
State owes him for his zealous care of her wounded. 

Immediately after Stone Eiver he sent Surgeon-General Smith to the battle- 
field with forty surgeons and nurses. That very efiicient officer had learned by 
past experience the necessity for a longer period of additional aid to the sur- 
geons in the field than had been customary after great battles, and accordingly 
he now took none who were not able to remain in the hospitals for at least a 
month's service. Such of the wounded as could be properly transported were 
sent home on the steamer Emerald, which was chartered for this purpose by 
the Governor, and was sent out under the care of Dr. E. N. Barr, as Medical 
Director, and Mr. Octavius "Waters, as commander. Large expenditures were 
thus incui'red, but the grateful thanks of many rescued soldiers who had been^ 
ready to perish were the more than sufficient return. 

Soon after General Grant, by the brilliant campaign below Yicksburg, had 
gained the rear of the besieged city, another hospital steamer, the St. Cloud, 
was sent by the Ohio authorities to gather up the wounded who had been left 
along the line of the rapid march. As in all previous cases, the Cincinnati 
Sanitary Commission and the Columbus Ladies' Aid Society gave liberal assist- 
ance in furnishing the boat with supj^lies. It went under the care of Mr. 
Waters, as commander, and Dr. A. Dunlap, of Springfield, as Medical Director. 
At the mouth of the Yazoo they were met by an order from General Grant that 
"none of the sick and wounded should betaken from Yicksburg by hospital 
boats from any of the States, for the reason that the United States had sufficient 
means of transporting their wounded in their own boats as fast as it could be 
done with safety." Eeturning thus disappointed, they found an opportunity to 
do good service by carrying timely re-enforcements to repel an attack on the 

« Ex. Doc, 1863. Part I, p. 271. 
Vol. L— 12. 



178 Ohio in the Wae. 

the colored troops at Milliken's Bend, in progress as they arrived. At Memphis 
thej were again met by an order from the Secretary of War forbidding the 
fui'ther removal of the sick and wounded to their respective States. Defeated 
in the objects of their mission they could only distribute their supplies and 
return with a few wounded officei'S. With this, Grovernor Tod's effort with 
hospital boats ended. 

When the battle of Gettysburg came to break the gloom which, toward 
the middle of 1863, was settling upon the country, the Governor promptly ten- 
dered to the Surgeon -General of the United States medical assistance to any 
extent, but it was declined, with the assurance that the Government had made full 
provision for the comfort of the wounded in all respects. The State Surgeon- 
General subsequently saw occasion to express his regret that he had not taken 
the want for granted, accepted the numerous offers from the best physicians of 
the State, and taken a corps of them directly to the battle-field. 

Some agents were, however, sent to look after the Gettysburg wounded ; 
and the efficient State Agent at Washington labored zealously for the welfare 
of all of them who came within his reach. The State Agency sj^stem at the 
various points of most importance was kept up with excellent results. The 
Governor now also kept the Eev. E. A. Howbert — an Ohio clergyman who, 
throughout his administration, was employed in work for the soldiers — travel- 
ing through the Eastern armies (as well as once or twice through the Army of 
the Cumberland), reporting to him the condition of Ohio soldiers, informing him 
of the special wants in each locality and of cases of neglect, and thus enabling 
him to give proper direction to the efforts of the various organizations furnish- 
ing volunteer aid to the men in the field. 

In a hundred other waj^s the Governor manifested the same watchful cai-e 
for the wounded, which really forms the most beautiful feature of his work, and 
his highest claim to the gratitude of the State. He urged and urged again upon 
the Secretary of War the speedy discharge to their homes of men no longer fit 
for duty. He insisted that the paroled Ohio prisoners at Annapolis, whose 
distressful condition awakened the sj^mpathies of all, should be speedily sent to 
Ohio hospitals, as near as possible to their respective homes. Wherever it 
seemed at all possible he urged also the removal of Ohio patients in other hos- 
pitals throughout the country, either to their homes or to hospitals within the 
State. In certain cases he insisted upon changes of Medical Directors, as when * 
he declared that, from sources entitled to his fullest confidence, he was assured 
that Dr. Irwin, then director at Memphis, was not fit for his place. Often he 
wrote letters in behalf of distressed parents to surgeons in distant hospitals 
asking for whatever was needed for private soldiers, facts of their last illness, 
removal of their remains, and the like. Again and again he was forced to 
refuse patriotic ladies, and even school-girls, permission to enter the army lines 
as hospital nurses ; but he took care to soften the disappointment as much as 
possible. From scores of such letters this one must suffice: 

* Ex. Doc, 1863. Part I, p. 142. 



Closing Features of Tod's Administration. 179 

" Columbus, January 24, 1863. 
" Miss Rosella Rice, Perry ville, Ohio : 

" Dear Girl: Your kind and benevolent letter of the 19th instant, asking a passport for a 
friend to visit her gallant boy at Bowling Green hospital, is before me, and it causes me great 
pain to be compelled to say that I can not comply with your generous request. Our brave army 
near Nashville is suffering for the want of food, and the entire army under General Rosecrans is 
in peril for the want of re-enforcements. This state of things made it the imperative duty of 
General Rosecrans to forbid all travel of civilians over the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, 
and my painful duty to carry out his orders to that effect. Your pleading letter came near swerv- 
ing me from my duty, and yet I am glad that I possess the official firmness to deny you. 

" Very affectionately yours, DAVID TOD, Governor." 

What he could and what he could not do to further their wishes he wrote 
over and over, with like care and tenderness, to anxious wives and mothers and 
sisters all through the State; and wherever the authority of the Governor of 
Ohio could, within his knowledge, help to smooth the pillow of a sick or wounded 
soldier of the State, the effort was made. He was heartily sustained and assisted 
throughout in this good work by Surgeon-General Smith, a man whose tender 
care and sympathy will long be gratefully remembered by the soldiers he served 
80 well. 

Governor Tod did not escape Avithout some difficulties with the officers in 
the field. Indeed, such is the anomalous position of these officers, indebted to 
the Governor for their commissions, and looking to him for promotion,* yet 
owing him no obedience, that difficulties could scarcely be avoided. He wrote 
tartly to Colonel Casement that he learned with surprise of the Colonel's course 
in disregarding his action under an order exempting certain privates from punish- 
ment for absence without leave, and that he must insist on prompt compliance 
and no controversy .f Colonel Hildebrand having expressed dissatisfaction with 
the promotion of a Sergeant, the Governor told him the circumstances com- 
manded a more respectful tone, and then patiently explained.^ He had Cap- 
tain Leggett dismissed the service for writing what he styled a foolish and 
inflammatory letter which appeared in the newspapers, but asked his re-instate- 
ment after he had explained that it appeared in a garbled form, and was not 
intended for publication || He utterly refused to acknowledge Colonel AnSon 
McCook's claim that no one but the commander of the regiment should have 
anything to do with the appointments in it.§ To Colonel Lane's claim of a 
similar nature he offered a similar response.** 

Nearly all these differences with officers rose out of the vexed question of 
promotions. On this subject he adopted no fixed rule. Sometimes he promoted 
in accordance with rank, sometimes against it ; sometimes in accordance with 
the wishes of the Colonel, sometimes against him. Hs successor, adopting a 
uniform rule, was to find it almost equally productive of embarrassments. 

The transportation of soldiers over the railroads of the State, on fur- 
lough, sick-leave, and the like, grew to be an important feature of the State 
work. It was committed to the Quartermaster-General, who finally made an 

*Up only, of course, to the grade of Colonel. tEx. Doc, 1863, part I, p. 163. 

Jlbid., p. 165. II Ibid., p. 171. 2 Ibid., p. 173. ** Ibid., p. 177. 



180 



Ohio in the War. 



arrano;emeiit with the several companies for transportation at the uniform 
rate of one and a half cents per mile. Tickets were at first given to the 
railroad agents, to be issued to those entitled to them. Afterward, when this 
was found to involve some practical difficulties, the charge of these tickets 
was committed to the State agents, and ultimatel}- the sale of tickets on credit 
to soldiers was reduced to as narrow limits as possible. Some three thousand 
dollars were reported by the Quartermaster-General as probably- lost in this 

way a sum altogether insignificant when compared with the great convenience 

and saving' to needy soldiers. The militia transported to the musters in 1863 
were carried at the same reduced rates, the railroad companies generally giving 
a cheerful acquiescence to the view that it was their duty thus to make sacrifices 
for the common cause as well as others— the more, inasmuch ag their property 
was peculiarly exposed to the hazards of war from which the soldiers protected 
them, and as their business was also measurably augmented by the lower rates. 

The manufacture of ammunition at the State arsenal was continued up to 
August, 1863, when, owing to difficulties in getting supplies of powder from the 
Ordnance Department at AVashington, it was abandoned. 

Under a resolution of the Legislature, discharges in due form were fur- 
nished to the "Squirrel Hunters" who, in the preceding year, had rushed to the 
defense of Cincinnati. The numbers sent from each county thus came to be 
ascertained with at least an approximate degree of accuracy. They are set 
forth in the following table : 



COUNTIES. 


Number. 


COUNTIES. 


Number. 


COUNTIES. 


Number. 


COUNTIES. 


Number 




250 
163 
104 
366 
160 
1,326 
116 

14 
201 
459 
442 
607 
337 

31 
454 

66 

58 


Fayette 


25 
244 
1,093 
199 
675 
3 
504 
170 

55 

203 

7 

45 
295 
200 
256 
129 
561 


Licking 

Logan 


404 
178 
295 
197 
149 

80 
103 

92 
425 
266 

32 

17 
150 
261 
372 
258 

50 


Sandusky 

Scioto 


137 


A ll«.i 


Franklin 

anllia 


154 






Seneca 


84 


Ashtabula 






Shelby 


24 




Mahoning 

Marion 


Stark 


333 




Guernsey 

Hamilton 

Hancock 


Summit 

Trumbull 

Union 


245 




Medina 


607 






80 


Champaign 

Clnrk 


Montgomery ... 
Morrow 


Van Wert 

Warren 

Wayne 

Williams 

Wood 


95 


Highland 

Hocking 


436 




Muskingum ... 
Ottaway 


285 




30 


Columbiana 

Crawford 




Pike 

Portage 


72 




Wyandot 

Total 


35 


Knox 

Lake 






Cuyahoga 


Richland 

Ross 


15,766 


TT-iirfiplrl 


Lawrence 











Mr. Edson B. Olds, whose arrest for speeches calculated to discourage enlist- 
ments in the first year of Tod's administration has been mentioned, had been 
released. He now procured a warrant for the arrest of Governor Tod, on the 
charge of kidnapping, under an old State law. His movements were adroitly 
timed so as to carry the Governor to the Fairfield Court just after its adjourn- 
ment, and thus secure his incarceration, for a feAV days, at least. But Judge 
Gholson of the Superior Court promptly issued a writ of habeas corpus, and the 



Closing Featukes of Tod-s Administration. 181 

Governor was finally permitted to give bail for his apjDearance at the next terra 
of the court. The main object of the arrest — the hope to retaliate for Old's im- 
prisonment in kind and humiliate the Governor, was thus defeated, and the 
whole movement finally came to nothing. 

Hon. E. D. Mansfield, the Commissioner of Statistics, reported at the close 
of 1863 that out of five hundred and fifty-four thousand three hundred and 
fifty-seven able-bodied men, whom his calculations upon the census returns 
showed to be embraced in the population of the State, one hundred and fort}^ 
thousand were then absent^in the service, or had died or been disabled -in it; 
leaving the great reserve of four hundred and fourteen thousand three hundred 
and fifty-seven from which re-enforcements could yet be drawn. Two-thirds 
of the able-bodied men of the State were thus left at home to carry on her agri- 
culture, manufactures, and commerce, in spite of all the pressure of the war. 
"Ohio," he exclaimed, "if we consider the progress of machinery, has no longer 
any thing to fear from the reduction of her industry." He further deduced, 
from the election returns, the conclusion that the State, in spite of all losses, had 
thirty thousand more able-bodied men in the autumn of 1863 than in the 
autumn of 1860; and that the loss of able-bodied men in the State, traceable 
to the war, had as yet only amounted to twelve thousand seven hundred and 
eighty. 

In such condition the State found herself at the close of her second war 
administration. Governor Tod conducted his closing work with dignity and 
continued zeal ; made provisions for burial places for Ohio soldiers ; watched to 
the last over the safety of the Border ; took vigorous measures to repel the 
danger that once threatened from piratical incursions organized in Canadian 
waters; and took especial pains to leave the organization of the militia in a 
satisfactory shape. In his last message he tersely recited the work the State 
had done, urged an increased tax levy for the relief of the families of soldiers, 
and advised an increase in the salary to be paid his successor, commensurate 
with the labors and expenses of the position. 

He laid down his oflSce, perhaps not quite so popular as when he had entered 
upon its duties, yet with a better title to popularity. It was indeed easy to 
ridicule some of his peculiarities. He was a trifle pompous in his style— some- 
what sophomoric, not to say egotistic, in habitually referring to the soldiers as 
"my gallant boys" — given to puerile exaggerations, as when he declared that 
the people were determined to "put down the accursed rebellion, whether that 
take seven days or seven hundred years."* 

He made some mistakes of undue vigor, and some of his operations entailed 
expenses not wholly necessary. But he was zealous, indxistrious, specially 
watchful for the welfare of the troops, faithful in season and out of season. He 
was at the head of the State in the darkest hours through which she passed. 
He left her affairs in good order, her contributions to the Nation fully made up, 
her duties to her soldier sons jealously watched, and her honor untarnished. 

*Ex. Doc, 1863, part I, p. 166. 



182 Ohio in the War. 



CHAPTEE XV. 



THE OPENING OF BROUGH'S ADMINISTRATION— HIS CARE FOR 
THE SOLDIERS, AND THE STRIFES TO WHICH IT LED. 



ON the 11th of January, 1864, John Brough became Governor of Ohio. 
He brought to the office a larger reputation for ability than either of 
his predecessors during the war. He came in on the topmost wave of an 
unparalleled popular enthusiasm, backed by such a majority as no Governor of 
the State had ever before received, sustained b}- a public confidence that hesi- 
tated at no demand, and was ready for any sacrifice for the war. 

In his inaugural address he gracefully recognized the true significance of 
his wonderful triumph. "It was no mere party triumph," he said, "no individ- 
ual success. No mere partisan effort could have achieved such a victory; no 
man in the State is worthy of or could have received so sublime ain ovation." 
"It was," he continued, "a spontaneous declai-ation of the intense loyalty of our 
people to their Government — bearing with it the stern commandment that every 
energy of their State and every exertion of its rulers shall be given to the 
restoration of that Government to its original unity and power. It not only 
relieves us of all mere partisan trammels and affinities, but it commands us 
that, for the time being, these shall be laid aside until the great purpose is 
accomplished of restoring our country to a jjosition in which partisan contests 
may be indulged without involving our nationalitj', and party victories be won 
without their possible results giving encouragement to Eebels in arms against 
the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the land. In that spirit I accept 
the iate declai-ation of our common constituenc}^, and humbly thank them that 
in this particular they have made my path easy and straight before me." 

Toward the close of his inaugural he gave voice to another lesson of the 
great campaign Avhich had ended in his triumph. " We want peace," he said — 
"the North as well as the South — but we have not passed the terrible ordeal 
of the last three years to make or accept peace ujdou any other than honorable 
terms. We can not negotiate with Eebels in arms, or admit of anything from 
them but unconditional surrender and submission. . . . The past has its 
punishments that may be mitigated or forgiven, but the future must have full 
and ample security. . . . There are but tv/o ways in which the restoration 
of peace and the Union is to be accomplished: first, the unconditional surrender 



Opening of Beough's Administkation. 183 

of the leaders and the abandonment of the rebellion ; or, second, the continued 
progress and conquests of our arms until the military power of the Confederacy 
is broken and the heart of the rebellion crushed." 

In such spirit and with graceful reference to his px-edecessor,* he entered 
upon the duties in which he was to make the last great offering to the cause. 

The only recommendation to the Legislature which Governor Brough felt 
called upon to make in his inaugural, was one which was to prove a conspicu- 
ous feature of his administration. He insisted that the tax for the aid of sol- 
diers' families was not half large enough. He objected to Governor Tod's rec- 
ommendation that it be doubled, that even this increase would be too small to 
do justice either to the people or the soldiers; and urged that the work was a 
debt due the soldier, and should not be left to private contributions. To the 
arguments in fixvor of leaving this relief to charitable efforts, he made, at some 
length, this reply: 

"1. That it" the State acknowledges this obligation to the family of the absent soldier, she 
should meet it as a compensation lor his services, and in a manner fully equal to the necessities 
of the case. 

"2. Private contribution is not equitable in its character, and can not be adjusted to the prop- 
erty and interests that are protected by our armies. The generous will give beyond their actual 
abilities, while the parsimonious, or the opponent of the war, will withliold from pecuniary or 
unpatriotic considerations. Taxation alone will equalize this burden, and impose it, where it 
should rest, upon the property protected by the services that the revenue is intended to compen- 
sate. If the additional levy increases the taxation of generous contributors, it relieves them from 
a larger amount of private bounty, and imposes it upon the non-contributors, where it should fall. 
Even when the State assumes the entire support of soldiers' families, there will be scope enough 
for private contributions to alleviate the privations and suflerings of sick, disabled, and wounded 
men in hospitals and at home. 

"3. The form of private charity is not always acceptable to its recipients, and especially 
the class to wliom tiiis is applicable. Much sufiering and privation will be endiu-ed before pride 
will suffer application to private charity, where there is a consciousness that meritorious services 
of the absent provider should promptly call the State to the protection and support of his de- 
pendent family. We should divest this fund of the appellation of charity. It is not such, in 
any application of the term. It is an honest debt, and an imperative duty, that we owe the men 
who are serving us in positions of labor and danger. They save us from invasion — from the 
destructive ravages of war within our borders. While they press the conquests of our arms for 
the restoration of our Government, they protect our property and our lives ; they are the con- 
servators of all the prosperity that surrounds us. They do not perform this service for the 
small compensation allowed them by the Government. They are actuated by a higher and a 
nobler motive; and while they incur privations, danger, and death for the common cause, the 
State should not only protect their families from want, but make the act one of right and justful 
compensation, instead of burdening it with the offensive appellation of charity. Neither should 
it be governed by the rigid economy of mere subsistence. It should be at least such plenty and 
comfort as the stalwart arm of the natural provider would furnish them, if he were at home to 
do it, instead of laboring in our service, to ward calamity from our hearthstones. 

" In my judgment three mills on the dollar is the least sum at which this tax should be 

* "His arduous labors have contributed in no small degree to the gratifying results presented 
to you ; and it is a pleasing reflection that the people of the State will be able to follow him into 
his present retirement from executive duties with the grateful plaudit of ' well done, good and 
faithful servant.' It will be an abiding pleasure to me if, at the end of my own brief service, I 
shall be able to attain alike his usefulness and liis reward." 



184 • Ohio in the War. 

fixed, and I would prefer to see it four mills. The patriotic people of the State will cheerfully 
pay it, and justify you for imposing it. The act should also require county commissioners to 
collect reports of disbursements from township and ward trustees, and communicate their aggre- 
gates annually to the Auditor of State." 

The Legislature, accepting these views, yet fearful of such heavy taxation 
as they proposed, passed a bill levying a tax of two mills on the dollar, giving 
county commissioners power to add another mill, and city councils authority to 
add half a mill more. Township and county officers were charged with the 
proper distribution of the fund, but in case of their ftiilure or misconduct, the 
Governor was authorized to interfere. 

As soon as this measure became a law, the Governor gave earnest attention 
to its enforcement. He presently found a tendency to obstruct its operations, 
in regions where the political belief of the majority had suffered defeat in the de- 
feat of Mr. Yallandigham. Township officers neglected, or openly refused to do 
their duty. Thereupon Governor Brough appealed to the military committees: 

"Executive Department, Columbus, April 5, 1864. 
"To THE Military Committees of the State op Ohio: 

"Gentlemen: I send you, herewith, a copy of the act passed by the recent General Assem- 
bly 'for the relief of thefamilies of soldiers and marines in the State and United States service, 
and of those who have died or been disabled in such service.' I especially call your attention to 
the eighth section of the law, and on behalf of our soldiers and their families earnestly ask your 
co-operation in giving it eflSciency. 

"There are almost daily complaints to this department, that township officers in certain 
locaUties are indisposed to administer this fund in the manner evidently designed by the General 
Assembly. Women complain of being rudely treated— of being compelled to travel long dis- 
tances to get signatures of officers, and then being allowed very small amounts, of being almost 
insultingly catechised as to their means of support, and divers other hindrances and oppressions. 
I have been unwilling to believe that men, trusted of their fellow-citizens, would or could make 
of their offices a means of oppression upon the weak and helpless families of the brave men who 
are fighting our battles, and keeping the tide of rebellion from our borders; but inquiries made 
of military committees have brought replies even worse than the original complaints. I am 
mortified that these things are so; but while this evil spirit works with those who set party spirit 
above patriotism, and political resentment above the obligations of public duty, the friends of the 
country and its brave defenders must contribute a portion of their time and trouble to aid in the 
enforcement of the provision made by the law to remedy these evils. Except through occasional 
correspondence, I can not be advised of these cases where the law is wrested to private purposes, 
and its operations hindered and embarrassed. I request you, therefore, to co-operate with me in 
this particular. Where township officers do. not faithfully administer the law, I hope you will 
at once present the facts to your county commissioners. If they neglect or refuse to act, please 
notify this department, and at the same time indicate good and loyal men who will undertake the 
performance of the duty. Be assured of prompt and decisive action in this quarter; and in cases 
where you report to me specific facts, 1 will put them in such attitude that the people of the State 
shall see and know the means resorted to for the purpose of injuring the cause of the country 
and its soldiers at the same time. I do not doubt your cordial sympathy with me in this work; 
for it is a duty we all owe, while our soldiers protect us abroad, to look to the support and com- 
fort of their loved ones at home. 

"The act is unusually clear and explicit in its provisions. If, however, controversies arise 
as to its intent and meaning, I hope you will freely state them, and, as far as I can do so, I will 
aid in solving them. The law was enacted in a spirit of liberality and justice, and it should be 
so administered. It does not dole out a charity, but awards what is justly due to its citizens who 
have voluntarily left their peaceful avocations to protect the State, and aid in crushing an unholy 
rebellion against the peace and unity of the Nation. 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BKOUGH." 



Opening of Brough's Administration, 185 

This appeal he supplemented with the utmost personal watchfulness. In 
some eases he found that boards of township trustees, composed of partisans of 
Mr. Yallandigham, had actually set aside this money from its legitimate use, and 
added it to their bridge funds! Wherever he had occasion to suspect unfaithful- 
ness, he summarily dispossessed these officers of their power. As the year 
passed away he found his fund exhausted, and the winter bringing prospect 
of suffering. To meet the want, he made an official ajjpeal for private con- 
tributions: 

" Executive Department, Columbus, November 14, 1864. 
" To the Military Committees : 

"The chilling blasts give token of approaching winter. How are the families of our brave 
soldiers prepared to meet it, and pass through its trials ? The long-continued campaigns — the 
almost constant moving of troops, has rendered difficult, and in some cases impracticable, the 
punctual payment of the men. They have not been able, therefore, to remit as much as usual to 
their families. In the meantime, the prices of food, clothing, and particularly fuel, have largely 
advanced, and many families will want the means of comfort and sustenance unless our people 
are liberal of their gifts. 

" We must not weary in well-doing. How much of our prosperity and security we owe to 
our army in the field can easily be understood and appreciated by every citizen of the State. I 
do not ask charity for the families of tliese men, I ask open manifestations of gratitude for their 
labors and sacrifices, and a liberal recognition of the obligations we are under to them. The 
general sentiment of the men is, we want less in the field and more at home. The vState agencies 
have done a great work this year for our men, as the forthcoming reports will show you. Now 
that the winter is upon us, while we do not neglect the sanitary work in the field, let us direct a 
larger portion of our energies to the wants of the families in our midst. Thur.=day, the 24th 
instant, we will devote as a day of thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God for His mercies and 
blessings. We will be strengthened and made fervent by so doing. Let us thereupon devote 
Saturday, the 26th, as a day of feasting and jubilee to the soldiers' families. 

"In cities and towns fuel is a most important item. Call upon farmers and friends to come 
in with their wagons loaded with wood, and let them make it heaping measure. Of their abund- 
ant crops of potatoes, apples, grains, and vegetables, let them make liberal contributions. Do not 
confine this to county seats; but let the same be done in all the towns of the county where there 
are families needing aid. The committee can readily organize a small body of respectable citi- 
zens at each point, who will attend to receiving and distributing all such contributions. I need 
not go into the details. Start the noble work in your county, and hundreds of willing hands will 
be put forth to aid you. 

"Clothing is much needed among these families, especially in towns and cities. Almost 
every family can contribute something in this particular; but wealthy men can contribute money, 
either to buy clothing or to purchase fabrics which thousands of our countrywomen, with busy 
fingers, will fashion into garments for the needy. 

" The appeal i^ to all our people. Do not be backward or hesitating on this day of jubilee. 
Have no fears that too much will be contributed. There is more necessity than ever before. 
The large number of rtien furnished this year; the putting forth of the National Guard, and the 
advance in the prices of the necessaries of life, have all drawn heavily on the relief fund. In 
many counties it has been anticipated and exhausted. You are not likely to exceed the actual 
wants of the soldiers' families ; but even if you should contribute somewhat to their comfort, or 
even luxury, it will be a very small equivalent for the protection you have received, and the pros- 
perity you have enjoyed. 

"I respectfully urge the committees to give this matter special and immediate attention. 
Give full notice of the movement. Let the call upon the people be widely circulated. Give a 
few days to perfecting the arrangement. The time is small compared with that expended for ug 
by the men at the front. See that the relief contributed is extended to its object; and thus we 
will make this a day that will gladden the hearts of wives and kindred at home, and strengthen 
the arms, and reanimate the courage of husbands, fathers, and brothers, in the field. It is a 
noble work, let it be well done. Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 



186 Ohio in the War. 

While thus giving unusual attention to the wants of the soldiers' families^ 
he continued the work, so well begun by his predei^essors, .of watching, thi-ough 
the various military agencies of the State, over the troops from Ohio in every 
field. The Legislature, on his suggestion, increased the number of these agen- 
cies to twelve. As far as possible the men selected for each were peculiarly 
adapted to the work ;* the system of their operations was carefully revised ; 
and something of the same close management, industry, and economy were 
infused into the business for which the Governor had been noted, in past times, 
in his railroad operations. Of the results attained in these agencies a fair idea 
may be derived from the report of the most important of them, that at Wash- 
ington, where to be an Ohioan came to be regarded among the soldiers as a dis- 
tinction, insuring kindly treatment and watchful care in all emergencies.. The- 
material jjortions of this report for the year 1864 are as follows : 

" The Agency has furnished during the year five hundred and ninety-three thousand eight 
hundred and eighty -seven miles of transportation to individual enlisted men from Ohio, amount- 
ing to eight thousand six hundred and fifty-six dollars and fifty-six cents, on which there was a 
saving to them of two thousand six hundred and forty-four dollars and forty-two cents; which 
sum amounts to more than your agent has charged to the expense account of your Agency. 

" The Agency has collected at the Paymaster-General's Department, for individual Ohio sol- 
diers discharged the service, something over one hundred thousand dollars. It has collected 
from the different departments, and remitted to soldiers' families and citizens of Ohio, free of cost, 
some one hundred and fiftv thousand dollars. It may not be out of place here to note one spe- 
cial case. A claim of the Franklin County, Ohio, Infirmary on the Government for two thou- 
sand five hundred and sixty-six dollars had been repeatedly rejected (although it had all the influ- 
ence .that gentlemen in high official positions could give it), or payment refused for a greater sum 
than nine hundred and odd dollars. The full amount was obtained, thus saving to that charita- 
ble institution an important fund. 

" It has attended to the wants and furnished gratuitous information to at least six thousand 
correspondents. 

" It has given counsel and relief to over ten thousand Ohio soldiers who have called at its 
office. 

"It has visited, or caused to be visited (for the purpose of relief ), in the hospitals of Wash- 
ington, Alexandria, Baltimore, and Annapolis, many thousand sick and wounded soldiers of the 
State. During the spring, summer, and autumn of the past year it has had its relief agents in 
the armies of the 'Potomac' and 'James,' who have rendered essential services, not only to the 
soldiers of Ohio, but to those of other States. 

"It has received and distributed among the sick and wounded men of Ohio, in the field and 
hospitals, seven hundred and fifty packages of sanitary stores, the most of which were sent by the 
patriotic and self-sacrificing ladies of Ohio. 

" On the arrival of the National Guards (Ohio ' one hundred days men') in Washington, 
your agent addressed to each of the commanding ofl[icers a letter, of which the following is a 
copy : 

* The assignment was as follows : 

Washington Jas. C. Wetmore. New Orleans Lorin E. Brownell. 

Louisville Vesalius Horr. Columbus Jas. E. Lewis. 

Nashville D. R. Taylor. Cincinnati ,....D. K. Cady. 

Chattanooga Eoyal Taylor. Cleveland Clark Warren. 

St. Louis Weston Flint. Crestline W. W. Bagley. 

Memphis F. W. Bingham. Gallipolis R. L. Stewart. 

Of these the Cleveland, Crestline, and Gallipolis agents were paid each five hundred and 
fifty dollars per annum ; tlie New Orleans, Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga agents, one 
thousand five hundred dollars per annum, and all the rest one thousand two hundred dollars each. 



Opening of Bkough's Administration. 187 

" 'Ohio State Military Agency, Washington, D. C, May, 1864. 

' ' To Colonel, commanding Regiment Ohio N. G.: 

"'Sir: It would afford me pleasure, as far as I am able, to answer the call of your Surgeon 
in charge, approved by yourself, for sanitary stores, for use of the sick in your regimental hospital. 
" ' I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
(Signed) '"JAMES C. WETMORE, O. S. M. Agent.' 

" The severe epidemic that prevailed in many of those regiments during their short term of 
service called largely for relief, and which your Excellency's foresight, and the generous contri- 
butions of the 'Ladies' Aid Societies' of our State, enabled your agent to respond to the many 
draughts made upon him for such assistance. 

"The amount disbursed for the relief of sick, wounded, and unfortunate Ohio soldiers, since 
your Excellency placed a fund in the hands of your agent (March 1, 1864), has been seven thou- 
sand one hundred and fifteen dollars and twenty-seven cents, which amount went directly for the 
benefit of our soldiers, except a small amount for labor. The agents, whose names have been 
reported to you at different times, are Ohio gentlemen who kindly volunteered their services free 
of charge. 

" It has obtained from the Secretary of War, Adjutant-General, Surgeon-General, and Com- 
missary-General of prisoners important orders affecting the interests and welfare of Ohio soldiers." 

An example of the special results attained after great battles may be found 
in the operations of the Ohio Agency after the battles of the Wilderness. One 
of the persons sent down to Fredericksburg with stores for the wounded, Mr. 
John Hopley, made a report, of which this is the substance : 

"There are, I. judge, over five thousand wounded at Fredericksburg. They are not lying in 
the streets, so that our patrol can not pass, as was reported, but nearly every house contains 
wounded men. All of the public and very many of the private buildings, especially the large 
ones, are crowded from basement to attic. In the way of comforts and supplies a gradual 
improvement is daily evident, but everything is still very difficult to get. For some days the 
commonest necessaries were wanting, and a vast amount of increased suffering was in conse- 
quence added to the terrible aggregate of human agony everywhere patent. For many days even 
after my arrival, which was a week after the sick and wounded had been sent there, there was 
no regularity in the feeding of the wounded, and scarcely anything for them but plain hard tack 
and coffee, and poor at that. There were no beds, and frequently no blankets, for upon the set- 
ting in of hot weather the men had thrown them away, and thousands were lying upon the bare 
floor. For many nights there were no lights in many of the hospitals, and the sufferers had to 
lie and groan in torture through the terrible darkness, with no possibility of being relieved. The 
first fearful duty of the morning would be to distinguish the sleeping from those forever at rest. 
One surgeon to over two hundred men would be a fair estimate. Under tliese circumstances 
Avhat attention can our brave citizens obtain who have arrived at that terrible crisis in their career 
wlien bleeding and dying for us is no longer a rhetorical ornament? Their Avounds are often 
undressed for days, and when at length dressed, then not by professional hands or with the 
requisite appliances, for on Wednesday I heard a hospital surgeon say there was not a pound of 
simple cerate in the city. As an instance of what I have said, a brave Ohio boy, to whom I 
took a tin cup of beef soup, and who declared he was only slightly wounded— having an arm 
broken by a round shot which had also carried away a finger— said he had to go two squares to 
get some one to pour cold water upon his arm, which had not been dressed since the previous 
morning, being then four P. M. Opposite to our State agency rooms is a house filled with 
wounded, many of whom having thrown away their blankets, were lying on the bare floor ; some 
without arms, some without a leg, and others more fearfully and fatally wounded. These, for 
twenty-four hours had no food but what the Ohio Agency supplied, and for many long, weary 
hours, loaded with pain, not a surgeon could be spared to attend to them. When it is remem- 
bered that our effective army must be supplied at all hazards, that two weeks ago we did not pos- 
sess Fredericksburg, and that the collection of the wounded there has been sudden and unex- 
pected, it can not be laid to the charge of the powers that be, that these sad things are constantly 
occurring, while it can be said that at least a slight improvement is daily perceptible. 



188 Ohio in the War. 

"Upon my arrival I found several gentlemen already sent forward by Mr. Wetmore, to 
whom I was instructed to report, and who had already been for many days actively at work dis- 
tributing such supjDlies as had been forwarded. The Sanitary and Christian Commissions were 
also making themselves beneficially felt ; but the feeling prevailed that the former was not doing 
as much as the latter, nor coming up to the expectations of those who supposed themselves capa- 
ble of judging. Possibly the demand upon the Sanitary Commission was so very great that it wa^ 
kept constantly drained, but it was very difficult to get anything from it. As an instance coming 
under my own experience, I took up for Mrs. Swishelm, who was in charge of the Theater Hos- 
pital, a requisition for six crutches, three shirts, three pairs of drawers, and three bottles of 
brandy, or some other stimulant. I took the requisition at her request, and stated that she had 
almost the entire charge of a hospital in which were very many legless and armless sufferers, and 
upon the requisition all I could get was a single bottle of sherry wine. Again, its men came fre- 
quently to our State agency rooms and were freely supplied with many things, and instead of the 
Sanitary Commission supplying us, we, in many cases, supplied them. Considering the amount 
of funds the State of Ohio, through her sanitary fairs, has poured into the treasury of the Sani- 
tary Commission, I think it was a part of the duty of the Sanitary Commission to put tliemselves 
in communication with the Ohio State Agency and ofl'er to supply whatever stores might be 
needed; but nothing of the kind was done. I think the State of Ohio had a right to expect this, 
and that there was a neglect of duty somewhere that it was not done. It is but my own opin- 
ion, and your Excellency may think otherwise. It further seemed to me that the sanitary people 
had, witii their greatness and extended resources, so entangled themselves with routine formali- 
ties and red tape that they were unable to be as promptly and effectively useful as the less liber- 
ally endowed Christian Commission. 

"I am proud of our own State Agency. Through the promptness of Mr. Wetmore, and the 
activity of the gentlemen he had sent there, the State of Ohio has been effectively and benefi- 
cially felt ; but I fear not so much among the brave citizens of our own State as they had a right 
to expect. Our gallant Buckeyes are scattered througli tiie city in many houses widely sepa- 
rated, and they are often surrounded with citizens from other States which have no Soldiers' Aid 
Agencies established there. Under these circumstances it is impossible to discriminate, and cruel 
to do so. The wounded man from Illinois or New York is, when before us, as much entitled to 
our sympatljy, and to whatever comforts we may have to dispense, as our own brave Buckeyes; 
and we can not, while administering to the wounded of Ohio those comforts and luxuries the 
liberality of her citizens have provided, refuse to other, and perhaps more severely wounded 
citizens around us, that alleviation of their sufferings which it may be in our power to bestow. 
Thus I found the Ohio Relief Association constantly betrayed by the circumstances surrounding 
us into being a Relief Association for the wounded of the whole Union. This is neither fair to 
the Ohio boys who need Ohio's fostering care, nor to the citizens of Ohio at home who have 
determined that the citizens in the field should be well cared for, and yet, as I experienced the 
situation of affairs, it could not be amended." 

And, to conclude this imperfect exhibit of the workings of the State Agency 
system, we may add the substance of the Eeport for the ISTashville Agency: 

" Number transportation tickets sold 3,132 

Amount of money receivable for same $4,647 29 

Amount of money collected on soldiers' account §24,528 70 

"There have been a large number of soldiers assisted in collecting their pay, whose names 
do not appear on my books. The actual number of persons assisted -in various ways can not be 
given, but that the number is large there can be no doubt. The expenses of this office (exclusive ot 
agents' salary, as established by law) are eleven hundred and fifty-four dollars and ninety-two cents. 

"The present system of furnishing our discharged and furloughed soldiers transportation is 
not equaled, I think, by any State represented in this department. It often occurs that there is 
such a call for transportation at the Government office at this place, that men are compelled to 
await their turn one or two days; but by taking the State tickets they are relieved from any delay 
or extra expense. 

" Since May 1st I have kept a full record of Ohio soldiers admitted to hospitals at and near 



Opening of Brough's Administration. 



189 



this place. This has proved very useful in furnishing friends a ready reference, and of great 
assistance to me in answering numerous letters of inquiry. From such record I find that the 
following changes have taken place since May 1st, as follows, viz.: 

"Number of Ohio soldiers admitted, including those in hospital May 1st 10,970 

Number transferred North 4,429 

Number returned to duty 1,765 

Number discharged 32 

Number furloughed 1,397 

Number died 277 

"The move made by Governor Brough and yourself to have a portion of the donations from 
the generous people of Ohio sent, through you, to the State Military Agents, to be distributed by 
them directly to Ohio soldiers, has met with the hearty approval of our soldiery, and if the sat- 
isfaction manifested by them is a fair index, the scheme has proved a success. Since June 3d I 
have received sanitary goods, etc.: 

"From yourself. 200 pkgs. 

From Cincinnati Br. U. S. Sanitary Commission, as per your order 15 " 

From Milford Center Aid Society 4 " 

From Unionville Aid Society v 1 

From unknown sources 2 

"Total number packages 222 

" Of which the following disposition has been made : 

"Forwarded to Agency at Chattanooga 68 pkgs. 

Delivered to U. S. Christian Commission as per your request 5 " 

Distributed from this office and to hospitals 109 

Remaining on hand 40 



'Total number packages. 



.222 



CONTENTS OF PACKAGES. 



Opened for Distribution. 



Shirts 549 

Drawers pis. 191 

Stockings prs. 245 

Pants prs. 11 

Coats 22 

Handkerchiefs 025 

Towels 263 

Arm-slings 

Housewives 54 

Slippers .■ 39 

Quilts 10 

Sheets •• 24 



Distrib 
Utcil. 



484 
189 

243 

3 

22 

450 

212 



On 
Hand 



65 

2 
2 



175 
51 
21 
30 



Opened for Distribution. 



Pillows and Pads 1025 

Pillow-cases 207 

Rolls Bandages 1339 

Pkgs. Rags 1648 

Pkgs. Lint 20 

Bottles Cordial 325 

Can Fruit 275 

Pkgs. Dried Fruit 69 

Pounds Apples 1318 

Pkgs. Herbs 33 

Can Butter 1 



Distrib- 
uted. 



902 

207 

1139 

1348 

1 

304 

262 

60 

1318 

13 

1 



On 
Hand. 



123 

"206 

300 

3 

21 

13 

9 

"20 



"Owing to the difficulty in obtaining transportation during the past few weeks, I have been 
compelled to retain quite an amount of goods intended for the agency at Chattanooga. Although 
the distribution of goods adds largely to the duties of this office, we have the satisfaction of 
knowing that much distress is relieved, the popularity of our State increased, and that our extra 
labor is appreciated by the soldiers. 

"Upon entering this office Governor Brough placed at my disposal a special fund for reliev- 
ing extreme cases of necessity, for which no other provision was made. From this, and funds 
sent me by benevolent persons, I have been enabled to relieve many of the most distressing cases 
imaginable." 



190 Ohio in the Wae. 

It may have been observed that the State Agency system, under the increased 
vigor infused into its workings by Governor Brough, opened the way to com- 
plications with the Sanitary and Christian Commissions. These organizations 
not unnaturally sought that the contributions for the soldiers should pass 
throuo-h their hands. The State authorities preferred to have the control. 
Clashings arose; and, in one or two cases, open and very unpleasant controversies. 

In his message in January, 1865, the Governor condensed his reasons for 
turning the stream of good wprks for the soldiers as far as possible into the 
channel of the State Agencies: 

" There are many benefits attending this system, which should not be disregarded. 

" 1, It is decidedly the most economical way of aggregating and distributing the contribu- 
tions of our people, and expending the means appropriated by the State for this purpose. 

"2. It renders certain the distribution of all supplies to the objects and purposes for 
which they are intended. There is hardly a possibility for misappropriation. There is no 
machinery about it to be kept lubricated, and no class of middle men to levy toll upon it. 

"3, By proper care and management it is made more prompt and energetic than any other 
mode; and, by being more systematic, will be more general and appropriate in its relief. 

"4. It fosters and gratifies the State pride of our soldiers. It comes nearer to the feeling 
of HOME. An Ohio soldier regards an Ohio Agency as a place he has a right to enter and 
expect a welcome. If he is in want, there is no system of orders or requisitions for him to go 
through — no prying and unpleasant catechism for him to submit to. The supplies furnished by 
his State and his people are there; and he feels that he is no object of charity when he partakes 
of them. His remembrances of home are freshened — his attachment to his State is quickened 
and increased — and he goes away feeling that he is not neglected or forgotten — that the cause of 
the country is still worth upholding, and the dear old State still- worth defending from the 
encroachments of the Kebel adversary. And this is doubly the case when the agent passes 
almost daily through his hospital — bends over the bed on which he is stretched with sickness or 
wounds — inquires kindly into his wants, and ministers unto them from the benefactions of his 
people, and the liberality of his State. Surely that spirit is worth cherishing and preserving. 

"While I do not seek to limit the contributions of our people through other channels, I 
invoke their attention to their own agencies, and their active co-operation in the labors of the 
opening year. If earnest, benevolent citizens will organize a central association here, I will be 
glad to work with them. If our aid societies are satisfied with the present system of working 
through the Quartermaster's Department, we will continue it, in the hope it will be much 
enlarged — that our supplies will be increased — and our soldiers comforted and strengthened 
under the perils and sufierings they are called to endure." 

And in a letter of instructions to his agent at Louisville, in reference to the 
claims of the Sanitary Commission, the Governor entered somewhat more into 
detail : 

" The point submitted in yours of the 3d inst., is somewhat difficult and complicated. We 
desire, as far as practicable, to work in harmony with the Sanitary Commission ; but there are 
circumstances to be taken into account which we can not disregard. 

"1. Many of our aid societies have adopted the principle that their labors and collections 
shall be devoted to Ohio men first, until they are fully cared for. Where they so direct, accom- 
panying their contributions, their requests must be complied with. 

" 2. Many of these societies desire that their aid shall be State aid, and administered as 
such. Whether rightfully or wrongfully, they have more confidence that supplies through this 
channel will more certainly reach and benefit the object of their care and bounty. 

'•'3. If they desired their contributions to go through a common stock, either of the Sanitary, 
or any other association, they could so send them, without cost of transportation to the State, or 
trouble to the agents, and at the same time, deprive the State and the aid societies of any State 
credit in providing or disbursing them. 



Opening of Brough's Administration. 191 

"4. Many soldiers feel that the relief associations are charities, but that State aid is a right 
•which they may claim without any delicacy. This is acknowledged on the part of many of our 
people, and the principle is worthy of encouragement. 

'' The main cause of trouble with the Sanitary Commission, which is now alienating the gen- 
erous people of this State from it, is that it will not permit any other exertion ; will not allow any 
rivalry in the good work; demands a monopoly of all the donations of the people, and the dis- 
tribution of them without any check or investigation. Its publications declare that the people 
of Ohio have constituted the Commission the 'sole almoners of their bounty' — the people say 
they have done no such thing. 

" The State officers and agents have no desire to monopolize relief, or to break down or drive 
the Sanitary Commission from the field. We are willing to work alongside of them, to do all 
the good we can ; to aid them when short of supplies ; to give them full credit for wh;it aid they 
may render us, but we can not put our contributions for Ohio men into their general pot, and 
then receive it, or a fraction of it, back, on orders, as Sanitary stores. 

" Such a demand, on their part, is unreasonable, and is made in a spirit of superiority and 
monopoly. Our position is a clearly proper and defensible one ; and we shall steadily hold it. 
We would avoid conflict — we desire to work in harmony. 

*' Our people have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Commission, let that be 
administered for the purpose of its donation. What these same people give to the State authori- 
ties, will be distributed under State authority, for the benefit of Ohio men. We will do this in 
the spirit of kindness and co-operation. If the Commission is not satisfied, and chooses to cut 
ofl' supplies from Ohio men, because the State desires to aid them, let that position be assumed 
and made known. The State and its people will be found equal to the emergency. We do not 
desire to invite or provoke such a result, but we will not shrink from it if forced upon us as a 
retaliation for attempting to preserve the character and identity of the State in the care of its 
soldiers. 

"Your duty, therefore, in this matter, while a delicate, is a firm one. 

"Avoid controversy and strife; but minister to those under your care the comforts that are 
sent to them. When our people or myself desire to use the Sanitary or any other commission to 
do the work of your agency, you will be regularly notified. Until then, pursue the straight line 
of duty, kindly but firmly. If a room is found necessary for your supplies, get it as economically 
as you can. If you find help necessary in the work of receiving and distributing, more than you 
have, you are authorized to employ it. But in all assume no prerogative, and give no unneces- 
sary o£fense. Work in harmony as long as it is possible to do so, making all proper concessions, 
but not yielding the great principle that the State will look after her sons, without accepting the 
dictation or patronage of any institution." 

The most serious difficulty, however, was that in which the State agent 
became involved, with the Sanitary Commission at Washington. The trouble 
here was primarily about a contract made by the Commission with the Balti- 
more and Ohio, and connecting roads, b}' which all soldiers for Northern Ohia 
were forced to go over these roads, and thus to make long and expensive detours 
from their direct routes home. As a practical railroad man, Governor Brough 
saw at once the injustice and the motives of this arrangement. As soon as com- 
plaints began to reach him, he directed the State agent to take entire charge, 
thenceforth, of the supply of transportation to Ohio soldiers going home. 
Against this the Sanitary Commission protested. The feeling grew bitter, and 
some things that had been better unsaid, crept into the newspapers. 

In how temperate and wise a spirit of moderation G-overnor Brough him- 
self viewed the controversy may be seen in his own hand-writing, in a letter 
preserved among the State archives for the year 1864. "T am afraid," he 
wrote to his agent, " that you have a little too much personal feeling in regard 



192 Ohio in the Wak. 

to the Sanitary trouble. Public servants must remember that great public inter- 
ests must not be affected by personal wishes or feelings. The interests of 
others are involved in this matter. We have soldiers to be fed and cared for. 
In this work the Sanitary Commission is doing well." And to this he added 
these golden words of advice: '-In everything that affects the interest of our 
soldiers we must conciliate where necessary; we must heal and not widen 
breaches; we must crucify personal feelings; we must bear injuries as they come 
rather than resent them when no good will follow. In this case, as "in all 
others, we must not provoke a conflict, and if it must come, let us be sure that 
we are in the right. We must not weaken confidence in an institution that is 
doing good, even though it commit some errors."* 

But, with all his moderation, he was immovable in his resistance to what 
he regarded as the encroachments of the Sanitary Commission. He would not 
place the State machinery for the relief of her soldiers in its hands. He would 
not withdraw his agents ; would not give them the money and stores from the 
State; would not yield his personal responsibility for the soldiers sent out by 
his constituents. In the case of the railroad imbroglio at Washington he 
finally ended the controversy as follows : 

" Executive Department, Columbus, January 20, 1864. 
" Fked. N. Knapp, Esq., Associate Secretary Sanitary Commission, Washington City, D. C: 

" Sir : Your communication of December 23, addressed to Governor Tod, has come to my 
hands. Of the accompanying correspondence I had been in possession for some weeks. My 
personal knowledge of this ticket department covered much more than the topics of this contro- 
versy. I do not propose to follow the intricacies of the controversy itself, but to deal as briefly 
as possible with the facts. 

" 1. I concede to the Sanitary Commission all they claim as to the motives which actuated 
their principal officers in this arrangement for soldiers' transportation. I cheerfully acknowl- 
edge their great labors and usefulness in the work of ministering to the comforts of soldiers. I 
impeach them with no frauds or attempts at fraud. Yet they are but men, and may err in judg- 
ment, even where motives are pure. 

" 2. I hold they did err in judgment first, when in organizing this plan they gave a monop- 
olizing control to one line of road out of Washington and its connections ; and second, when a 
controver.sy arises they at once adopt the independent ticket office of that road as a part of their 
' own organization, and defend it with great zeal against all charges. This ticket office is not under 
your control. It is the office of the Baltimore and Ohio Koad ; the agent is appointed by them, 
reports to them, is paid by them, and, of course, works for them. He is independent of you, and 
vou can not know what he does only as he sees fit to disclose to you. He has injured you, and 
he can continue to do so. He is an agent to be watched, and not to be implicitly trusted. 

" 3. The argument that is made by Mr. Abbott to you in favor of giving a monopoly in this 
transportation to the Baltimore and Ohio Eoad is unsound in this, that that road makes a ter- 
mination and connections at Wheeling that disables it from accommodating many Western sol- 
diers in direct routes of travel to their homes. Their ticket agent will always send over his whole 
line, while many a soldier would be facilitated in getting to Pittsburg. Let me illustrate : I 
have known soldiers for Fort Wayne, and parts west of it, sent via Wheeling, Columbus, and Indi- 
anapolis. Look over the map for the detour. I know of three soldiers going to Winchester, Ran- 
dolph County, Indiana, sent on tickets to Indianapolis, Indiana, seventy-five miles west of their 
destination, with no further transportation ; for, from that point I passed them home. Soldiers 
from Northern Oliio have been sent to Wheeling, thence back to Wellsville, and thence to Cleve- 

« Letter to James C. Wetmore, February, 1864. Letter Books Brough's Administration, State 
Archives. 



Opening of B rough's Administration. 193 

land and Toledo. All these should have had transportation to Pittsburg, whence they hfid 
straight roads home. All these things are within my personal knowledge. Granted there waa 
trouble in getting tlie Northern Central Road into the arrangement. They did come into it for 
Northern Pennsylvania soldiers, for Ohio soldiers at Governor Tod's request, and would, with a 
fair distribution of business, have done it with you. Mr. Abbott's argument shows that he waa 
as willing to get rid of them, upon a slight refusal, as he was anxious to give a monopoly to the 
Baltimore and Ohio Road. I do not attribute to him any bad motive in doing so, but the fact is 
none the less fixed. 

"5. Here, therefore, is the root of the evil. Mr. Abbott did not understand all the ramifi- 
cations of these routes of communication. He did not foresee that in a great work of this kind 
he must have not only immediate but remote lines open to him. He did not comprehend the 
fact that Pittsburg was a more important distributive point for Northern and Central Ohio than 
Wheeling. He was not versed in the sympathies of trunk lines and their connections. He 
wanted to do with one party only. Granted that orders have been given to send soldiers by the 
direct routes. The ticket agent interprets that for himself, and acts for the interests of his em- 
ployers. You can not know his transgressions ; you can not control his acts ; you can do noth- 
ing but implicitly take his statements, and become at once his shield and defense. Hence what 
was intended for a good thing for soldiers has, by a mistake in the beginning, and interested 
management on the part of railroad agents vested with its monopoly, become a source of strife, 
and, in some cases, of small wrongs and oppression. Monopolies always produce such results. 

" 6. It was partially in view of this that Governor Tod organized his system of furnishing 
half-fare transpartation to Ohio soldiers, and intrusted his tickets to his own agent. He could 
not have them sold at that office, and his agent bore many complaints before he gave a public 
caution to Ohio men. 

" 7. A strict construction of M. Wetmore's card, I admit, implies a censure upon the Sani- 
tary Commission. If I had written it I would have embraced the ticket agency alone. And 
yet, as the beginning of the trouble is in your granted monopoly (which was an error of j-udg- 
ment and not of intention), you should not blame him for his course in not more strictly defining 
the line of responsibility. 

"8. I attach very little importance to the case of McDonald, except as to its having been the 
initial point of this controversy. Mr. Wetmore has affidavits of other cases. Still others have 
been matters of complaint here in Ohio, and others, and more flagrant ones, have come under my 
own personal observation in Ohio and Indiana. Because you are ignorant of any other than the 
case of McDonald, if for nothing else, I acquit the sanitary committee, as a body, of any knowl- 
edge or complicity in this thing, except the great mistake in the beginning. 

"9. The controversy has been a very unpleasant one. I would regret it were it not that I 
see that good will come from it. The officers of this State do not desire any collision with the 
Sanitary Commission. We would much rather co-operate witli them ; but when we know that 
they have, however honestly, made a mistake, we shall not hesitate to protect our soldiers from 
the results of it; and especially will we not permit them to grant as a monopoly the whole mat- 
ter of transportation from Washington when, through our own agents, we can do better for our 
soldiers, 

"10. No further good can come from a prolongation of this controversy. I respectfully sug- 
gest that the sanitary committee not only send all Ohio soldiers to the Ohio quarters for trans- 
portation, but protect them from being seized at the ticket office on their grounds ; and that, on 
the other hand, Mr. Wetmore withdraw his card, and co-operate in works of kindness with you. 
So shall both State and Sanitary Commission work together harmoniously for a common purpose, 
the protection of the interests of the soldiers. 

" Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

The Commission was unuble to deal with these trenchant statements, but it 
never regarded the Governor afterward with a kindly eye. With its Western 
Branch, however, his relations were generally cordial, as they were also with the 
Christian Commission everywhere. 

The State Quartermaster was directed to take charge of all contributions 

Vol. 1.— 13. 



194 Ohio in the War. 

which the people might prefer to send to the soldiers directly through the 
medium of the State Agencies. The supplies thus forwarded were liberal, 
and it was believed that they were distributed to the soldiers for whom they 
were intended with more accuracy, promptness, and economy than could have 
been secured in any other way. 

How conciliatory in wish, yet firm in action, Governor Brough was as to his 
relations to outside organizations for relieving the soldiers, we have been seeing. 
It remains to observe that his patience gave way, and his strong passions were 
inflamed to the utmost at any maltreatment of Ohio soldiers in hospitals. Other 
errors he could regard with charity; but this was a crime for which he could 
scarcel}' find words to express his feelings, or hot, vigorous action prompt 
enough to satisfy his demands. 

He kept a watchful eye upon all the hospitals where any considerable num- 
bers of Ohio troops were congregated. The least abuse of which he heard was 
made matter of instant complaint. If the Surgeon in charge neglected it, he 
appealed forthwith to the Medical Director. If this officer made the slightest 
delay in administering the j^roper correction, he went straight to the Surgeon- 
General. Such, fron\ the outset, was the weight of his influence with the Sec- 
retary of War that no officer about that Department dared stand in the way of 
Brough's denunciation. It was known that the honesty and judgment of his 
statements were not to be impugned, and that his persistency in hunting down 
offenders was remorseless. 

Into the details of his dealings with hospital authorities we can not enter. 
But the cases of the Camp Dennison and Madison Hospitals may serve as illus- 
trations. 

Through the autumn of 1864 complaints as to the food of patients at Camp 
Dennison were rite — particularly complaints as to the food of convalescents. 
To these the Governor promptly called the attention of Surgeon Tripler, the 
Medical Director at Cincinnati. That officer sent up Surgeon Stanton, a cousin 
to the Secretary of War, to make an investigation, the report of which was 
duly forwai'ded to Governor Brough. The two letters from him thus evoked 
do, perhaps, some injustice, or, at least, express a possibly harsh judgment. 
But as instances of the rough, sturdy wa}' in which he stood up for his wounded 
men, like a bear for its wounded cubs, of the pitiless severity with which he cut 
through all excuses for mistreatment of the soldiers, and of his utter indifference 
to mere considerations of social and official standing in the ^^ersons whom he 
attacked, they are unique. No soldier will read them without fresh feelings of 
gratitude to the strong champion who thus espoused his cause against all comers: 

"Executive Department, Columbus, November 29, 1864. 
"Surgeon C. S. Tripler, Medical Director, Cincinnati, Ohio: 

"Sir: Absence in part, and in part other objects, have prevented an earlier rasponse to 
your favor of September 26th, inclosing report of Surgeon Stanton, touching the complaints of 
bad treatment of our men at Camp Dennison. 

"Upon a careful reading of the report of Surgeon Stanton, I was forcibly struck with the 
fact that, while he admitted that insufficient and deteriorated food was furnished the men, and the 



Opening of Brough's Administration. 195 

hospital fund largely reduced without providing an equivalent to the sick aud wounded, he was 
utterly unable to discover by what process this was accomplished, or upon whom the respousi- 
bility of this state of things should rest. Whether this defect of vision was personal or official — 
artificial or real — I had not then any means of determining: but I have always entertained the 
opinion that an honest public servant rarely finds a dishonest effect without being able to trace it 
to the proper cause. I was very far from being satisfied with the superficial and gingerly report 
of Surgeon Stanton. The reports to me of the gross wrongs perpetrated on sick and wounded 
soldiers at Camp Dennison had become a serious matter. I had several times pressed you for an 
investigation. You finally send me a report which admits all that has been charged; measurably 
evades the point of liability, rather seeking to cover up than expose; presents facts that tell an 
open story of wrong, if not of fraud; and glosses all over with glittering generalities and specious 
phrases without vigor or honesty of purpose. Still no remedy was proposed; no change of offi- 
cials recommended; no remedy for the wrongs or sufferings of our men pointed out; but the 
scarred and wounded veterans of a score of battle-fields were coolly sacrificed to the esprit de corps 
of the medical profession. I felt that your blood would be stirred by this thing; that your repu- 
tation, if nothing else, would spur you to a further investigation of this wrong, and an applica- 
tion of a remedy. I waited sometime patiently for such a demonstration, but it came not. I 
then instituted inquiries on my own account. By whom, and in what manner, I am prepared, on 
a proper occasion, to disclose. It must be sufficient for the present purpose to state that I offi- 
cially indorse the parties making it, as capable, truthful, and honest men. No information of 
theirs comes from hospital patients — but from undoubtedly reliable sources. 

"The three following points are clearly established: 

"1. That the quantity of the food provided for the convalescent soldier in this hospital for 
the past six months, has been entirely inadequate. 

"2. The quality of an important article — coffee — has been deteriorated. 

■'3. The variety which is designed to be furnished to the sick under the name of delicacies, 
has been deficient. 

''4. The question of the capacity or honesty of the Surgeon-in-chief is left to conjecture; 
from the facts, charity pointing to the former in the absence of the actual and positive proofs as to 
the latter. 

"I am willing to accept the first part of the suggestion myself; but unwilling that it shall 
any longer work injury and wrong to our soldiers. 

"During all this time it is shown, as by Surgeon Stanton, that full rations have been drawn, 
and a good quality of articles furnished; but the men have not reaped the benefit; and the sick 
and wounded have languished for the delicacies which the hospital fund should have furnished. 

"In relation to the article of coffee it is found: 

"1. That instead of the issue of the original berry parched, to be ground in the hospital 
kitchens, a large coffee-mill has been procured, and the coffee drawn from the Post Commissary 
has been ground in the large mill, and issued in that form. 

"2.- The c jks have been instructed to save their coffee grounds after boiling, dry them, and 
then return tb ai to the issuing clerk of the hospital. 

"As a matter of course the coffee is a miserable slop. 

"4. The question naturally occurs, ' Do the dried coffee grounds after being returned to the 
issuing clerk get mixed with a portion of good coffee, and find its way to the soldier's table a 
second time?' Perhaps Dr. Stanton could have determined this, if he had drank a cup of the 
' miserable slop ' with which our soldiers are regaled. The smallness of the hospital fund is a 
matter of surprise. Dr. Stanton admits this himself. He can not imagine the reason. I am not 
willing to suggest it. The prior history of the hospital proves that, under former management, 
this fund was not only ample to supply the men with extras and delicacies, but a surplus of several 
thousand dollars was paid over to other hospitals in 1863. 

"I trouble you merely with the points, not copying the very interesting detail with which 
they are illustrated. There is enough of this in all conscience. If we grow indignant over the 
starvation and inhuman treatment of our soldiers in Rebel prisons, what emotion will our people 
manifest when they find the same thing in their own hospitals, even though it occur only from 
the incapacity of those who should be stewards of our bounty? 

"I learn from the public papers, that the Surgeon in charge at Camp Dennison has been 



\ 



19(j Ohio in the Wak. 

relieved there and ordered to Evansville. From other sources I am advised that efforts are heing^j 
made to get that order reversed, and continue the present order of things. To the latter, you ? 
may be assured, I shall not consent; on tlie other hand, while I am not only willing but deter-- 
mined to be rid' of him in Ohio hospitals, I have strong scruples about having him imposed upon 
the hospitals of other States. My own judgment is, that his want of capacity, exemplified in this 
case, disqualifies him for any similar position. Be this as it may, I now insist upon his imme- 
diate removal from Camp Dennison ; and if you feel any hesitancy about assuming this responsi- 
bility, I am ready at any moment to forward a copy of this communication, with the report oni 
which it is predicated, to the War Department. If the removal is not promptly made, I shall ask k 
it direct of the Surgeon-General. 

"I am aware that I have not kept strictly within regulations by instituting an investigation 
into a hospital under your control. I have explained that I waited one month after Dr. Stanton's 
report for you to move in the matter. It did not seem possible that you would rest in silence 
over that document. You did not act. From that report, if from nothing else, I knew the 
wrong existed. You did not apply the remedy. I could not see our men suffer, and daily read : 
their appeals for relief. I sympathized with them if their military guardians did not. Thus • 
you have my reasons for my action. I regard them as sufficient, and am confident the AVar De- • 
partment will so consider them. 

" I will relieve you from any indignation by making the confession to the Department myself. . 
I have tried to keep within regulations and to co-operate with you. I regret any collision; but I [ 
can not hear complaints from our men without investigating them; and where I find wrongs I am i 
always restless until I find a remedy. Very respectfully, 

" JOHN BROUGH, Governor of Ohio." * 

This very naturally drew out a reply from Surgeon Tripler — the nature of 
which may be gathered from the Governor's response : 

" Executive Department, Columbus, December 7, 1864. 
"Surgeon C. S. Tripler, Medical Director, Cincinnati, Ohio: 

"Sir: I acknowledge your favor of the 3d instant. As I have assurance therein that Surgeon 
Varian has been relieved from Camp Dennison, my object is accomplished, and, though my time 
does not admit of extended correspondence on the subject, I owe it perhaps in justice to you to 

notice a few points. 

"1. I have heretofore done full justice to your oflicial conduct as director in the department, 
and the general promptitude of your action. It was on this account that I was so greatly sur- 
prised at what I took to be your acquiescence in the state of things at that camp after the report 
of Surgeon Stanton. 

"I supposed you would regard that report as I did— as an evidence that an immediate change 
was required there. I read your letter accompanying that report hastily, and did not then recog- 
nize, what now appears to me, that you considered it a sufficient explanation, not requiring any 
immediate action. 

"The papers came to me as I was leaving to go East. Had I supposed it possible that you 
i-eo-arded the investigation as satisfactory, I would have advised you that it was not so to me, and 
required prompt action. Such an idea never occurred to me, and I daily expected to hear 
that Surgeon Varian was removed. 

" 2. I do not comprehend the reason for the delay on the ground that Surgeon Varian was 
detailed by your superioi^, and not under your immediate control, A report from you as to his 
incapacity in the position he filled would have brought a change at any moment. My experience 
is that the department looks to the care of our men, and not to places for incompetent officers 

over them. 

" 3. My course is, where I find a wrong to institute a remedy, and I will not allow any man 
living to stand in the way of it. I may sometimes act impulsively, but I have not done so in 
this case. I waited a full month, during which time the wrong prevailed, and no movement of a 
visible character was made until I took the matter in charge. 

" 4. 1 nave no disposition to do injustice to Surgeon Stanton. I have read his report again, and 

* Brough's Letter Books for 1864. State Archives. » 



Opening of Beough's Administration. 197 

I can not take back a word by wbich I have cbaracterized it. He found a grave wrong to our 
men at camp. He could have acquired tlie details, and the requisite remedy. He lacked either 
the capacity or disposition to do so — am willing to admit the latter. He could have ascertained 
the details fully as well as others did it after him. He took the case as made by Surgeon Va- 
rian and there rested it. His sympathies stopped there. What were the wrongs of a lot of sick 
and wounded men to him, compared with the reputation and place of the man through whose 
incapacity these wrongs were inflicted ! 

■' Did he inspect the insufficiency of food and its results? He could have tasted, analyzed the 
miserable slops called coflee; he could have ascertained that coffee grounds were dried and sent 
back to the post commissary; he could have ascertained that food was deteriorated, and that it was 
distributed without regard to the ability of the men to consume it. 

" All these things were subject to his knowledge; but he passes them by, and 'draws on his 
imagination for his facts,' undertaking to speculate about what he could have demonstrated in an 
hour. This is why I denominated it a 'gingerly report.' If not designed, it was calculated to 
screen the officer through whose ' incapacity' these things existed. Surgeon Stanton may be an 
honest and good officer. I do not seek to controvert your opinions on this point, but he does not 
conduct investigations to my satisfaction. I desire a little more earnest and thorough inquiry 
into matters connected with this hospital. 

"5. It is proper to say that in tlie facts communicated to me, no one is based on the state- 
ments of the patients in hospitals. I am glad you realize the position of these men. I do the 
same. I do not want to wrong surgeons, but I will not screen them, nor any other class of officers, 
either from charges or complaints; many of the latter are fictitious, some of them exaggerated; 
but all of them, or nearly so, merit investigation, beyond the statements of the surgeon in charge, 
and outside of his influence. 

" I hope we understand our relative positions. I do not feel that I have misjudged or 
wronged you in this matter, but that you have done injustice to yourself. I desire to co-operate 
cordially with you. All I have said or done in this case has been directly with yourself, except 
the investigation I directed when I found you had determined to rest the matter upon the report 
of Surgeon Stanton. The complaints of men come direct to me. I can not pass them by, es- 
pecially after this experience. If they can be investigated through your department, I much 
prefer that course; but I can not abide superficial ex.aminations that stand self-condemned on 
their face, nor permit incompetent officers to remain in charge for months after they should be 
dismissed. I can only assure you that my personal feelings toward yourself are as kindly as 
ever; my severity of speech is not intended to wound but to aid as a corrective in past or future 

wrongs to our men. 

" Very truly yours, JOHN BROUGH."* 

These Camp Dennison troubles had scarcely been settled till complaints be- 
gan to grow more uniform and continuous concerning the bad food at the hos- 
pital in Madif n, Indiana, where a large number of Ohio patients were collected. 
The Ohio Agent at Louisville reported these complaints, and from many other 
sources the Governor satisfied himself of their justice. As in other cases he fol- 
lowed the hesitation of the medical authorities to administer the correctives 
which he demanded, with swift, strong action on his own account. On the same 
day he forwarded orders to his agent and notification to the Medical Director, as 
follows : 

"Executive Department, Columbus, January 5, 1865. 
"Captain V. Horr, Agent, Louisville, Kentucky: 

■'Sir: You will please call on Assistant-Surgeon-General Wood, or the Medical Director 
of your department, and respectfully request that no more transfers of Ohio men be made to the 
hospitals at Madison, Indiana, while it is under the charge of Surgeon Grant. Send them any- 
where else but there. The treatment at that place is inhuman and villainous. I have appealed 
to the Medical Director of this department for a change, but no movement is made, I ask, there- 

*Brough's Letter Books for 1864. State Archives. 



198 Ohio in the War. - 

fore, that our men be protected from any further injustice and barbarity. You may furnish a 
copy of this letter. Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

" Executive Department, Columbus, January 5, 1865. 
" Surgeon C. S. Tripleb, Medical Director, Cincinnati, Ohio : 

" Sir: I am under obligations for the transfer of one hundred Ohio men from that pest-house 
called a hospital at Madison, to points where, I hope, they will be properly fed and decently 
treated. 

"I respectfully request that the rest of the Ohio soldiers at that point be transferred at the 
earliest possible moment, and that no more Ohio soldiers be sent to that hospital while it is under 
the control of Surgeon Grant. If your own reputation as Medical Director of this department 
does not require a change in the management of that hospital, my duty as Governor of the State 
is to protect our soldiers, as far as practicable, from the brutal treatment they have received 
there. If I can not accomplish this through your department, I must attempt it elsewhere. I 
regret much to be compelled to assume this position. 

"It is three weeks since I called your attention to this matter. The complaints accumu- 
late on me every day — and I know them to be well founded. I can not permit the wrong to con- 
tinue, if I can possibly reach it. If I have failed through you, where I have desired to work in 
harmony, I must try it otherwise, even if it be against your views and wishes. 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

The storm thus raised about the ears of the authorities soon produced u 
change. An investigation ordered b}^ Governor Morton, of Indiana, resulted in 
a report that the food furnished had been insufficient and of inferior quality, 
but that it was now greatl}^ improved. The surgeon in charge resigned. But 
the Medical Director sought to break the force of the charges, whereupon the 
Governor responded with a terse exhibit of the process of " medical investiga- 
tions into alleged mismanagement of hospitals." 

" CouiiMBUS, January 14, 1865. 
"Surgeon C. S. Tripler, Cincinnati, Ohio: 

" Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge your favor of the 9th instant. I do not propose to 
review its suggestions in regard to Madison Hospital, as I am advised by Surgeon Wood that 
Surgeon Grant has resigned, to take effect 31st instant. In this act Surgeon Grant has been wiser 
than his friends. Notwithstanding the whitewashing of a Government inspection, he knows that 
the special inspection made by Governor Morton, in response to the demands of the Madison 
people, more than confirmed the report made to me, and that his dismissal was a matter of cer- 
tainty. His departure from the scene of his petty tyranny and abuse of brave men will unloose 
tongues that have been tied by fear of him; and if you will take the trouble, next month, to go 
beyond head-quarters into the wards, you will find that the actions of Governor Morton and 
myself have been more than justifiable. 

"I am very well satisfied that Surgeon Grant has voluntarily retired. What is past can not 
be recalled. The present and future only can be improved. If abuses can be remedied without 
unnecessary publicity, perhaps it is as well — for if the wrongs done at that hospital Avere dis- 
closed to the public, it would shake their confidence in our whole hospital management. As it 
is, there is enough promulgated to severely damage the reputation of officers to whom that man- 
agement is intrusted. 

"I know nothing of the inspector sent to Madison. He may merit all the encomiums you 
be.stow upon him, but you will allow me, in kindness, tc make some suggestions in regard to tlusL- 
inspections: 

"1. Inspectors are generally in full sympathy with surgeons in charge. Both classes adopt 
the theory that men in hospitals are a set of grumblers and fault-finders, whose complaints are 
to be disregarded. 

" This assumption has done infinite wrong, and in many cases covered gross frauds. As a 
general thing, the assumption is false and wicked. 

" 2. The inspection rarely goes beyond head-quarters. Full of this false theory, lie takes 
the statements of the surgeon in charge, as he eats his dinner, and justifies it by his theory as he 



I 



Opening of BROutm's Administration. 199 

praises the wines. If lie does go beyond, it is after he has received his impressions from the 
head. 

" The assistants understand the bonds of sympathy — they know they are at the mercy of 
both parties, and they close their lips or evasively approve. 

"3. The abused private is not consulted in the matter; or if called up, it is in the presence 
of interested superiors, who, he knows, will [junish him, or 'send him to the front, if he died 
by the way.' He is, of course, silent. 

"4. Upon this character of investigation, the inspector goes forth and makes his report. 

"The sore is healed over — the wrong goes on, and our men are further mistreated and 
abused. I speak of that which I know. I have narrowly watched this thing, and the cases at Den- 
nison and Madison fully justify my position. It is in full proof that at the latter place the cor- 
respondence of the men was interrupted, their letters opened and read, and the writers punished 
for daring to complain. I do not say there were no false charges made, and that there are no 
grumblers. I know that to be so; but it is not a safe theory upon which to judge all complaints^ 

"When a whole hospital complains, there is some cause for it. As Medical Director you 
are the umpire. As such you should receive all the facts and judge of them fairly. The Gov- 
erimient and the men alike look to you for this course. 

" I do not intend to impeach your motives or your official course, but I want to show you 
that in the large majority of cases, when you hear the inspector, take all he says for granted, and 
close the case upon his report, you are acting exparte, for you have only the statement of the surgeon 
in charge, be he incompetent or corrupt. If you follow this course, if you hold all the presump- 
tions in favor of the surgeon and against the men, if you encourage the theory that all com- 
plaints are false, because a few are so, if you investigate in the interests of the surgeon instead 
of against him, you will fail in the great commission that is given to you, and very soon forfeit 
the high reputation you brought into this department. The sympathies of the Western authori- 
ties are with the men who have fought their battles. 

" While we are ready to approve all good and competent surgeons in charge of our hospitals, 
we do not approve them until we know their worth. We are jealous of them until they have 
won our confidence, and we have no mercy for either the incompetent or corrupt. Our men 
are objects of our care, and we will not see them wronged. In this we want your sympathy and 
your aid. We want you to realize our position and work with us. In a word, we ask you to join 
us in the adjuration to 'doubt all things, prove all things, and hold fiist to things which are good.' 
I have no other purpose myself, no enemies to punish, no surgeons to promote. I want the right 
for my soldiers, and that I will contend for again.st all opposition. 

" Very truly yours, JOHN BROUGH." * 

That this was all just we can not affirm. That it was error on the safe 
side, if at all, is patent; and the soldiers, avIio rarely heard of these effoi'ts dur- 
ing his life, and will see his strong words in their favor now for the first time, 
as they find them here copied from the arcliives of the State, will learn at last 
to appreciate the warmth of the zeal in their service which he never cared to 
trumpet to the world, and which he, nevertheless, made so searching and so 
effectual for good. 

In his dealings with other hospitals. Governor Brough generally kept two 
main points in view. He strove to have Ohio soldiers transferred, as rapidly as 
possible to hospitals within the State. And, when Ohio soldiers in transitu 
needed medical assistance, he demanded such arrangements as would insure it 
without the tedious delay sometimes involved in awaiting an order from a med- 
ical director. 

•■■Justice to Surgeon Tripler requires it to be added that he denied the charge of insufficient 
food furnisiied to convalescents, and attributed it to the craving appetite always felt by that 
class of patients, which wise physicians, in hospitals or in family practice, were always compelled 
to restrain— to the great dissatisfaction of the patients tiiemselves. 



200 Ohio in the Wae. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE LAST RECRUITING-ITS PROGRESS AND PERILS. 



WE have seen in the previous administration the beginnings of the vicious 
sj'stem by which the work of recruiting was poisoned — the system which, 
when the genuine impulse of volunteering had measurably disappeared, 
sought by bribery, in the shape of bounties, to secure a sickly counterfeit of it, 
rather than resort to the honest and impartial draft. We have now to see how 
the work thus grew more and more difficult, and the drafts it had been sought 
to shun grew nevertheless the more frequent, till the clear vision of the Governor 
of the State was able to perceive nothing less than ruin in the near future. 

The re-enlistment of the veterans, and the recruiting near the close of Gov- 
ernor Tod's administration, left the State ahead of her quotas under all the calls. 
But in February, 1864, came a fresh call from the President, under which the 
quota of Ohio was fifty-one thousand four hundred and sixty-five men. In 
March came another call, adding twentj^ thousand five hundred and ninety-five 
to the quota; in July, another adding fifty thousand seven hundred and ninety- 
two more ; and in December another, under which the final quota of the State 
was twenty-six thousand and twenty-seven. 

The method pursued in raising these required troops was uniform — save in 
its progressive tendency from bad to worse. Very much against the wishes of 
Governor Brough, there was left no plan save to offer high and higher bounties. 
Government, State, county, township bounties, hundreds piled on fresh hundreds 
of dollars, till it had come to such a pass that a community often paid in one 
form or another near a thousand dollars for every soldier it presented to the 
mustering officers, and double as much for every one it succeeded in getting into 
the wasted ranks at the front. Saying nothing of the desertion, the bounty- 
jumping, the substitute brokerage thus stimulated, we have only to add that all 
this extravagance failed in its main purpose — it too rarel}' got the respective 
localities "out of the draft." Out of the four calls made upon Brough's admin- 
istration, which we have enumerated, the second was made betbre the preceding 
one had been filled, and for three of them, as many as several drafts were ordered. 

It was found that the State had not received proper credits for her previous 
contributions, and a reduction of over twenty thousand was secured in the 
assigned quotas. Even with this aid seven thousand seven hundred and eleven 
men had to be drafted in May, out of whom the Government — so ineffectual had 
the whole system become — received one thousand four hundred and twenty-one 



Progress of Recruiting. 



201 



soldiers, and commutation money for the rest. In September a draft for nine 
thousand and six was ordered, under which, thanks to the excess of credits in 
patriotic localities that had already more than filled their quotas, the State 
obtained a small credit to carry over to the final call. Under this also a little 
drafting was done in backward localities. 

Eleven new regiments were organized in 1864, running from the One Hun- 
dred and Seventy-Third to the One Hundred and Eighty-Third, and some fifteen 
companies were divided among others ; while a considerable number of the old 
regiments, being wasted below the minimum allowed by the department, were 
either consolidated or reduced to battalions. Early in 1865, under the inspiring 
aspect of aifairs, the new regiments required were rapidly raised and sent to 
the field; the One Hundred and Eighty-Fourth as soon as the 22d of February, 
and the last of them, the One Hundred and Ninety-Seventh by the 15th of 
April. Officers for the new regiments were sought almost exclusively from 
the meritorious oflScers of Ohio ti'oops then at the front — two years' active 
service being held an indispensable prerequisite. 

How well or ill each count}^ in the State stood at the close may be gathered 
from the following table. Here may be seen what counties lagged behind, what 
ones resorted to the draft, what ones kept up the patriotic impulse to the last 
and stood ahead ot all their quotas, when Appomattox C. H. ended the struggle 
and sounded the recall : 



COCNTIES. 


.C 






g-g; 
.—5 


rr- 

c 

S 


-5 


COUNTIES. 


3 


^=3 


£,1' 

: o" 


--3 




D 

3; 




If.l 
217 
248 
32ii 

lyt 

ItW 
42S 
329 
492 
lf.7 
226 

as5 

332 
20rt 
2.59 
271 
479 
669 
4.i.5 
137 
299 
207 
366 
127 
679 
174 
265 
14.5 
414 
236 
2,143 
277 
199 
279 
88 
311 
136 
197 
429 
119 
214 
359 
169 
238 
437 


9S 
202 

2;« 

294 
194 
161 
371 
296 
452 
159 
166 
370 
323 
199 
250 
171 
434 
407 
3S4 

91 
294 
174 
311 
1.33 
432 
129 
170 
128 
386 
227 
1,869 
242 
174 
230 

63 
298 
112 
127 
420 

99 
138 
20'; 
102 
220 
392 


35 
10 


133 
212 
233 
327 
195 
170 
3S9 
340 
454 
164 
• 185 
370 
329 
206 
250 
1S8 
435 
420 
408 
94 
297 
174 
348 
134 
441 
131 
179 
143 
3'<6 
235 
2,048 
259 
195 
237 
63 
313 
1.37 
127 
420 
112 
193 
215 
102 
232 
399 




28 
5 
15 




29li 
301 
267 
257 
300 
87 
165 

134 
440 

261 
598 
256 
186 
561 
276 
102 

74 
193 
326 

95 
264 
246 
147 
289 
357 
294 

377 
221 
408 
363 
271 
380 
202 
113 
145 
266 
.361 

216 
204 
231 


281 
285 
260 
234 
274 

82 
136 
305 
122 
429 
158 
.534 
225 
153 
280 
203 

.36 

16 
159 
296 

63 
214 
216 
127 
242 

.•«o 

265 
223 
34 li 
183 
373 
316 
221 
252 
196 
107 
90 
248 
240 
279 
169 
I.s7 
210 


3 
5 

6 

1 

30 

1 
30 
19 

105 
10 
32 
33 
12 
16 
5 
2 
18 
22 
7 
45 


2S4 
290 
266 
2.35 
304 
89 
137 
3:55 
141 
436 
263 
544 
257 
186 
292 
219 


4 

2 

'3 

4 
2 

"1 


12 


Allen 






11 


Asliland 






1 




33 
1 

9 
19 
44 
2 

19 






22 


Atlifiis 


I 
1 




Mahoning 












39 




28 




11 






Butler 


.38 
3 
41 
15 
3 






Carioll 








Champaign 

Claik 










Jlontgoniery ... 


.54 




7 
















9 
83 
44 
249 
47 
43 


Muskingum .... 
Noble 




269 




17 
1 

13 
24 
3 
3 












41 .;;;;:. 


61 








18 
177 
3:0 

70 
2.59 
246 
1.32 
.309 
.3:!9 
272 
233 
359 
196 
378 
316 
265 
252 
213 
114 
125 
2.50 
371 
282 
170 
188 
22ii 


""26 




Daike 






16 








6 




2 


Pike 


25 


Erie 


32 
13 






Fairtiekl 


7 
1 

I 
9 
15 


7 


Preble 




Favette 




67 
9 
7 
10 
13 
13 

'""if 


15 


Franklin 


208 
43 
86 

2 
28 

1 
95 
18 

4 
42 
25 






Fulton 






18 


Gallia 






















■"lI 


18 




8 
179 
17 
21 

7 




Shelby 


25 








30 


Hancock 




4 


Hardin 




6 






Tuscarawas .... 


128 


Henrv 




17 
7 

35 
2 
1.31 
3 
1 
1 

16 




HiEhiand 


15 
25 


2 


Van Wert 




Hocking 






■■"id 


20 






70 
9 

19 
144 
96 
6 
38 




.16 








Washington.... 




.lackfon 


13 
5 

9 




45 


.lefierson 






40- 


Knox 




Wood 


16 


Lake 






5 




12 




Total 




Licking '. 




2i.,022 


21,868 


1,415 


23,2-!3 


s« 


2,827 













202 Ohio in the War. 

On the 23d of August, 1864, the people of the State were startled by a 
proclaraatiou appealing to them not to offer organized resistance to the draft 
then impending. The language of the Governor was conciliatory, and he made 
few disclosures as to any secret knowledge of the danger Avhich he professed to 
apprehend. After reciting the facts connected with the order for a draft, he 
mentioned a fear of organized opposition to it, explained the punishments for 
conspiracy against the Government, and continued : 

"Most earnestly do I appeal to the people of the State not to engage in this forcible resist- 
ance to the laws, which evil counsellors and bad men are leading them. It can not, and will not, 
succeed. Its triumph, if it achieve any, must be of a mere temporary chai-acter. The Govern- 
ment is not weak. It is strong and powerful. It can not, and it will not, permit an armed 
insurrection to impeach its strength, or impair its power, while contending with the Southern' 
rebellion. I do not say this to you in any spirit of intimidation, or in any threatening tone. I 
speak it to you as a warning, and with an imploring voice to hear and heed it. I know what the 
determination of your Government is, and I fully comprehend the power at hand to enforce it. 

"What can you, who contemplate armed resistance, reasonably expect to gain by such a 
movement? You can not effectually or permanently prevent the enforcement of the laws. You 
can not in anywise improve your own condition in the present, and must seriously injure it in the 
future. Judicious and conservative men, who look to the supremacy of Government for the pro- 
tection and safety of their persons and property, will not sympathize or co-operate with you. 
You may commit crime; you may shed blood; you may destroy property; you may spread ruin 
and devastation over some localities of the State; you may give aid and comfort for a season to 
the Rebels already in arms against the country; you may transfer, for a brief time, the horrors 
of war from the fields of the South to those of the State of Ohio; yon may paralyze prosperity, 
and create consternation and alarm among our people. This is a bare possibilitVj but it is all 
you can hope to accomplish; for you have looked upon the progress of our present struggle to 
little purpose, if you have not learned the great recuperative power, and the deep earnestness of 
the country in this contest. The final result will not be doubtful; the disaster to you will be 
complete, and the penalty will equal the enormity of the crime. 

"From the commencement of this rebellion the State of Ohio has maintained a firm and 
inflexible position which can not now be abandoned. In this internal danger that now threatens 
us, I call upon all good citizens to assert and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and 
laws of the land. These constitute the great elements of our strength as a nation, and they are 
the bulwarks of our people. Hold in subjection by persuasion and peaceable means, if you can, 
all attempts at civil insurrection, or armed resistance to the laws. Failing in this, there is 
another duty as citizens from which we may not shrink, and to which I earnestly hope we may 
not be enforced. To those who threaten us with this evil, I say, we do not use any threats in 
return — there is no desire to provoke passion, or create further irritation. Such men are earnestly 
and solemnly invoked to abandon their evil purposes; but at the same time they are warned that 
this invocation is not prompted by any apprehension of the weakness of the Government, or the 
success of the attempts to destroy it. I would avert, by all proper means, the occurrence of civil 
war in the State; but if it must come, the consequences be with those who precipitate it upon us. 

"JOHN BROUGH." 

We now know that it was the discovery of the "Order of American 
Knights" or "Sons of Liberty," and the knowledge of the extent of their 
plans, which prompted these precautions. His Private Secretary* has since 
explained the circumstances: "Governor Brough received his first intimation 
of what Avas being done by that secret organization in the State of Ohio from 
Major-General Eosecrans, whose watchfulness was very extraordinarj-. The 

* Hon. Wm. Henry Smith, subsequently Secretary of State. The extract above given is 
from a private letter to the author. 



Progress of Recruiting. 203 

Governor then employed secret agents, wlio penetrated the most hidden recesses 
of the order, and ascertained all that was going on. One of his agents was a 
short-hand wn-iter, who took reports of the most remarkable declarations made 
at their meetings. This same officer aided in distributing the arms to the mem- 
\)QYs — which was done by moonlight — in the country. The Governor was so 
vigilant — sitting up all night, often for several nights in succession, to receive 
reports from his agents — that he was able to foil their treasonable schemes 
without bloodshed." 

For bloodshed seems to have been really intended. They met in secret for 
drill, armed themselves as well as they could, boasted of their strength, and 
openly threatened that the second draft of 1864 should not take place. But 
before the draft came on, the regiments of the National Guard (whose history we 
have next to trace) were pouring back into the State. "I claim very little credit 
for my own counsels," said the Governor modestly in his annual message some 
months afterward, "but as regiment after regiment was discharged from the 
camps, and went to their homes, with arms in their hands and well-known 
loyalty in their hearts, the wave of rebellion very rapidly subsided; and th-e 
conspirators who had been the boldest in their demonsti-ations of resistance to 
the laws, were among the first to hurry substitutes into the ranks of the army, 
or relieve the State of their presence, in order to avoid the service they had 
openly threatened could not be imposed. The draft went forward promptly, 
and in the most peaceable manner. The persecution and abuse of Union citi- 
zens ceased at once. Law and order were again in the ascendant; and no doubt 
or fear was entertained as to the perfect ability of the State to maintain them. 
And yet no force was used; no considerable body of men kept under arms in 
militar}' array — no parade or exhibition of armed forces. But there spread all 
over our territory a consciousness that the State was prepared for any emer- 
gency ; that its protectors were ready at a moment's warning, and could be 
implicitly relied upon ; and that the first movement toward forcible resist- 
ance of the laws would be speedily crushed, entailing its consequences upon 
those Avho might inaugurate it. It was a peaceful triumph, achieved by the 
inherent power of a State, in its least pretentious manifestation; and its result 
and consequences were of a thousand times more value than the expenditure 
the organization and support of the National Guard have imposed upon the 

people." 

Sundry facts as to this organization were given by the Adjutant-General in 

Lis report : 

"One of the most noticeable features of tlie rebellion during the year, hi Ohio, which neces- 
sarily engaged a large share of the attention of this department, was the existence thronghout the 
State of a formidable secret organization, known as "The Order of American Knights." The origin 
of this society is directly traceable to the rebellion, of which it has been at all times an auxil- 
iary. Early in the year the Governor organized a system of espionage upon certain suspicious 
movements" of well-known Rebel sympathizers in the State. Through the instrumentality of 
detectives, and other means not necessary to enumerate, the entire workings of the order, their 
objects, principles, and strength were ascertained. By comparing the information thus obtained 
Whh what had been learned of the order bv the military authorities in Missouri, Indiana, and 



204 Ohio in the Wak. 

other AVestern States, it was clearly demonstrated that there existed in tlie State of Ohio a secret, 
treasonable organization, numbering from eighty thousand to one hundred and ten thousand mem- 
bers, bound together by oaths, which they professed to hold paramount to their allegiance to their 
State and country. This organization was to a considerable extent armed, drilled, and supplied 
with ammunition. It had a quasi military organization, and a system of signals by which large 
numbers might be called together at the very shortest notice. The written principles of the order 
recognize and defend the institution of slavery, and its twin abomination, the right of secession. 
These doctrines were sugar-coated by fallacious arguments and nicely-rounded periods, to tickle 
the ears of the groundlings, and entice the unsuspecting neophyte to advance to the higher 
degrees, where all disguise was thrown aside, and tiie knife was whetted and the gun shotted, to 
take the life of any man who dared stand up for the cause of the country. 

"The purposes and operations of the order were fully known early in the summer, and 
ample steps were taken to meet any overt act of violence with such a power as would crush it 
oiit at once and forever. The programme of the uprising last contemplated embraced the 
destruction of the railroads and telegraph lines, and the sudden movement of a force to this city; 
the seizure of the State and United States arsenals here ; the release of the Rebel prisoners at 
Camp Chase, who were to be armed by the arms captured here. The column, thus re-enforced, 
was to co-operate with John Morgan, or some other Rebel commander, who was expected to 
demonstrate at some point on the border, more probably in Kentucky. The time fixed for the 
commencement of this grand movement was the 16th day of August last. This date was learned 
from several sources, and from lodges in difierent parts of this and other States. It was also 
known to the Rebel prisoners at Camp Chase, and of course they were on the qui vive for their 
expected deliverance. 

"The real causes of the failure of this movement are known to be the increased vigilance of 
our military authorities in strengthening the prison and arsenal guards, in arresting the leading 
conspirators in the several States, and the seizure of large quantities of arms known to belong to 
txie organization." 

Serious as this liJdden danger would now seem to have been, there was an 
open one, connected with the work of recruiting the army, which threatened far 
more alarming consequences. It was no less than the demoralization of the peo- 
ple and the bankruptcy of the country, by the fast-growing evils of the ruinous 
bounty system. 

The machinery itself was imperfect — cumbrous in detail, and open to 
abuses. "There is more or less corruption in at least one-half the subordinate 
provost-marshalships of the State," wrote Brough in a confidential letter to the 
Provost-Marshal-General. Men furnished substitutes who were ineligible. 
Substitutes deserted by the hundred, and enlisted again for fresh and higher 
bounties. The business of substitute brokerage came to be almost a respect- 
able wa}' of making a fortune. While the army was thus cheated, the people 
were impoverished in their efforts to buy soldiers. No Grovernment in the 
world, in the whole history of war, ever had an army raised at such cost as 
were the recruits of 1864. No Government in the world could ever long endure 
such a financial strain. All the bounties, it is true, did not come from the 
National or State Treasuries but where they were made up b}^ local efforts, the 
communities in question were thus weakened by the drain, and rendered less 
capable of bearing the lieavy taxation. One wa}^ or another, by public or pri- 
vate extravagance in jjurchasing military duty, the monej" of the country was 
being swept into the vortex, credit was being exhausted, debts were accumu- 
lating, and sagacious men came to dread bulletins from the treasury far more 
than those from the armv. 



Difficulties of Recruiting. 205 

From the outset Governor Brough protested against any delays in the 
draft, having for their object the extension of opportunities for piling up 
bounties in the hope of getting soldiers. As early as March 14, we find hin\ 
writing in this vigorous strain to the Secretary of War:* 

"Columbus, March 14, 1864. 
"Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington City, D. C: 

"Sir: In your general remark to the Senate, that State executives were pressing the exten- 
sion of bounties I hope you made a mental reservation in favor of your servant. I have favored 
the draft steadily from the day the proclamation ordering it on the 10th was issued. The result 
of this last postponement has fulfilled my prediction to the President. 

"Recruiting has virtually stopped. The bounties even will not tempt, and the local authori- 
ties and citizens having the fear of the draft removed, are making no further effort to fill quotas. 
They regard the postponement of the draft as indefinite, both because of the recruiting and 
because, as they say, 'Ohio is so near being out she will not be drafted, even if a draft is ordered.' 
We shall do very little more in this State until our people realize that a draft will be had on a 
fixed day, and that promise must be kept. 

"I favor a draft for another consideration. I regard our financial position as rapidly becom- 
ing the most critical one connected with the war. With every man we put into the army, costing 
us over three hundred dollars, we are amassing a debt and corresponding taxation, that will soon 
force us to resort to the same means as the Confederacy to get rid of it, except that in our case 
such a measure will be our destruction. If the call is to be filled, let us have the draft on the 

1st of April. Yours, verv truly, 

isi 01 April. "JOHN BROUGH." 

In other and equally vigorous comnumications he had even earlier placed 
himself upon the record, in earnest opposition to the whole bounty system as 
then administered. We have seen that no man outdid him— no man indeed 
came near equaling him in the extent of his claims for the families of soldiers, 
but he did not regard the wasteful bounties to the men as the proper method of 
supplying the wants of the families they left behind. To Congress he appealed 
for the aid which Congress alone could give, in at least modifying a system 
against which no one State could make effectual opposition. His two letters to 
the Chairman of the Military Committee of the House of Eepresentatives were 
regarded at the time as the ablest presentment of the case which reached that 
body from any quarter. With them we may fitly close this account of the re- 
cruiting in the last years of the war, and the evils and dangers that beset it : 

"Columbus, February 6, 1865. 
"Hon. R. C. Schenck, House of Eepresentatives, Washington City, D. C: 

"Sir: The local bounty system is ruining the armies and the Government. The present 
system of allotting quotas and filling them is weakening if not actually destroying the confidence 
of the people, and with it our political ability to sustain the Government. It has run into cor- 
ruptions, or rather created them, of the most serious and alarming character all over the State. 
This is a general statement I know ; but details are plenty enough to make a respectable-sized 
volume. The temptation to the subordinate under slender pay is great, while the controlling 
and examining power is too remote. A deputy prcvost-marshal or a surgeon can only be re- 
moved by an order from Washington. He may have influences enough to hold himself in position 
for months over the head and even against the recommendations of the State Provost-Marshal, 
who perhaps has not strictly legal evidence, but yet information of such a character as to satisfy 
him that the man should be removed. Why not regard them as civil officers to be removed when 
the public service required? Why hold them under the military rule, to be reached only by 
charges, arrests, and court-martial investigations? Why should they not be responsible to the 

*Brough's private Letter Books, State Archives, War Department Letters, 1864, p. 33. 



206 Ohio in the Wak. 

State provost-marshals, and they in turn to the Provost Marshal-General? What is the neces- 
sity of all the red-tape that now exists? But a more pertinent and practical inquiry comes up: 
why not change the whole programme of assigning quotas and filling them? Why not under a 
call for troops, assign to each State its quota of the call, and leave the assignment of local credits 
and quotas, and the raising of the men to the State authorities under Government inspection and 
muster? It can be done for less than half the expense of the present system, and would com- 
mand the confidence of the people much more than the present system. 

"We are daily overwhelmed by delegations and letters from all parts of the State in regard 
to local quotas, and representations of errors and injustices. We have no information and of 
course can not give any; we can only refer to the Assistant Provost Marshal-General. His an- 
swer is that he has no knowledge of details. The quotas of congressional districts are given to 
him from Washington, and the rule fixed by which to distribute below that. Men go away 
dissatisfied — in many cases despondent, in some bitter opponents of the whole Government ma- 
chinery. It needs simplification, and it can be simplified. It is necessary to bring it nearer to 
the people, where they can know its workings and hold some one responsible for it. I give you 
merely a general idea. The details may be a little troublesome, but they can be readily worked 
out. It M'ould not strike out the provost-marshal's department, but simply relieve it of its tedious 
and cumbrous details, dividing them round among the respective States. Under it I think we 
could control and restrain much of the fraud and corruption that is now prevailing, and unless 
checked will effectually break down the power of the Government to replenish its armies. J 
can say to you confidentially, that of the thirty thousand men raised, credited, and mustered 
in Ohio during the last call, over ten thousand failed to reach the front. This appears here of 
record. Pennsylvania shows a worse result. About one thousand one hundred men have been 
forwarded to Camp Chase under the present call, and of these two hundred and sixty-three were 
on the lists last night as ' absent without leave,' and this although the money brought here with 
them is taken from them on arrival. Still they have been mustered and credited, and fill so 
much of the 'quota,' though not of the army. 

"The State swarms with bounty-brokers, bounty-jumpers, and mercenaries of every descrip- 
tion. Men take contracts to fill 'quotas' as they would to furnish hay or wood. They take the 
largest share to themselves, and frequently the recruit deserts because he says he has been swindled 
in his bounty. Patriotism and love of the cause are supplanted to a large degree, as a motive 
of filling our armies by the mercenary spirit of making money out of the operation. In our own 
State I am alarmed at the enormous debts we are creating and piling upon weak localities. I 
have not the data to fix it, but I am satisfied it now exceeds six millions of dollars. There is a 
pay day for it all, either in crushing taxation or dishonor. 

"In addition to this apprehension is the painful conviction that it does not give us men to 
fill our wasting ranks — it does not add to our power to crush the rebellion and end the war. 
Instead of that it is constantly weakening us, both in a military and financial sense. We are 
drifting upon the breakers! We are going to ruin ! I have been trying to persuade our legisla- 
tors to provide a State bounty, merely duplicating the bounty of the Government, and prohibit 
all local bounties or debt on taxation for them. But the answer is, 'other States will not do it,' 
and we must keep up in the general scramble. I do not know that we can get co-operation, but 
I would have some faith in doing so if the States had control of filling their own quotas, and 
were required to produce men for them. Perhaps we might fail, but we would remedy one class 
of evils and have a chance for the other. 

'"A recent convention of Adjutant-Generals at this city brought here some experienced and 
able men. Upon this point of States filling their quotas, there was a full debate and a perfect 
unanimity of opinion. Is anything practicable in the waning hours of this session of Congress, 
or will we necessarily go on under the present system through another year? If so, I can only 
deplore it. I am full of anxiety upon this subject. I would almost try to break the chains that 
bind me here, and go to Washington if I were convinced I could do any good thereby. Unless 
we can change our policy I have painful forebodings of the future. We have strength enough, 
but we are throwing it away; we are weakening our armies by every call and draft, instead of 
strengthening them; we are piling up enormous debts and taxations upon our people ; we are 
impairing the confidence of the thinking and earnest portion of our people, and pampering the 
desires of the weak and profligate; we are liiaking a tratfic of the holiest duty we owe to the 



Difficulties of Recruitino, 207 

country, and procrastinating a struggle that we have the power to speedily terminate, if our 
means were less popularly and more earnestly directed. 

" I have written more than 1 intended, and you will patiently read. I hope I am wrong in 
mv forebodings. I will be gratified to find myself so. I do not profess to be wiser than other 
men. In this particular I would be almost glad to find myself a fool. It has been a subject of 
much examination and reflection. I can see its remedy only in the wisdom of Congress— I can 
not add to that, but I can not refrain from making some suggestions for your consideration in this 
private way. Very truly yours, JOHN BKOUGH." 

"CoLUMBTJS, February 9, 1865. 
" Hon. K. C. Schenck, House of Representatives, Washington City, D. C. : 

•'Sir: After so long a communication only three days ago, I will no doubt be considered 
obtrusive in again reviewing the subject; but anxiety grows upon me every day, and I can not 
forbear every exertion to remedy the evils that beset us. 

" Present indications are that we will not enlist over ten thousand men out of a quota of 
twenty-six thousand; of whom fully twenty-five per cent, will fail to reach the service. The 
argument is constantly repeated, that one State can not inaugurate a reform where other States 
refuse to co-operate. This sentiment pervades and influences alike legislators and people. The 
overweening anxiety is to fill the quotas— get the credits, no matter what the material, or how 
the army is affected. I feel the force of all this, yet I see its consequences not only in my own 
8late but elsewhere. 

"It seems to me there must be and is a controlling power somewhere. All admit that tlie 
bounty is the source of the evil. But it is said that having inaugurated the system we can not 
get rid of it; that it has passed beyond our control, and we must patiently await the ruin that is 
rapidly working out. I will not discuss this latter proposition. I simply do not believe it. If 
we have the moral courage we can control the evil, provided we concentrate our energies and 
our strength. 

"The bounty system began with the General Government— tliat Government must assume the 
initiative in restraining it. To that end I suggest that Congress should enact : 1. That no bounty or 
payment shall be given or made by any locality or community to any man for entering the service, 
except such bounty as may be provided by his State, which shall not exceed the amount paid by 
the Government for a like term of service. 2. That the price of a substitute shall be fixed at 
double the amount of the Government bounty, and no higher sum shall be paid or received. 
3. That no soldier shall enlist as substitute out of his own State, and on his oflering to do so, 
shall be returned to his State for punishment. 

'' These enactments will cut present evils up by the roots, and I fail to see any new ones they 
can breed. Why is it not in the power of the present Congress to enact them ? Do not answer 
that concentration of action can not be had. We must have it. No measure is before that body of 
such vital moment as this. We are at the turning point of our destiny, militarily and financially. 
The next campaign settles the impending controversy for good or for evil. 

"But I will not argue it. I make the suggestion and it is the only one I can make that 
seems to give promise of good results. I hope it will commend itself to your own good judg- 
ment, and that you will lend it all your valuable aid. 

"I have not written to any of our delegation but yourself. I would like you to show my 
notes to General Garfield, if it is consistent with your views. I need not repeat that I am deeply 
solicitous on the subject. I may write a note to our senators to-night, but I can not go into the 
matter as fully as I have done to you. Very truly yours, JOHN BROUGH." 

The next campaign did '^settle the impending controversy." The sagacitj' 
of Brough was not at fault — we are next indeed to see how in other ways and 
with potent weight his policy was to aid in settling it. But the evils to which 
his forebodings so gloomil}' turned were not averted. The frightful expenses 
of an army of a million men, raised with such waste, to confront the remnant 
of the hundred thousand that was left to uphold the Eebel banner, still press 
down the country. For many weary years to come they must continue to press, 
unless, alas! relief be sought in National dishonor. 



208 Ohio IN the AVar. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE HUNDRED DAYS' MEN, 



THE summer of 1863 had been marked in Ohio bj- unusual turbulence 
and by invasion. The arrests, the trial of Vallandigham, and his sub- 
sequent defiant candidacy for the Governorship, the organized efforts to 
resist the draft, the dangers along the whole southern border, and the invasion 
by John Morgan, had combined to make the year memorable in our local annals. 
As the season for military operations in 1864 approached, Governor Brough dis- 
played special anxiety to be prepared for similar dangers. 

Toward the close of February he discussed with ex-Governor Dennison the 
plan of having a few regiments of the volunteer militia of the State called into 
active service for duty along the southern border; and, at his request, Governor 
Dennison visited Washington to urge this policy upon the Secretarj'- of War. 
Mr. stanton doubted the immediate necessity, and for various reasons, specially 
including the jealousy of other States, which it would arouse, discouraged the 
proposition. 

On the 15th of March Governor Brough addressed the Secretary at some 
longth, renewing his proposition, and strenuouslj' urging its necessity. "Pass- 
ing events in Ohio and in Canada," he wrote, "point to a pressing danger of 
raids upon us from that quarter; while our southern frontier, including that of 
Indiana, is undoubtedly to be the object of an assault by Morgan and his forces, 
as soon as their preparations are completed." The true way, he argued, to pre- 
vent such raids, as well as the only economical way, was to have a force of 
drilled men on the frontier. A knowledge that the State was prepared to receive 
him would be the surest wa}' to prevent Morgan from coming, and he insisted 
that he ought therefore to have authority to call out two to four regiments. But 
the view which other States would take of such a measure, still seemed sufficient 
reason for delay.* 

Meantime all saw the critical point of the war to be approaching. The 
Nation had enormous armies in the field, but they were larger on the pay-rolls 
than in the list of men present for duty at the front. A General had been pro- 
moted to the chief command whose avowed policy for conquering the rebellion 
was the lavish use of overwhelmingly superior forces. The Government stand- 

* Brough's private Letter Books, State Archives, War Department Letters, pp. 36-37. 



Hundred Days' Men. 209 

Ing aghast at the frightful expenses into which the bount}'' system and this pol- 
icy of demanding untold numbers had plunged it, held success in the impending 
campaign to be indispensable- — it could not, as was declared, bear up under such 
a drain for another year. 

Because, therefore, success then was held to be vitally nccessarj', and 
because the General in command would only promise a prospect of success, on 
condition that he should have treble or quadruple the number of soldiers his 
antagonist could muster, it became an object of the utmost solicitude that every 
veteran in the forts about Washington, or the block-houses along the railroads, 
should be added to the ranks then about to plunge into the blind, bloody wrest- 
ling of the Wilderness. But neither forts nor railroads could be left exposed. 

John Brough was the first to comprehend the situation and divine its wants. 
He was led, likewise, to it by a continuation of his recent effort. He had sought 
the protection of his State by placing its militia in the field in such numbers 
that an invader would keep away. He now sought a similar but larger end, the 
protection of the Capital and the whole territory of the North, by keeping the 
enemy so busy on their own soil that they would have no opportunity for incur 
sions Northward. Under his suggestions the State militia law had been care- 
fully revised and improved, and the militia force which Governor Tod had left 
was in excellent condition. He conceived, therefore, the idea of calling out this 
militia to hold the forts and railroads, while Grant should throw his whole 
strength upon the Eebel army, crush it, and end the war. Within a hundred 
days — such was then the understanding of the Rebel peril, and such was un- 
doubtedly a correct apprehension of the possibilities which a Frederick or Napo- 
leon miglit have grasped — the struggle should be over. For the lass great effort 
that should end the contest, therefore, he rightly held that Ohio would make 
any sacrifice, and that the sister States to the westward could be induced to 
unite with her. 

Accordingl}^ on his suggestion, a meeting of the Governors of Ohio, Indi- 
ana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa was held at Washington. Governor Brough 
stated his ability to furnish thirty thousand men. Governoi-s Morton and Yates 
believed they could each add twent}^ thousand. There was some difference as 
to the time for which the offer could be made, but the term of one hundred 
days was finally agreed upon ; and under Governor Brough's direction the fol- 
lowing proposition was prepared : 

"War Department, Washington City, April 21, 1864. 
" To THE President of the United States : 

"I. The Governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin offer to the President 
infantry troops for the approacliing campaign, as follows: 

Ohio 30,000 

Indiana 20,000 

Illinois 20,000 

Iowa 10,000 

Wisconsin 5,000 

"II. The term of service to be one hundred days, reckoning from the date of muster into 
the service of the United States, unless sooner discharged. 

"III. The troops to be mustered into the service of the United States by regiments, when 
Vol. I.— 14. 



210 Ohio in the War. 

the regiments are filled up, according to regulations, to the minimum strength — the regiments to 
be organized according to the regulations of the War Department ; the whole number to be fur- 
nished within twenty days from date of notice of the acceptance of this proposition. 

"IV. The troops to be clothed, armed, equipped, subsisted, transported, and paid as other 
United States infantry volunteers, and to serve in fortifications, or wherever their services may 
be required, within or without their respective States. 

"V. No bounty to be paid the troops, nor the services charged or credited on any draft. 
" VI. The draft for three years' service to go on in any State or district where the quota is 
not filled up; but if any officer or soldier in this special service should be drafted, he shall be 
credited for the service rendered. 

"JOHN BEOUGH, Governor of Ohio. 
"O. P. MORTON, Governor of Indiana. 
"RICHARD YATES, Governor of Illinois. 
"W. M. STONE, Governor of Iowa." 

All believed that this would insure the speedy success of Grant's campaign. 
The President, taking the same hopeful view, accepted the proposition two days 
after it was presented. 

On that eventful Saturday afternoon the Adjutant-General of Ohio was 
startled with this dispatch : 

" Washington, April 23, 1864. 
" B. R. CowEK, Adjutant- General : » 

"Thirty thousand volunteer militia are called from Ohio, the larger portion to ser- 
vice out of the State. Troops to be mustered into service of United States lor one hundred 
days, unless sooner discharged ; to be mustered in by regiments, of not less than the minimum 
strength, and organized according to laws of War Department. 

" They will be clothed, armed, equipped, transported, and paid by the Government, and to 
serve on fortifications, or wherever services may be required. Not over five thousand to 
be detailed for home service; no bounty to be paid or credit on any draft. The draft to go on in 
deficient localities, but if any officer or soldier in the special service is drafted, he will be cred- 
ited for the service rendered. Time is of the utmost importance. It is thought here, that if 
substitutes are allowed, the list of exemptions may be largely reduced ; say, confining it to tele- 
graph operators, railroad engineers, officers and foremen in shops, and mechanics actually 
employed on Government or State work for miltary service. This is left to your discretion. Set 
the machinery at work immediately. Please acknowledge receipt by telegraph. 

"JOHN BROUGH." 

The Adjutant-General of Ohio was a man'who had been trained to matters 
of detail, and had long displayed a special aptitude for such executive work. 
He thoroughly understood all the minutise of the militia sj^stem. He was sin- 
gularly accurate and comprehensive in his grasp of details ; was incapable of 
being confused by any sudden pressure of business; was not liable to lose his 
judgment or his coolness under the bewildering rush of exciting matters; not 
to be discouraged by difficulties, not to be swerved from his straight path by 
any representation of hardships or clamor for exemptions — an officer of clear, 
strong common sense. 

Governor Brough well knew the man upon whom his unexpected dispatch 
was to throw this sudden weight, and he assured the Secretary of War that, by 
the time he could get back to Columbus, he should find the great movement well 
begun. He was not disappointed. 

The announcement was received at Columbus on Saturday afternoon. 
There were no adequate means of reaching the people before Monday morning. 



J 



HuNDEED Days' Men. 211 

Meantime the necessary orders were made, and such preparations as foresight 
could suggest, were devised. The papers of Monday morning, throughout the 
State, contained the following: 

"General Head-Quarters State op Ohio, 
"Adjutant-General's Office, Columbus. April 25, 1864. 
"General Orders No. 12. 

"The regiments, battalions, and independent companies of infantry of the National Guard 
of Ohio are hereby called into active service for the term of one hundred days, unless sooner 
discharged. They will be clothed, armed, equipped, transported, and paid by the United States 
Government. 

"These organizations will rendezvous at the most eligible places in their respective counties 
(the place to be fixed by the commanding officer, and to be on a line of railroad if practicable), 
on Monday, May 2, 1864, and i-eport by telegraph, at four o'clock P. M. of the same day, the 
number present for duty. 

"The alacrity with which all calls for the military forces of the State have been heretofore 
met, furnishes the surest guaranty that the National Guard will be prompt to assemble at the 
appointed time. Our armies in the field are marshaling for a decisive blow, and the citizen-sol- 
diery will share the glory of the crowning victories of the campaign, by relieving our veteran 
regiments from post and garrison-duty, to allow them to engage in the more arduous labors of 
the field. By order of the Governor: 

"B. R. CO WEN, Adjutant-General, Ohio." 

At the same time an order was promulgated, making the exemptions which 
the Governor had suggested. 

And now came the tremendous pressure which, for a little time, the Adju- 
tant-General had to bear alone. A week had been given preparatory to the 
rendezvous. Through this time protests, appeals for exemption, warnings of 
danger to the State, financially and politically, poured in. General Cowen bore 
stoutly up against them all, refused every appeal for exemption that did not 
come under the terms of his order, referred applications for discharge to the 
regimental commanders, assured every objector that the call was necessary, that 
it would be enforced at all hazards, and that the State Administration was 
read}^ to accept all responsibilities. 

Throughout the State arose a sudden, excited, sometimes angry buzz. The 
men who comj)Osed the volunteer militia companies (now known as the JSTational 
Guard) were among the most substantial and patriotic citizens of the State. 
They were in the midst of the opening business or labors of the season. To 
almost every man it came as a personal sacrifice to be made for a necessity not 
very clearly understood. Some prominent Union leaders discouraged the 
movement; all saw that it would prove a repetition of the wasteful folly of the 
early calls for three months' and six months' troops (who had just come to be 
useful when their term of service had expired), unless, indeed, the crisis were 
such that this sudden re-enforcement would insure the striking of the final 
blow. 

The day came for the mustering of the regiments at their respective rendez- 
vous. A cold rain prevailed throughout the State. Many had predicted that 
the movement would be a failure : it now seemed as if it must be. But by four 
o'clock in the afternoon commanders of regiments began to report by telegraph. 
At seven in the evening the Adjutant-General telegraphed the Secretary of 



212 Ohio in the War. 

War: "More than thirty thousand National Guards are now in camp and 
ready for muster." At half-past seven the reports showed thirty-eight thousand 
men in camp, and clamorous to be sent forward. Considering the exhaustion, 
the previous discouragements, the period in the war, it was the grandest uprising 
of soldiers, the most inspiring rush of armed men from every village and ham- 
let and walk of life that the whole great struggle displayed. 

Governor Brough gave fitting expression to the general feeling of admi na- 
tion which the stirring spectacle evoked, in an address, the next day issued : 

"Executive Department, Cohimbus, May 3, 1864. 
"To THE National Guard op Ohio: 

"The Commander-in-Chief cordially and earnestly thanks you for your noble response on 
yesterday to the call made for the relief of our array, and the salvation of tlie country. This 
manifestation of loyalty and patriotism is alike honorable to yourselves and your noble State. 
In the history of this great struggle it will constitute a page that you and your descendants may 
hereafter contemplate with perfect satisfaction. 

"The duty to which you will be assigned, though comparatively a minor one, will be none 
the less beneficial to the cause of the country. While you hold fortifications, and lines of army 
communications, you will release veteran soldiers, and allow them to strengthen the great army 
that is marshaling for the mightiest contest of the war. In this you will contribute your full 
measure to the final result we all so confidently anticipate, and so much desire — the end of the 
rebellion, and the restoration of peace and unity in the land. 

"There is no present imminent danger that calls you from your peaceful avocations. But, it 
is necessary that we enter upon the spring campaign with a force that will enable us to strike 
rapid and effective blows when the conflict opens. Though we have met with a few reverses this 
spring, the general military situation is everywhere hopeful, and those in command of your 
armies were never more confident. But we can not permit this war, in its present proportions, 
to linger through another year. It is laying a burden upon us which, by vigorous and united 
exertion, we must arrest. It is true economy, as well as the dictate of humanity, to call to the 
termination of this contest a force that will be sufiicient for the purpose. Time, treasure, and 
blood will alike be saved in augmenting our forces, and making the contest short and decisive. 
The hope of the Rebel leaders is in the procrastination of the war. In this a political party in 
the North sympathizes with them, and is laboring, by the same means to secure a political triumph 
at the expense of the unity and future prosperity of the Nation. The first we must subdue with 
our arms within the hundred days, and then we can turn upon the other and win over it a more 
peaceful, but not less glorious victory. 

"I am not ignorant of the sacrifices this call imposes upon you, nor of the unequal manner 
in which it imposes tlie burdens of the war. You must reflect, however, that hitherto we 
have experienced comparatively little of the inconveniences and depression consequent upon a 
state of war. If a part of these come home to us now, we can well afford to meet, for so short a 
time, the tax imposed upon us, especially when the sacrifice gives promise of materially haste:i- 
ing the close of the contest. The burden must necessarily be unequal, for the Union men of this 
country must work out its salvation. The disloyal element is not to be relied upon either to 
encourage our armies, or to aid in the crushing of the rebellion. You are, in this particular, not 
unlike your ancestors who achieved the independence of your country against a foreign enemy 
on the one hand, and the tories of the revolution on the other. 

" Remember then, that like unto those who wrought out your nationality, through adversity 
that you have not yet experienced, the greater the sacrifice the higher the honor of those who are 
called to preserve it. 

" Fully comprehending the efl'ects of this call upon the industrial interests of the State, I 
would not have made it, had I not been fully impressed with the necessity of an increase of our 
forces, as the most effective means of Inustening the close of the contest and the advent of peace. 
I have done what I conscientiously believed to be my duty in the present position of affairs, and 
you have responded in a manner that challenges my admiration, and will command the gratitude 
of the country. 



Hujs^dked Days' Men. 213 

"Go forth, then, soldiers of tlie National G-uard, to the fulfillment of the duty assigned to 
you. I have entire confidence that you will meet all its requirements with fidelity and honor. 
The prayers of the people of the State will follow you; and may your return be as glorious as 
your going forth is noble and patriotic. JOHN BROUGH." 

Then followed the difficult work of consolidation. Since the orig-inal 
organization of the volunteer militia, thousands of its members had entered the 
.National service, and every regiment was thus reduced below the minimum. 
The principle adopted was to break up the smaller companies and divide the 
men among the others in such j^i'oportions as were needed. Arm}' officers of 
exjievience were called in to aid in this delicate duty; Colonel W. P. Eichard- 
son at Cam]) Chase, General A. M. McCook at Camp Dennison, and Colonel 
Aquila AViley at Camp Cleveland. 

On these, and on all others, the Governor now pressed again and again the 
importance of haste. "Nothing," as an eye-witness wrote, "was neglected. 
There was no detail so small tliat it did not receive the personal attention of the 
Governor. He had an eye on every officer and kej)t him to his work. There 
were men selfish and unpatriotic enough at this time to seek to create disturb- 
ance by filling the minds of the men with fear that they were being entrapjied 
only to be ofl^ei-ed up as a sacrifice to the Moloch of war. To a Major of a regi- 
ment that refused to be mustered, he telegraphed: 'The Guard will be promptlv 
mustered out at the end of the hundred days. The faith of the Government 
and the State are both pledged to this. The regiment can serve in the State if 
it wants to do so. We want a regiment at Camp Chase to guard Eebel prisoners 
and patrol Columbus. No other regiment wants to do it. Men who refuse to 
muster will be held to this service. The muster into the United States service 
is a mere form to make the payment from the Government instead of the State. 
Advise me if this is satisfactoiy.' This regiment was mustered within a few 
hours, and asked to be allowed to go out of the State. Delaj^ in the organiza- 
tion of regiments was not tolerated. To Colonel Jackson, of the Ninth, he tel- 
egraphed : 'Your regiment was reported ready j^esterday. Pi-esident Jewett 
says no requisition has yet been made for transportation. The War Depart- 
ment is thundering at me for these troops every hour. No trivial cause for 
delay must be suftered to intervene. Jewett says he can have a train this 
afternoon if immediate notice is given. Why can not this be done? Time is 
precious. Make every hour count.' To Major-General McCook, at Camp Den- 
nison, he telegraphed nearly the same. Mustei-ing officers and quartermasters 
were kept driving, and, with a few exceptions, the}' were willing to do all in 
their power, and the importance of this energy and haste will be more appre- 
ciated when it is remembered that at this time Ohio was the only State furnish- 
ing militia to take the place of vetei'ans."* 

The War Department was amazed and caught napping. It had no expecta- 
tion of such a response, and was unprepared with mustering officers. But for 
this — so tremendous was the enei-gy with which the work was driven forward 

•■ From a new.spaper sketch of the raising of tiie Hundred Days' Men, written bv Hon. Wm 
Henrv Smith 



214 Ohio ix the Wak. 

the whole force might have been on its way to the field seyei-al days sooner. As 
it was, within two weeks, over thirty thousand men, fully armed and equipped, 
were put into the service. Within a single week after the assemblage, it was 
found that there were sevei-al thousands more in camp than the Government had 
agreed to accept, and Grovernor Brough was telegraphing : 

"E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: 

"I have five or six regiments organized and in camp more than my quota. Will you take 
them or must I disband them? If you take them where shall they be assigned? Answer early 
as they are crowding me. JOHN BEOUGH." 

On the same day the Secretary of War replied as follows : 

"I will accept all the troops you can raise. The other States will be deficient and behind 
time. We want every man now. . . . Let us have all your regiments within the next 
week. They may decide the war. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War." 

Before this indeed, the Secretary, finding with what implicit confidence he 
might call upon Ohio in hours of need, had telegraphed : 

"Washington, D. C, May 5, 1864. 
"Governor Brough: General Sigel's advance has exposed the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- 
road, and a guerrilla force of about a hundred have seriously injured the shops and several 
engines at Piedmont. Mr. Garrett says that a regiment of your men will, if promptly for- 
warded, prevent any further injury. 

"EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War." 

"Washington, D. C, May 5, 1864. 
"Governor Brough: If you have any regiments organized, please forward them immedi- 
ately to Wheeling and Cumberland. The Eebels, in small squads, are already on the Baltimorft 
and Ohio Eailroad, and unless driven off may do considerable damage. Sigel has moved his 
force down the Valley, and is too far off to do any good. 

" EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War." 

"Washington, D. C, May 13, 1864. 
" Governor Brough : Official dispatches have been received from the Army of the Poto- 
mac. A general attack was made by General Grant at four and a half o'clock A. M. yesterday, 
followed by the most brilliant results. At eight o'clock Hancock had taken four thousand pris- 
oners, including Major-General Edward Johnson and several Brigadiers, and between thirty 
and forty cannon. Now is the time to put in your men. 

"EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War." 

In answer to the first of these dispatches the first of the National Guard 
regiments left on the 5th of May, three days after reporting in camp. The last 
one was ready to leave on the 16th. Within that time forty-one minimum reg- 
ments and one battalion of seven companies, in all thirty-five thousand nine 
hundred and eighty-two men, had, as the Adjutant-General, with justifiable 
pride, recited in his report, "been consolidated, organized, mustered, clothed, 
armed, equipped, and turned over to the United States military authorities for 
ti'ansportation and assignment." 

Two days later Governor Brough had the pleasure of sending this cautious 

recital : 

" CoLUJiBUS, May 18, 1864. 

"E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: 

"Ohio has sent regiments as follows: Four to Baltimore, Maryland, two to Cumberland, 
thirteen to Washington, and the fourteenth will leave tonight; three to Parkersburg, four to 



Hundred Days' Men. 215 

Charleston, three to New Creek, three to Harper's Ferry. Has stationed one at Gallipolis, two 
at Camp Dennison, two at Camp Chase, two regiments and a battalion of seven companies at 
Johnson's Island ; being forty regiments and one battalion, comprising an aggregate of thirty- 
four thousand men. This work has been completed in sixteen days. 

-JOHN BROUGH." 

But before Mr. Stanton received this, he had already made haste to express 
his gratitude. " The Department and the l^ation are indebted to you," he tele- 
graphed, "more than I can tell, for your prompt and energetic action at this 
crisis." 

The provision that members of the National Guard in active service should 
not be exempt from the draft then pending, was obviously calculated to create 
a feeling that they were being unjustly dealt with. Governor Brough sought a 
change in this respect, which should cause the burdens of the draft to fall upon 
the opponents of the war, the great class which had thus far evaded military 
duty, and was now peacefully at home, while the more patriotic had been sud- 
denly carried by thousands to the front. He regarded the National Guard 
movement as having pretty well sifted out the 3'oung Union men liable to mili- 
tary duty, and he wanted the draft, therefore, at this opportune moment, to fall 
upon the communities at home, where the Peace men were now largelj- in the 
majority. His efforts failed, but he persisted — the correspondence shows with 

what results: 

''Columbus, May 4, 1864. 
"E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: 

"The National Guard of Ohio have fully responded to my call. They do not want to be 
credited on the quota, and they want the draft to go forward, but they ask to be exempt from it, 
that the draft may fall upon the stay-at-home men. That is, if the name of a man is drawn who 
belongs to the National Guard, it be laid aside the same as an enlisted volunteer, and another 
name be drawn. For many reasons, I recommend this, if it can properly be done. It will 
increase rather than decrease our military strength, and somewhat equalize the burdens of 
service. Our Guard is composed exclusively of Union men. JOHN BROUGH." 

"Columbus, May 4, 1864. 
" E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: 

"Your dispatch received. I will crowd the force by all practicable means. Carefully con- 
sider and grant, if possible, my request to exempt the National Guard from the present draft 
making it fall on the 'shirks.' There is great future value in this movement. 

"JOPIN BROUGH." 

Washington Ciiy, May 4, 1864. 
" His Excellency John Brough, Governor of Ohio : 

" After much consideration of your suggestion in regard to the draft, it seems to me impoa- 
sible for the Department to conform to your wishes, for the following, among other reasons: 

"1. Any change in the terms agreed upon between the Governors and the President in one 
instance, would form certain occasion for an infinite number of changes that would be applied 
for by others, and would lead eitlier to great discontent at their being refused, or to serious injury 
to the service by adopting them. 

"2. The terms of the arrangement were called for by the Committee on Finance, and formed 
the basis of their recommendations for the appropriation. In their view, and in the view of 
General Grant, it was deemed an indispensable condition that the special volunteers should in no 
wise interfere with the operation of the law for drafting. A change now made in the particular 
you mention, would be charged immediately as a breach of faith on the part of the Executive 
with Congress, and might lead to very serious complications. 

"E. M. STANTON, Secretary of War." 



216 Ohio in the War. 

"General Head-Quarters, State of Ohio, ■> 
"Adjutant-General's Office, Columbus, May 5, 1864. j 
"Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: 

"My request was to exempt the members of the National Guard, actually in service, from 
operations of the present draft to fill Ohio's quota on the last call, but not to extend to any draft 
on any future call. No other State tendering militia can object to this, as their quotas are all 
fall; neither does it break any faith with Congress, as it does not change the position of the State 
as to filling her quota by draft. I propose that the draft shall go on, and the quota filled thereby, 
but simply to limit its operations to men who have not enlisted or responded to the call for the 
National Guard. Thus I put you thirty thousand National Guards into the hundred days' ser- 
vice, and by draft fill my quota of ninety-two hundred from other citizens of the State. I do not 
reduce you a man in the service, but add to it in the number of men who may be drafted from 
the Guard. I do not ask any credit for the Guard on quotas, nor any exemption for it on future 
calls, if any are made. Is not this reasonable and iust? I know it will be acceptable to our 
people. JOHN BROUGH." 

"Columbus, July 5. 1864. 
"Hon. E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Washington, D. C: 

"Sir: I respectfully urge that in the pending call fur additional men, the principles be 
established : 

"1. That at the expiration of the notice of fifty days, any balance of the quota of any State 
that may be deficient, shall be drafted from the population of the State that may not be, at the 
time, in the service of the United States. 

"2. That this be construed to embrace the one hundred days' men of the several States 
furnishing them, and that if any such men be drafted, the name of such man be set aside, and 
another name be drawn to fill the place. 

"3. That this rule be observed only while the hundred days' men are in service, and fur 
fifty days thereafter; and after the expiration of such time, this class of men to become liable to 
other and future calls, as other citizens of the State. 

"4. I submit to you the expediency of providing that if hundred days' men shall volunteer 
under the first call, they be allowed to join such regiments as they may elect, and be credited 
with such time as they may have served under the hundred day call, not exceeding fifty days. 

"I do not press this point beyond your own convictions as to its policy and propriety. The 
three first propositions, however, I do urge as a matter of justice to the men who have so promptly 
come forward in the hundred day service, and as a fair and equitable distribution of the burdens 
of the war among those who have heretofore avoided them. I do not see any legal difiiculty in 
exempting from the first call and draft men who are actually in service at the time, however 
proximate their term of service, especially if they become liable to a future call after that service 
has expired. The principle seems to me just and equitable, and I urge its adoption. 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

Subsequently, liovvever, under an opinion from Solicitor Whiting, of the 
War Department, all men actually in the service of the United States — no mat- 
ter for what term of service— at the time of the draft, were held to be exempt 
from its operations. But no credit was ever given the State on subsequent 
quotas for this magnificent and instant re-enforcement of the National armies 
on the sudden call. 

Of the whole volunteer militia of the State but one company absolutely 
refused to obey the order calling it out. Under the authority of the Governor, 
tbis case was dealt with as follows: 

"General Head-Quarters, State of Ohio, ^ 
"Adjutant-General's Office, Columbus, May 26, 1864.; 
"Special Orders, No. 314. 

"Company B, Captain Wendell Mischler, Fortieth Battalion, National Guard, is hereby 
dishonorably dismissed from the service of the State of Ohio, with forfeiture of all pay and allow- 



Hundred Days- Men. 217 

ances, ur having refused to come to the relief of the Government, under tlie recent call of the 
President for one hundred days' troops. 

"The National Guard of Ohio, by its promptness in responding to said call, has won an 
immortality of honor, and justice to it demands that all recusants should be promptly punished, 
and the Guard relieved from the odium of so disgraceful a course of action. 

"To the honor of the Guard, it is announced that the above company was the only one 
among the forty-two regiments sent to the field that lacked faltli in the honor of their State and 
adopted country, and refused to fly to the relief when the fate of the country was trembling in 
the balance. 

"They can return to their homes and say to their friends and neighbors that they have 
regarded their country and its safety as secondary to their own personal ease and security; and 
that in the hour of most imminent peril to that Government which had received and protected 
them when aliens, they basely betrayed their trust, and refused to follow their gallant comrades 
to the field of honor and of danger. 

" No member of said company will be allowed to enlist in any other company of the National 
Guard, under any circumstances whatever, as men who wish to be 'soldiers in peace and citizens 
in war,' will not be allowed to disgrace the Guard, or peril the State and Nation by their pres- 
ence and example. 

''By order of the Governor: B. R. COWEN, Adjutant-General of Ohio." 

The sudden summons of the National Guard to active service was specially 
like!}" to lead to suffering among the families thus left, at a week's warning, 
unprovided for. Profoundly alive to this aspect of the movement, Governor 
Brough lost no time in appealing to the citizens at home for aid 

" Executive Department, Columbus, May 9, 1864. 
"To THE Military Committees and the People op the State: 

"The departure of the National Guard from the State, in the service of the country, will 
necessarily work much individual hardship. In many cases in each county, families of laboring 
men, dependent on the daily labor of the head, will be left almost wholly unprovided for. The 
compensation of the soldier will not enable him to provide for the daily wants of his family. We 
who remain at home, protected by the patriotism and sacrifices of these noble men, must not per- 
mit their families to suffer. The prompt response of the Guard to the call has reflected 
honor upon the State. We must not sully it by neglecting the wants of those our gallant troops 
leave behind. No such stain must rest upon the fair character of our people. 

" As organized, is ever better than individual action, I .suggest to the people of the several 
counties that they promptly raise, by voluntary contribution, a suflScient sum to meet the proba- 
ble wants of the families of the Guards, who may require aid, and place the same in the hunds 
of the military committee of the county, for appropriation and distribution. The committee can des- 
ignate one or two good men in each township who will cheerfully incur the trouble and labor of pass- 
ing upon all cases in their townships, and of drawing and paying such appropriation as may be made 
to them. Citizens, let this fund be ample. Let those whom God has blessed with abundance con- 
tribute to it freely. It is not a charity to which you may give grudgingly. It is payment of only 
part of the debt we all owe the brave men who have responded to the call of the country, and 
whose action is warding off" from us deadly perils, and saving us from much more serious sacri- 
fices. What is all your wealth to you if your Government be subverted? What the value of 
your stores if your public credit or finances be ruined, or Rebel armies invade and traverse your 
State? Be liberal and generous then in this emergency. Let no mother, wife, or child of the 
noble Guard want the comforts of life during the hundred days; and let these noble men feel on 
their return that the people of the State appreciated, and have, to some extent, relieved the sacri- 
fices they so promptly made in the hour of the country's need. 

" As these families do not come within tlie means provided by the Relief Law, we must look 
to voluntary contributions to provide for them. In aid of these, I feel authorized to appropriate 
the sum of five thousand dollars from the Military Contingent Fund. This sum will be appor- 
tioned among the several counties in proportion to the number of the Guard drawn from each, 
and the chairman of the military committee early notified of the amount subject to his order. 



218 Ohio in the War. 

"In many cases men have left crops partly planted, and fields sown, that in due time must 
be harvested or lost. In each township and county there should be at once associations of men 
at home who will resolve, that, to the extent of their ability, they will look to these things. It is 
not only the dictate of patriotism, but of good citizenship, that we make an extra exertion to 
save the crops to the country, and the accruing value to the owners, who, instead of looking to 
seed-time and harvest, are defending us from invasion and destruction. Men of the cities and 
towns, when the harvest is ready for the reaper, give a few days of your time, and go forth by 
the dozens and fifties to the work. The labor may be severe, but the sacrifice will be small, and 
the reflection of the good you have done will more than compensate you for it all. 

" In this contest for the supremacy of our Government, and the salvation of our country, 
Ohio occupies a proud position. Her standard must not be lowered ; rather let us advance it to 
the front. No brighter glory can be reflected on it than will result from a prompt and generous 
support to the families of the Guard. Let us all to the work. 

" Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

A few days afterward, changing his vieAvs as to the j)roper interpretation 
of the law providing relief for soldiers' families, the Governor addressed a sep- 
arate appeal to the military committees of the several counties : 

"Executive Department, Columbus, May 16, 1864. 
"To the Military Committees: 

"Upon more careful examination of the provisions of the Relief Law, I feel constrained to 
change my former position as to the right of families of the National Guard to its benefits. They 
have the same rights as families of other soldiers in the service. Still, our people should bear in 
mind that with the large addition thus made to the dependent families of soldiers, this fund will 
now be severely burdened. The taxation was made on the basis of our quotas under the calls. 
We have now added over thirty thousand men; and to that extent have increased the number of 
families that will require aid. Therefore, it is necessary that we should add to the fund, by vol- 
untary contribution, to the extent, at least, of this increase of its liability. You should see that 
your county commissioners levy the discretionary tax for this year; or, at least have a clear 
record of a refusal to do so. 

"Some complaints in regard to the action of trustees in the distribution of this fund, are an- 
swered in this form : 

"1. It is asked. Where the absent soldier owns a house and lot, or a small tract of land on 
which his family resides, is the family thereby debarred from relief? Certainly not; unless the 
property, independent of furnishing a home for the family, is productive of the means of support- 
ing it. Unproductive property may be an incumbrance, in the way of taxes and other expenses. 
Sensible and well-meaning men should not have any trouble in deciding questions of this kind. 
A helpless family may not be able to work ground, even to the partial extent of a livelihood. 
The simple question with practical men should be: Does the family, considering all its circum- 
stances, its capability to produce, its ordinary industry and economy, need aid to live comfort^i- 
bly? If so, the aid should be extended. It is mortifying to add, that in a few cases trustees are 
represented as deciding that where the family held a small homestead, entirely unproductive, it 
was not entitled to relief until the property be sold, and its proceeds consumed. Such a position 
is at variance alike with the provisions of the law, and the dictates of humanity. 

" 2. It is asked whether the family of a deceased soldier in receipt of a Government pension 
is entitled to relief? The answer depends upon the circumstances, sensibly viewed. Is the pen- 
sion, considering the size and helplessness of the family, suflicient for its support? If not, relief 
should be extended from the fund, and the amount of the pension is to be taken into the account 
when equalizing the fund in the township. 

"Other questions that may arise should be settled, not by the strict rules of legal refinement, 
but upon the principles of practical common sense. The trust should be liberally and honestly 
construed. There is no requirement to practice a niggardly economy, but to fairly distribute the 
fund in the spirit of justice and humanity, and accomplish with it the greatest amount of good. 

"In cases where the military committees feel warranted in doing so, they can relieve them- 
selves of some labor and responsibility, and probably secure a more equitable distribution, by 



HuNDEED Days' Men. 219 

apportioning tlje voluntary contributions among the townships, upon the basis adopted by the 
county commissioners, and handing the amounts to the township trustees, to be paid out in the 
same manner, and as a part of the relief fund. 

"Please have this circular published in your county. 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

The service of the National Guard did not accomplish the result that had 
been expected with such confidence, alike b}^ National and State authorities. It 
did relieve the men whom Grant wanted from forts and railroads, but with these 
re-enforcements he did not win the great victory that had been expected ; the 
war was not ended within the hundred days; and, in a certain sense, therefore, 
the great movement was a failure. 

In another and larger sense it was not. In accordance with the prophetic 
declaration of her first war Governor, Ohio still led throughout the war. She 
was incomparably ahead of all the States that had united with her in the ofl:er 
of hundred days' men to the Government, alike in the numbers that she furnished 
and in the pi'omptness with which they were forwarded. Even Indiana, usually 
so near the front, fell far behind her now. The Ohio National Guai*d regiments 
guarded the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad from the river to the sea-board; thej^ 
manned the forts at Baltimore, and filled the fortifications around Washington. 
They liberated the garrisons over this great extent of territory, and thus swelled 
Grant's army with thirty thousand veterans. They grew restive under mere 
guard-duty, and finally begged that they too might go to the front.* Nearly all 
of them Avere under fire ; and none brought discredit upon the Commonwealth 
that sent them forth. Into the details of their service we can not enter here. 
Elsewhere f we have sought to tell the story of each ; it is enough here to add 
that their numbers, promptness, and uniform bearing drew forth, not only such 
eulogies as we have already quoted, but this, at the close of their service, from 
Mr. Lincoln himself: 

"Executive Mansion, Washington City,! 
September 10, 1864. / 

"The term of one hundred days, for which the National Guard of Ohio volunteered having 
expired, the President directs an official acknowledgment of their patriotism and valuable service 
during the recent campaign. The term of service of their enlistment was short, but distinguished 
by memorable events in the Valley of the Shenandoah, on the Peninsula, in the operations of the 
James River, around Petersburg and Richmond, in the battle of Monocacy, in the intrenchments 
of Washington, and in other important service. The National Guard of Ohio performed with 
alacrity the duty of patriotic volunteers, for which they are entitled, and are hereby tendered, 
through the Governor of their State, the National thanks. 

"The Secretary of War is directed to transmit a copy of this order to the Governor of Ohio, 
and to cause a certificate of their honorable service to be delivered to the officers and soldiers of 
the Ohio National Guard, who recently served in the military force of the United States as vol- 
unteers for one hundred days. 

[Signed] "ABRAHAM LINCOLN." 

In calling out the National Guard Governor Brough assumed a responsi- 
bility and ran a risk, from which all but the boldest would have shrunk back. 

*The One Hundred and Thirty-Second, Colonel Haines, of Logan County, was the first to 
ask to be sent to the front. Several others speedily followed, 
t Volume II, Sketches National Guard Regiments. 



220 Ohio in the War. 

It did uot accomplish all the good he hoped, and it may have helped to swell 
the unpopularity which we are next to see growing at home and in the army 
against him. But it was through no fault of his that Grant was foiled in the 
AVilderness, and faced with Lee's steady front at every bloody step of his painful 
progress toward Richmond. Brough had done what he could to " organize 
victory;" he had kept the .State, whose honor he so jealously guarded, far in 
advance of all her sisters, and had displayed an energy and devotion beyond all 
praise. Others of his actions may have produced more lasting good, but none 
displayed more consummate ability, and none reflected brighter honor upon the 
State. 



Bkough's Troubles with Officers. 221 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



BROUGH'S TROUBLES WITH OFFICERS, AND HIS FAILURE TO 

BE RENOMINATED. 



THE anomalous position of regimental officers — owing their commissions 
to the Governor of their State, but owing him no obedience — looking 
to him for promotions, but looking elsewhere for the orders under which 
promotions must be won — has alread}^ been described. It insured difficulty 
between the Governor and his officers, no matter what policy of promotion 
he might adopt. Governor Tod had preferred to get on without a policy. At 
onetime he would promote according to rank, at another time in spite of rank ; 
now he would give the ranking Sergeant the vacant Second-Lieutenancy ; again 
he Avould jump a Captain over the heads of all superiors to the vacant Lieuten- 
ant-Colonelcy ; to-day he would be governed by the recommendations of the 
Colonel ; to-morroW by the recommendations of military committees or personal 
acquaintances; the next day by the apparent sentiment of the regiment; the 
next by the requirements of rank. 

That this was unwise is not here argued. Perhaps it was well thus to set- 
tle each case as it arose, upon such varying considerations as should seem to 
suggest the need of a peculiar treatment ; certainly it resulted in less difficult}* 
than a contrary course was to bring on. But Governor Brough was a man ot 
severe methods. He must work on clearly-defined rules, or he could work with 
no satisfaction. 

One of his earliest efforts, therefore, was to secure a system of promotions. 
He saw the evils resulting from promotion on the recommendation of the com- 
manding officer, the openings it gave for tyranny and for favoritism, the abso- 
lute mastery of the fortunes of subordinates it secured to the Colonel. Looking 
to the regulations and the orders of the War Department, he saw a wa}' pro- 
vided for driving out incompetent officers, and where they were not incompe- 
tent, he conceived it unjust to ignore their rank in making promotions to fill 
vacancies. It was a cardinal theory with him to bear only his legitimate respon- 
sibilities, and to compel all others to do as much. He was unwilling to assume 
the responsibility of punishing inefficient officers in the field; that was made 
the duty of those who were conversant with the facts, and were therefore able 
to resort to the remedy in the regulations. tie would, therefore, promote 



222 Ohio in the Wae. 

according to rank, save in cases where known intemperance would make this 
course one of immediate danger to tlie command, and would put upon the reg- 
iment itself the task of ridding its roster of men who proved unfit, and who 
stood in the way of the promotion of others. 

Actino- on such views he early promulgated his noted " General Order No. 
5," the fertile source of many of the troubles which embittered his administra- 
tion, and turned the officers of the army against him : 

"General Head-Quarters, State of Ohio, "I 
" Adjutant-General's Office, Columbus, February 6, 1864. J 

"General Orders No. 5. 

" Hereafter, all vacancies in established reghnents, battalions, or independent companies will 
be filled by promotion according to seniority in the regiment, battalion, or independent company, 
except in cases of intemperance. 

" Existino- orders from the War Department afford the necessary facilities for ridding the 
service of incompetent or inefficient officers, by ordering them before an examining board, which 
will relieve the Governor from the disagreeable necessity of deciding the merits of an officer on 
the mere opinion of the regimental or other commander. 

" Section ten of an act of Congress, approved July 22, 1861 (General Orders No. 49, series 
of 1861), provides as follows: 

" ' That the General commanding a separate Department or detached army, is hereby author- 
ized to appoint a military board or commission of not less than three nor more than five officers, 
whose duty it shall be to examine the capacity, qualifications, propriety of conduct and efficiency 
of any commissioned officer of volunteers within his Department or army, who may be reported 
to the board or commission, and upon such report, if adverse to such officer, and if approved by 
the President of tlie United States, the commission of such officer shall be vacated ; Provided, 
always, that no officer shall be eligible to sit on such board or commission whose rank or pro- 
motion would in any way be affected by its proceedings, and two members, at least, if practicable, 
shall be of equal rank of the officer being examined.' 

" No officer shall be deprived of his right to promotion on the mere expression of his com- 
manding officer that he is not competent to discharge the duties of the position to which his seni- 
ority entitles him. 

" In the case of promotions of sergeants the same rule will govern, and for this reason : com- 
manding officers of regiments and other organizations will give careful attention to the appoint- 
ment of^non-commissioned officers, that none but competent, proper, and efficient men shall be 
brought into the line of promotion. 

" Officers who seek to be detailed on duty which detaches them from their commands, will be 
considered out of the line of promotion during their continuance on such detached service. No- 
tice of such detail must be furnished this department, and also notice of the time they are 
returned to their commands. 

" Commanding officers must promptly deliver all commissions to the parties for whom they 

are intended. By order : , ^ ^, . „ 

" B. E. COWEN, Adjutant-General of Ohio." 

Abstract theory would pronounce this rule perfect; practical results might 
give a different verdict. The leading officers claimed that Governor Brough did 
not always act on his own regulation, and they were opposed to it at any rate 
from the start, for very obvious reasons. Their power to promote or retard 
promotions was measurably taken away ; and it was from this an easy step 
to open hostility against the man who had done it. Then Governor Brough 
himself was led, by the logic of his position, into becoming more and more the 
champion of the private soldier as against the officer, and of the subordinate 
officer as against his superiors. That a strong sense of justice to the weak 



Bkough's Troubles with Officers. 223 

inspired this is plain ; tliat it proved sometimes subversive of all commonly- 
accepted rules of subordination and militaiy etiquette can not be denied. 

Disputes with the officers in the field soon sprang up. For a time these 
were kept within bounds, but as the officers began to feel more and more out- 
raged, they threw off the tone of deference to the Governor. He, on the other 
hand, treated them as he would his railroad operatives; held them to the same 
rigid performance of duty; rebuked with as little search for soft phrases when 
he thought they were neglecting their work. Thus, by and by, a state of 
affairs sprang up which led to the most acrimonious correspondence, to the dis- 
missal of officers for disrespect to the Governor, and to a combination of officei's 
against Brough's renomination. 

To such a pass did things come that, on a reference by the Governor to the 
Colonel of a regiment of a complaint which a soldier of the regiment had 
chosen to send to the Governor, this extraordinary interchange of indorsements 
on the soldier's letter could ensue : 

" He AD-QuAKTERS Second Brigade, Third Division Fourth A. C.,") 

"New Market, March 25, 1865. J 
■'Respectfully returned. This communication to the Governor is a studied assault on my 
character as an officer, and should not have received the official attention of the Commander-in- 
Chief of the military of Ohio. It certainly will receive no attention from me until it shall have 
gone to the Governor through the soldier's commanding officer. This private channel of slan- 
dering military officers, has been too freely used, and has certainly received tacit sanction at the 
Capital. As inattention to a soldier's wants and rights by an officer is among the gravest of 
-ofl'enses, so is such a charge, when not well founded, a low slander. 

" If his Excellency desires to know the history of this case, it will affiDrd me pleasure to give 
it, but his request must in no way indorse the grave charges of wanton cruelty against me. 
"Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" H. K. McCONNELL, Colonel Seventy-First Ohio Infantry." 

Executive Department, Columbus, April 13, 1865. 

"Returned to Colonel McConnell as unofficer-like and insolent. It is alike the prerogative 
and the duty of the Commander-in-Chief to hear and investigate the complaints of the humblest 
private against the acts of his commanding officer. He does not acknowledge any regulation 
requiring a private to ask permission of the officer, of whose injustice he comphiins, to graciously 
permit him to forward his petition. In every case of this kind the officer has been first called 
upon for a statement of facts or explanation of the case, and the officer who throws himself upon 
his dignity, and talks of slander and defamation, naturally provokes the suspicion that he has no 
better explanation or defense. Colonel McConnell can act his own pleasure in regard to farther 
report in this case. He can have no mitigation of the terms in which it was originally called for. 
In the mean time, he can rest assured that this department will receive the complaint, and 
redress, as far as practicable, the grievances of the soldiers of the State, as it will protect itself 
from the insolence of officers who do not comprehend the courtesies and duties of their positions. 

"By order of the Governor. SIDNEY D. MAXWELL, 

"A. D. C, etc., to Governor Brough." 

Long before this, a gallant officer, soon to lay down his life for the cause, 
had been betrayed by the feeling which was already spreading among men of 
his rank against the Governor, into a letter which drew out this response: 

" Executive Department, Columbus, March 8, 1864. 
"Colonel Daniel McCook, Fifty-Second Regiment 0. V. I., McAffee Church, Oeorgia: 

"Sir: When the Colonel of the Fifty-Second Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry clothes his 
communications in language becoming 'an officer and a gentleman,' they will be courteously 



224 Ohio in the Wak. 

responded to. How true his allegations may be as to the Provost-Marshal, I have not taken the 
trouble to inquire; but as to this department, both directly and inferentially, they are alike 
insulting and unfounded. As I can not present as disrespectful a communication as this to the 
Provost-Marshal, I leave Colonel McCook to redress his own grievances, until he appreciates a 
more courteous and respectful manner in seeking it through this department. 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

While thus addressing oflScers who treated him with disrespect, he was 
remorselessly hunting down others whom he believed to be shirks, in a manner 
which these letters that follow may illustrate: 

"Executive Department, Columbus, July 21, 1864. 
''Major W. G. Neilson, Annapolis, Maryland: 

"Sir: I am surprised to learn to-day that you left the regiment on the second day of May, 
and have not been with it since; that a part of the time you have been sick, but the greater 
portion you have been managing to keep on detached service out of the field. I do not know 
how much of this is true, but so long an absence from the regiment requires an explanation. I 
have no fancy for officers who play off from their regiments, and I have therefore written the 
War Department requesting that your case be investigated. 

"The regiment requires its officers; if you can not serve in your line of duty, you should not 
prevent another from doing so. Yours truly, JOHN BROUGH." 

" Executive Department, Columbus, August 5, 1864. 
"Major W. G. Neilson, Twenty-Seventh Regiment U. S. Colored Troops, Elmira, New York: 

"Dear Sir: I have yours of the 3d instant. I gave you reports that reached me, and of 
the truth of which I had no knowledge, while I have not charged you with any improper con- 
duct or shirking from duty (though others have done so), and do not make any such charges now. 
I am still impressed with the fact that in the critical condition of your regiment you should not 
have laid sixty days inactive without at least some eflbrt to relieve it, or some communica- 
tion with this department. It is very certain that your prestige with the regiment is 
gone. I will have it full to the maximum in fifteen days, and it needs officers badly. As you 
admit you can not return to it, the question is with yourself whether you will deprive it of an 
officer, and remain a drone in the service. 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH, Governor of Ohio." 

The Governor was no less outspoken in defense of officers whom he believed 
to be doing their duty, and against whom prejudicial efforts were making at 
head-quarters or in the department. Of his representations on this class of 
subjects, the letter below may serve as a sample, while it also illustrates his 
views of the strong practice at elections which the times would warrant: 

" Executive Department, Columbus, October 14, 1864. 
" Major-GeneraIi Hooker, Comnuinding Department, Cincinnati : 

" Sir : I am informed that Colonel Greene, in charge of draft rendezvous here, is asking 
that Major Skiles, Eighty-Eighth Regiment O. V. I., in charge of Tod Barracks here, be 
relieved and superseded. I have not had any conversation with Colonel Greene myself, but my 
information comes from responsible parties. Major Skiles is one of the very best officers we 
have in service here. His offense, I arii informed, is that he acted as marshal of a Union torch- 
light procession here on Saturday night, and on election day refused to allow Mr. Congressman 
Cox to go within the barracks to electioneer among the soldiers, where the poll was opened. 
On the one hand, it is said that Colonel Greene is a sympathizer with General McClellan ; of 
this I have no evidence. On the other hand, an army officer states his position to be that he 
holds it improper for an army officer, either regular or volunteer, to take any part in elections 
beyond his vote. On whichever ground it is placed is to me immaterial. Major Skiles has 
done his duty as an officer, and I hold he is doing it as a citizen, and in both he is sustaining 
the Government and aiding to crush the rebellion. I therefore respectfully protest against his 
being superseded therefor. Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 



Brough'S Troubles with Officers. 225 

We have spoken of the charge by the officers that Governor Brough did 
not uniformly adhere to his own rule about promotions, as laid down in " Order 
No. 5.' They pointed to a class of cases like that of Captain Mayer as proof: 

" Executive Department, Columbus, November 17, 1864. 
" Brigadier-General .J. P. Hatch, Jacksonville, Florida : 

" Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge your favor of the 26th instant. While I have 
great respect for your opinions, I think I have fully examined and understand the troubles in 
the One Hundred and Seventh Regiment. Captain M:iyer is, in my judgment, so intimately 
connected with them that his promotion to tlie command would be a step I can not consent to 
take. I frankly told iiim so when he called on me, some months since ; and I further said, 
what I now repeat, that I would hail his resignation as a token of future promise and usefulness 
of the regiment. I have seriously thought of asking his removal by the War Department, but 
have heretofore forborne, what, upon less provocation, I shall hereafter do. During my absence 
the Adjutant-General sent him a commission as Major, which I directed should be revoked. 

"In the hope of promoting the efficiency of the regiment, I have to-day appointed Captain 
J. S. Cooper Lieutenant-Colonel, and sent him to the regiment. He is a good officer and known 
to the command. He is conversant with the troubles in the regiment, and I trust he will be 
able, by a conciliatory but firm course, to remedy them. I shall not permit Captain Mayer to 
embarrass him for an hour after that fact comes to my knowledge. I have no personal feeling 
in the matter; my only object is to promote the harmony and efficiency of the regiment. 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

The letter-books of Bi-ough's administration, in the State archives (from 
which the documents here are taken), swarm witli similar evidences of his 
activity, his remorseless pursuit of men whose conduct he thought unsatisfac- 
tory, his habitual disregard of the dignity of officers, his championship of the 
private soldiers, his watchfulness for those he suspected to be shirks. Thus, 
within two or three weeks after his inauguration, we find him addressing the 
Secretary of War* concerning Colonel De Haas, of tlie Seventy-Seventh Ohio r. 
" The fact is presented that during twenty-one months' service of said regiment,, 
since Colonel Mason took command. Colonel De Haas has been with it but one 
hundred and sixty-one days, and those Avere during the time it was not en- 
gaged in field service. He has been in action with it but once, and that but 
two hours ; and my information is (from other sources than Colonel Mason) 
that his record on that occasion is anything else than honorable. ... On 
seven da^-s' furlough he has been absent six months. . . . The regiment 
should not be sent back under this officer. . . . He stands in the way of 
the promotion of officers who have shared the privations of the regiment. If 
the power were mine I would find a way to right this wrong." 

A few days later,f we find him Avriting to Colonel J. A. Lucy, of the One 
Hundred and Fifteenth Ohio: "You will save yourself and your officers some 
trouble and improve the morale of your regiment by refraining from sending 
me the proceedings of indignation meetings on the subject of promotions. If 
an error is committed by this department it does not require the machinery of 
a national convention to have it corrected ! " 

Some soldiers in the Second Ohio Heavy Ai-tillery complained that they 
had been treated with unjust cruelty by some of the officers. Brough straight- 

* On 25th January, 1864. t February 11, 1864. 

Vol. I.— 15. 



226 Ohio in the War. 

way wrote to General Steedman, in whose command the regiment was, asking 
that the complaints be quietly investigated. 

He defended " Order No. 5 " against all complaints, and wanted it adopted 
as the rule also in the promotions beyond the rank of Colonel. " Let me illus- 
trate," he said, in the course of a long letter about affairs in Sherman's army. 
" The nomination of Colonel Harker to a Brigadier-Generalship has cost us 
four of the best Colonels in the army. He was ]S"o. 16 in the rank of Ohio 
Colonels ; and, of the fifteen ranking him, twelve at least were as meritorious 
as himself. Two of these have resigned and been discharged the service hon- 
orably. Two more have resignations j^ending." 

In this matter he had been opposed by Senator John Sherman, between 
whom and himself strife as to promotions seems to have been common. On 
another occasion, Brough having recommended Colonels Yan Derveer and Gibson 
for Brigadier-Generalships, Sherman wrote to him, asking that he would with- 
draw these recommendations, for the purpose of insuring the promotion of 
Colonel Stanley. Brough replied : "I respectfully protest against the injustice 
of ovei'slaughing his (Stanley's) ranking officers, who are his equals in merit." 

In the re-enlistment of the veterans, Fuller's well-known brigade was 
credited to Tennessee instead of Ohio, to the great astonishment of the officers, 
as well as of the Governor. Colonel Edw. P. Noyes, of the Thirty-Ninth, and 
other officers concerned, wrote earnestly to the Governor on the subject, pro- 
testing against the change. He seems finally to have been convinced that Ful- 
ler himself was to blame for it, and that the new muster-rolls had been pur- 
posely made to show that the enlistment took place in Tennessee (which was 
technically true), for the purpose of compelling Ohio to raise more troops. 
Brough thereupon writes to Judge Spaulding at Washington, complaining of 
Fuller's action, and adding : " I submit whether these facts constitute a good 
reason for his promotion to a Brigadier-Generalship." * 

Thus, on all hands, Brough 's brusque ways with the officers, and his utter 
indifference to their feelings when he felt they were in the wrong, were raising 
up enemies for him, whose enmity was to prove potential. A case was yet to 
come which should attract more general attention, and seem to the army to 
involve some elements of persistent injustice. On this the feeling against 
him concentrated. It was a much-disputed case, but the facts generally agreed 
upon were about these : 

In accordance with a policy which we have seen to be somewhat common 
with him. Governor Tod had given a commission to Sergeant John M. Wood- 
ruff, of the One Hundred and Eleventh, on condition that he should recruit 
thirty men for the regiment, and take them back Avith him to the field. Two 
days after Governor Brough's inauguration Woodruff reported at Columbus, 
gave proofs of having the men, and received the commission in due form. 
When, however, he presented himself in the field to Colonel J. E. Bond, the 
commandant of the regiment, that officer took his commission, but refused to 

* A movement for which was then on foot. The rolls were finally changed, and the regi- 
ments thus restored to Ohio. 



Brough's Troubles with Officers. 227 

muster him into the service, for the reasons, as subsequently appeared, (1), that 
Woodruff had been commissioned without any recommendation from the regi- 
ment, not having been even sent home to recruit, but to conduct drafted men 
back to the regiment; (2), that some of the men whom he claimed as recruits, 
entitling him to the commission, had not been recruited by him; and (3), that 
he merited no promotion by behavior either in the regiment or at home. 

Governor Brough did not learn for some months that his commisaioH to 
Woodruff was being ignored. The news then came in a letter of complaint 
from Woodruff himself, dated 22d May, 1864. He thereupon asked Colonel 
Bond to report the reasons for preventing his muster. To this the onl}- response 
received was as follows : 

" Head-Quakters One Hundred and Eleventh O. V. I., ] 
Near Acworth, Georgia, June 9, 1864. j 
" Respectfully returned to the Adjutant-General of Oliio, a report having been made in the 
case to the department. 

(Signed) "JOHN R. BOND, Colonel One Hundred and Eleventh O. V. I." 

This Brough construed as referring to a report sent to the War Depart- 
ment, and as, therefore, intimating that the matter was one with which the 
Governor of Ohio had nothing to do, and on which the Colonel did not pro- 
pose to be catechised. Meantime Woodruff had been severely wounded and 
crippled for life, and the Governor had issued to him, in acknowledgment of 
his gallantry, a commission as First-Lieutenant. He now at once forwarded to 
the Secretary of War Woodruff's letter, the inquirj^ of the Adjutant-General, 
and Bond's reply — making no recommendation, but calling the Secretary's at- 
tention to the language of Bond's reply, and stating that he had failed to report 
as requested. 

The Secretary of War had a profound admiration for Governor Brough, as 
had also the President. They held him the ablest of the Governors, relied im- 
plicitly upon him, and about this time were specially grateful to him for the 
splendid keeping of his promise of hundred-days' men. The result could, of 
course, be foreseen. A special order was promptly issued, " dishonorably dis- 
missing Colonel Bond from the service for refusing to recognize the commis- 
sions of the Governor of Ohio." A copy of this order was sent to Brough, but 
no other correspondence was had on the subject. 

Subsequently Colonel Bond explained that the report referred to in his 
offensive indorsement above quoted was in reality one which he had previously 
sent to the Governor on this case, which had never been received. Supposing 
that before his reply could reach Columbus this report must come to hand, and 
that, therefore, his indorsement would be understood, and a longer explanation 
needless, he sent it as quoted, being the more disposed to be very brief where 
he could, because they were then in the midst of the Atlanta campaign and on 
the march. He had many warm friends in Toledo, who interested themselves 
in his case, and made efforts, both at Columbus and Washington, to have him 
reinstated. To this end a special order was finally procured from General 
Halleck, directing him, as an indispensable preliminary, to make a satisfactory 



228 Ohio in the Wae. 

apology to Governor Brough. On this document, when received, Brough 
placed the following indorsement : 

" Executive Department, Columbus, November 12, 1864. 

" The within is, probably, a technical fulfillment of the order of the Secretary of War, but, 
in my judgment, it is deficient in the elements of repentance and frankness. It does not meet 
the fact that Colonel Bond had determined, from favoritism to others and personal repugnance, 
that Woodruff should not be mustered. 

" The record shows that after a personal interview with the Adjutant-General of Ohio, in 
August, he went to his regiment and reported that the commission would be revoked, and mus- 
tered another man over him, thus filling the only vacancy in the regiment. 

" The Adjutant-General says he made no such communication. The averment that Wood- 
ruff had not recruited his men is a pretext. He produced evidence of that fact when the com- 
mission was issued. Captain Beal's statement that he recruited the men is not justified. 

"In my judgment the good of the regiment and of the service require that Colonel Bond 
should be relieved from his command, for these reasons : 

" 1. This is his second offense of this character. In 1862 Governor Tod was compelled to 
procure a special order of the War Department to muster a Lieutenant and Adjutant. The 
offense was passed over. 

" 2. He has passed a large portion of his time away from his regiment. He has been twice 
arrested for gross intemperance, and was six months absent from the regiment at home under 
one of these arrests. Both arrests were released without trial, under promise of reformation. 

" 3. He has been, and is now, in political sentiment, opposed to the head of the Govern- 
ment, and, consequently, its policy in the prosecution of the war ; and in this particular is very 
obnoxious to a large majority of ^his command. 

" He appeals to have the stigma of a dismissal removed. While I respectfully, but ear- 
nestly, protest against his being assigned to command again, I have no objections, if the De- 
partment sanctions such a course, to a reinstation, accompanied by an immediate resignation. I 
leave this for the Secretary to determine. I am convinced the service would be benefited by the 
retiracy in one form or the other. JOHN BROUGH, Governor of Ohio." 

Some, at least, of the charges thus made could probably have been sus- 
tained ; but there was a good deal of sympathy with Bond, especially among 
the officers of the army. He was said to be brave, and a good fighting Colonel, 
and to such a man they held that much ought to be pardoned. The matter got 
into the newspapers ; several of the most influential journals of the State 
attacked Brough's course in the case, as exhibiting a petty spirit of personal 
i-evenge and an unwillingness to drop his cause of quarrel after the most sat- 
isfactory apologies. The latent hostility to the Governor, which his previous, 
treatment of many others had aroused, now broke out openly, and he speedily 
became intensely unpopular, with a large portion of the officers, at least, of 
that army which, a year before, had given him forty-one thousand votes, to 
only two thousand against him. 

We can now see that much of this feeling was unwarranted. Among the 
confidential letters in the State Archives, for the term of Brough's administra- 
tion, is one on this subject, touchingly expressing his appeal to the safe judg- 
ment of time, which may be properly made public. It is addressed to Colonel 
W. H. Drew, then the acting military agent of the State at Chattanooga. This 
gentleman seems to have expressed fears as to the effect which the feeling 
aroused by the Bond case would have on the Governor's political prospects. He 
replied on the 20th of February, 1865, explaining the facts at some length, and 
concluding in this wise and temperate strain : 



Brough's Failure to be Renominated. 229 

"This is a simple history of the affair. I had no personal feeling in it — never saw Colonel 
Bond until he first called on me — never had any controversy with him until it grew out of this 
affair. I treated him and his counsel with uniform courtesy and kindness; heard them patiently, 
and assured tiiem I had no offended dignity to avenge and propitiate. My only object was the 
good of the service, and to prevent the return to it of an officer who I conscientiously believed 
should not be there. I understand the case is now under review at Washington. I can not tell 
what may be its result, but I am satisfied I have done nothing but ray duty in regard to it. 

" Personally, I am very indifferent as to political consequences to myself on account of this, 
or any other of my public acts. The most earnest desire I have is to be permitted to retire 
from a position I did not seek, and really involuntarily assumed. I am equally indifferent a.s to 
who may be my successor, though I confess to some anxiety that he shall be one who will make 
it a cardinal principle not to put in the military service, or continue there, officers who disqualify 
themselves by intemperate habits or immoral conduct. 

"Now for the moral of this long story. You, as well as myself, have an important duty to 
perform toward our men who can not help themselves. To do this successfully, we must some- 
times crucify our feelings and our animosities. We may think wrong is being done — that friends 
are being injured — that improper means are being used to forward ambitious purposes. But we 
must pass this all by in the present. Time and truth will set all things right. To hasten this 
end we must avoid controversies with those who have power that they can use, either to favor or 
injure the success of our labors. Your relation to the commander is such that you should be 
extremely cautious as to your feelings and utterance where third parties are concerned. If he 
looks to high political position you need not become his partisan, but you should not become his 
opponent, nor make him yours in such form as to impair your usefulness to the men under your 
charge. Avoid harsh expressions, avoid controversies, avoid even allusion to an irritating sub- 
ject. While I personally appreciate and prize your friendship for and confidence in me, I would 
not for a moment you should weaken your own position or usefulness by assuming my defense 
against any charges or imputations. Living or dead, I have no fears of any assaults that may be 
made upon my public acts. I know they have all been dictated by honest motives. They may 
be marked by errors, but not by weakness or dishonesty. And so time and truth will prove 
them. 

" This is a miserable scrawl, but I have not time to re-write. Accept in a purely confiden- 
tial character, and believe me Very truly yours, 

"JOHN BROUGH." 

Other causes combined to increase the unpopularitj' which originated in the 
army. The Governor was rough, harsh, and implacable with men who were 
guilty of little offenses. His honesty was fierce and aggressive, and it led him 
to denounce many men for practices which the most considered quite in the line 
of official precedents. He utterly scorned the arts of popularity, and refused 
to court the "local great men" of Columbus and other political centers in the 
State. His manners were often offensive, and his personal habits, in some 
respects at least, if not in all with which he was freely charged, were not cor- 
rect. Besides all this, the call on the National Guard had left some soreness in 
the minds of many people whom it inconvenienced. 

He still had hosts of friends throughout the State; men who could overlook 
all minor considerations in their admiration for his splendid ability, and their 
gratitude for the incorruptible honesty, the economy, and the wonderful and 
wise zeal that had marked his service of the State. These urged him to be a 
candidate for renomination. For a time he held the question under advisement, 
declaring that he would consider it only in the light of what would be best for 
the Union party. Then he wrote to all who addressed him on the subject, that 
while he believed he might secure a nomination, he was unwilling to struggle 



230 Ohio in the War. 

for it; that it would be better for the party to have a candidate who would 
arouse less personal hostilit}^, and that he would not enter the contest. And 
finally he addressed this frank and characteristic communication to the press: 

"CoLUMBtrs, June 15, 1865. 
" To THE People of Ohio : 

"I accepted the nomination of the Union party for Governor of Ohio two years ago with 
unfeio-ned reluctance. I did not seek or desire it, and I only accepted from considerations of 
public duty, which, in view of the state of the country, it clearly imposed upon me. I came into 
office with the firm determination that if the military power of the rebellion should be broken, 
• and the war closed during the first term of my administration — which I confidenily anticipated — 
under no circumstances would I be a candidate for re-election. This determination I freely com- 
municated to my friends. During the past spring, under pressing importunities from nearly 
every section of the State, I allowed this position to be modified to this extent, that while I would 
not seek the nomination, and did not desire it, yet if it was conferred with a reasonable degree of 
unanimity and good feeling, I would not decline it. I however reserved to myself the privilege 
of following my original purpose, and withdrawing my name from the canvass whenever, in my 
judgment, the same should become requisite to the harmony of the convention and the success 
of its nominations. 

" Many prominent men of the Union organization will bear me witness that I have frequently 
uro-ed upon them the conflicts that would arise from my renomination. In times like those 
through which we have passed in the last four years, no man who filled the position, and honestly 
and conscientiously discharged the duties of the office of Governor of Ohio, could hope to escape 
censure and opposition, or fail to destroy what politicians term his 'availability' as a candidate 
for re-election. Such was the case with two of my predecessors, who were earnest, good men. I 
could not, and did not, hope to avoid the same result; and therefore I made the reservation, and 
based it upon my own judgment of passing events. Even if I desired the position, I owe the 
people of the Stale too much to embarrass their future action for the gratification of my own 
ambition. As I have no political desires, either present or future, the path of duty becomes not 
only plain, but personally pleasant. 

"After a careful survey of all the surroundings, I am entirely satisfied that the same con- 
siderations of duty that pressed upon me the acceptance of a nomination two years ago, as impe- 
riously require that I should decline it at the present time. Under this conviction, I respectfully 
but unconditionally withdrew my name from the convention and the canvass. 

" I am aware that by this decision I do violence to the wishes and feelings of a host of 
friends, whose good opinions I cherish. But they must pardon me. I have no sentiment of 
doubt or distrust, either of their friendship or good judgment; but I see my own course so clearly 
that I may not turn aside from it. 

" Of course I have no personal regrets or disappointments. On the contrary, I am highly 
gratified that I can honorably retire. I doubt very much whether my health — much impaired 
by close confinement to ofiicial duties— would sustain me through a vigorous campaign; while 
increasing years, and the arduous labor of a long life in public positions, strongly invite me to 
retirement and repose during the few years that may yet remain to me. 

" To the people of the State, who have so nobly sustained me, I owe a lasting debt of grati- 
tude. I have served them, during the trying periods of my administration, to the best of my 
ability. I know that I have done it conscientiously and honestly. I look back upon my record 
with but a single regret, and that is, that I have not been able to make it more eflfective in the 
cause of the State and Nation. Very respectfully, 

"JOHN BROUGH." 



Close of Brough's Administration. 231 



CHAPTER XIX. 



CLOSE OF BROUGH'S ADMINISTRATION. 



TO the illustrations of Governor Brough's activity for the army, for the 
soldiers in the hospitals, for recruiting, and for the advancement of 
Grant's campaign, it is fitting to add here some indications of the in- 
fluence he exerted upon the Union party. Early in 1864 he openly committed 
himself to the renomination of Mr. Lincoln for the Presidency. He seized the 
opportunity, however, of a malignant attack upon Secretary Chase, which that 
gentleman had some apparentl}^ substantial reasons for supposing to have been 
made with the connivance of the President, to address him his congratulations 
on the triumphant manner in which he had passed the investigation that ensued. 
In reply to Mr. Chase's acknowledgment of this letter he wrote again, striving 
to soften the asperities between Mr. Chase and Mr. Lincoln, and to convince 
him of the hopelessness of any effort to defeat Mr. Lincoln: 

"JUNEl, 1864. 
" Hon. S. p. Chase, Washington City, D. C. 

" My Deak Sir : An unusual pressure of business engagements has prevented an earlier 
acknowledgment of your esteemed favor of the 19th instant. I confess I feel highly gratified, 
not only that you found some benefit, however slight, in the suggestions I had the honor of 
making to you, but that you appreciate and so kindly credit me with the motives that prompted 
them. Not the least of these, let me now assure you, was the cordial personal friendship which 
I have ever entertained for you ; a sentiment I have cherished from the first day of our acquaint- 
ance, and which no difference of opinion in public matters has ever interfered with. I confess to 
you I had other motives— the condition of the country, the value and importance of your serv- 
ices in the Treasury, the disaster that would follow a breach in the public councils and your 
retiracv, the shock to our whole system of credit and finance — but I felt that all these were 
reconcilable with the personal desire I had for the preservation of your own high character and 
reputation. I was satisfied then, and am now, that your best vindication, and your highest meed 
of honor, would be found in remaining at your post, and demanding through your friends in Con- 
gress a full investigation of the charges made against you. I urged that course on the Ohio del- 
egation, and they pledged themselves to it. The resuk has justified you nobly before the 
country. It has sustained you, and sustained your friends. You stand better before the Nation 
to-day than if Blair had not afibrded you the opportunity for so triumphant a vindication. I 
know this result has been reached at a terrible cost of personal feeling to yourself— but these 
things are ever so. It is the penalty men pay in this age for inflexibly holding and pursuing a 
course dictated by honor and integrity. It is said that every worldly affliction has its consola- 
tion. Yours must be that your personal suSering is immensely less than would have been the 
consciousness that you merited the reproaches cast upon you, and that your friends could not suc- 
cessfully vindicate your official conduct. I am more than gratified if I contributed to a result 



232 Ohio in the Wak. 

that I xm satisfied has alike enured to your benefit and the protection of the Nation from a 
serious disaster. 

"While I have no palliation for the course of Blair, you must allow me to say, in all kindness, 
that I think you in error in attributing any portion of his malignaty to the promptings or even 
the knowledge of the President. I think Mr. Lincoln erred in his original promise to reinstate 
Blair in the army. Having given that pledge, his innate honesty of character prompted him to 
keep it. I think that at the last moment he saw that error more clearly than he did the means 
of correcting it. But I am most certain that it was no part of his purpose to prompt or even to jus- 
tify Blair's hostility to you. The whole affair has been an unfortunate one. I do not feel willing 
to discuss it; but while, with my knowledge of all the facts, I concede that a little sterner course 
on the part of the President would have produced better results. I do not find in them any evi- 
dence of falsity or hostility on his part toward you personally or officially. I admit that I have 
been anxious to find this so— but I do not think that my judgment has been colored by my desires 
in this particular. 

"While I would have preferred not to have opened the political campaign at so early a day, 
I accept the nomination of Mr. Lincoln as one that I think would have been made as certainly 
sixty or ninety days hence. It is to an unusual extent an impulse of the popular mind, and 
nothing but a great disaster to our cause would have changed it. I do not regard it as a measure 
of hostility to you or any other of the distinguished men whose names were connected with the 
canvass. It grows out of the circumstances, and, perhaps, the necessities of the case. It is the 
point upon which the public anxiety, for a favorable result to our great struggle, has concentrated 
as promising more of harmony and unity of action than any other. After much reflection, I am 
inclined to accept it as the best practicable result we could attain. 

"I do not sympathize in your apprehensions as to the result. I have no reasonable doubt as 
to the election of Mr. Lincoln — that is, if the Union party of the country can elect any man of 
undoubted Union sentiments and policy. That which would defeat him, would defeat any other 
man on the same platform ; that is, disaster to our cause in the field. We must achieve success 
with our arms; we must see the 'beginning of the end' of this rebellion during this year; we 
must defeat the Fabian policy of the Kebels by bold and vigorous progress — or he who foretells 
adverse political results, will not be entitled to the reputation of a prophet. But with military 
success comes political triumph; and I think I see more certain indications of that now than at 
any former period of the war. There may be, and there will be, some dissenters from this nom- 
ination; some will find one cause in the past, and others an apprehension in the future. But I 
am impressed with the peculiarity of this contest. While there is an anxious and earnest desire 
to terminate this great struggle, there is an equal purpose to terminate it rightfully, and a fixed 
determination to lay aside all prejudices, and sacrifice for the present all preferences and wishes, 
to accomplish the great end. The nearer we approach this end through the successes of our arms, 
and the firmness and energy of our Government, the more irresistible will the popular tide be- 
come — and all opposition will be swept away by it. You may see this indicated by the late con- 
vention at Cleveland. There are leading politicians enough who do not prefer Mr. Lincoln — but 
they did not cast their fortunes with that manifestation of opposition to him. They realize the 
political 'situation,' and stand back. They see the rising of the tide and wait to calculate its 
altitude. They know that the success of our cause by the military arm leaves no room to doubt 
the political result. I do not care to contemplate the other side of the picture ; but this convic- 
tion impresses itself upon my mind, that if disaster does come in the field, and we can not breast 
it under Mr. Lincoln, we should be as badly, if not worse, defeated under any other political 
leader. 

I crave your pardon for the infliction of this terribly long epistle. I did not contemplate 
the half of it when I took up my pen. It is my honest view from my own stand-point; whether 
correct or judicious, you can determine. It is hastily written, without choosing phrases, and is 
given as friend to friend in our friendly relations. I have only to repeat that though we may 
difler on these points, it is my earnest desire that these relations may not thereby be disturbed. 

" Very truly yours, JOHN BROUGH." 

Later in the Presidential campaign there vvere grave apprehensions, among 
some, of Mr. Lincoln's success, and at the time there were reports of a move- 



Close of Brough's Administration. 233 

ment designed to force him off the Eepublican ticket. Possibly with reference 
to this, the following letter was sent to Mr. Theodore Tilton : 

"CoLiJiMBUS, September 5, 1864. 
"Theodore Tilton, Esq., Editor Independent, New York: 

"Sir: I have the note under date of 3d instant of Messrs. Greeley, Godwin, and yourself. 
I answer your intei-rogatories : 

"1. I not only regard the election of Mr. Lincoln as a probability, but I am satisfied that 
unity and co-operation in the Union element can easily make it a certainty. 

"2. At this time I have no doubt of the result in the State of Ohio. 

"3. Under these convictions I answer your three interrogatories very decidedly in the neg- 

Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

The unpublished letters of the Governor abound in evidences of his con- 
tinued and constant activity for the service of the State. 

In February, 1864, he writes to the Secretary of War concerning the 
appointment of an officer from New Hampshire as Provost-Marshal for Ohio, 
after the resignation of Provost-Marshal Parrott: " Is Ohio so poor in men 
and material that it is necessary to import upon her? I have now four crippled 
Colonels who can not for some time go back to the field (either of whom is 
abundantly competent for this place), and all desiring some position of usefiil- 
Qess, biit they find themselves some morning turned out to shift for themselves. 
A.re our veterans to be made to know that their toils and dangers go for 
nothing? Is the Colonel who left his leg at Mission Ridge,* or he who came 
Prom Ringgold covered with wounds, to be told that a place he could fill in 
Ohio is reserved for some sound Colonel from New Hampshire? Have we done 
anything to merit this slight? Eespectfully, but firmly, I protest against this 
w^rong to the State and its band of war-worn veteran officers." 

In January, 1864, he writes to the Secretary of War, calling his attention 
to the exposed condition of the Border, and asking for artillery, owed by the 
Grovernment under old militia laws. Stanton at first objected; but Brough per- 
sisted until his efforts resulted in the equipment of four complete batteries, 
«vhich, during the hundred days' movement, did good service. 

He remonstrated against the injustice which kept between twenty and 
thirty independent batteries in the field from Ohio, and asked a regimental 
organization for them, that their officers might have some chance of promo- 
tion. "I more than ask," he said in a letter to the Secretaiy of War, in Febru- 
ary, 1864, "I urge that at least two regiments of artillery be created from Ohio 
batteries now in service. They are all re-enlisting — must they go back as 
independent batteries only?" 

He felt the passions of his kind at witnessing the horrible condition of some 
of the starved Union prisoners, on their return from Southern confinement. A 
relative of General Cass, of Michigan, and a personal friend of his own, wrote 
to him about this time, asking his influence to secure the release on parole of a 
Eebel General, then confined at Detroit, that he might remain with friends 

* Understood to refer to Colonel Wiley, Forty-First Ohio. 



234 Ohio in the War. 

there who would entertain him, and be responsible for his conduct. This is 
Brough's reply: 

"Executive Department, Columbus, May 23, 1864. 
"General John E. Hxjnt, Detroit, Michigan: 

"Sir: I have your favor of the 19th instant. All prisoners of war, civil and military, are 
under the sole charge of Colonel William Hoffman, Commissary-General of Prisoners, Washing- 
ton City. I can not interfere with them if I would, and I can not give an order to any to com- 
municate with them without his permission. 

"I am glad it is so. Some four weeks ago I saw, at Baltimore, the arrival of a vessel loaded 
with our prisoners from Belle Isle, who, in the very refinement of barbarism, had been reduced 
by starvation to mere skeletons, for no other purpose than to incapacitate them for further service 
in the Union armies. Over one-third of these men were too far gone to be resuscitated, and died 
within forty-eight hours after arrival. While I would not retaliate on Rebel prisoners by prac- 
ticing like means, I confess. General, I have very little sympathy with, or desire to parole or 
release from confinement, men who have been upholding a rebellion that has deluged the land 
with sorrow and blood — and whose leaders have resorted to cruelty and barbarism in the treat- 
ment of prisoners more infernal than any ever practiced by savages. The higher the rank and 
social position of men, the less are they entitled to sympathy. They sinned against light and 
knowledge. Therefore I am glad their fate is not in my keeping, lest, under such provocation, I 
should not be over merciful. 

" I return letter as requested, 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

Some lawyers, understood then to be sympathizers with the rebellion, wrote 
him a letter urging with pertinacity, but without much courtesy, his duty to 
help to get some claims of clients allowed at Washington. He replied: 

"Executive Department, Columbus, May 26, 1864. 
"C. & C, Attorneys, Athens, Ohio: 

"Gentlemen: I have been honored with two epistles from your firm. The inclosures in 
your first communication I forwarded to the War Department. Your second note I shall send 
after them, giving you an introduction to the Secretary. 

" I duly appreciate the lecture you so emphatically read to me as to my duty to my constit- 
uents, but I fail to see any obligation to become the agent of 'attorneys' to press their claims 
upon the departments, especially when those 'attorneys' are blessed with a manner of communi- 
cation so much more emphatic and persuasive than my own. Your clients undoubtedly com- 
mitted their interests to your hands in consideration of your business energy, and your influence 
with the departments at Washington ; and it would be improper for me to rob you of the honors 
of success, by any interference on my part. On the other hand, while I am ever ready to respond 
to the appeals of my constituents, I do not recognize the right of 'attorneys' to command my 
services for their own benefit, especially when in so doing tiiey berate and denounce the Govprn- 
ment which it is alike my pleasure and my duty to support. 

"Very respectfully, JOHN BROUGH." 

In marked contrast was the cordial letter — to select one out of many — 
which he wrote in November to Samuel Pike, of Washington C. H., sympa- 
thizing with his fatherly solicitude for the special exchange of his son, but add- 
ing that, heartily as he wished he could help him, he felt bound to oppose all 
special exchanges, for the reason that they tended to render more hopeless the 
case of those still kept in Southern prisons, and to postpone still further the day 
of their deliverance. 

While the struggle lasted, Governor Brough was second to no Statesman 
of the Nation in the clearness of vision with which he perceived the popular 
demand, or in the zeal with which, amid all discouragements, he enforced the 



Close of Bkough's Administration. 235 

necessity for the steady prosecution of the war to the ends of human freedom 
and National supremacy. In the height of the personal vexations we have 
shown as surrounding him, he closed his message to the Legislature with these 
brave words : 

"Instead of voting this war 'a failure,' and commanding a 'cessation of hostilities,' the peo- 
ple have dechired it a success thus far in its progress, and required its continuance until the 
rebellion is suppressed, and their Government restored to its original power and usefulness. 
They have counted its cost and measured its sacrifices ; they have voted to themselves heavy tax- 
ation, and if necessity requires it, more calls upon them to fill up the ranks of their armies ; they 
have left their authorities no discretion ; have forbidden them to take any backward step, but to 
press onward with energy and vigor, calling for and using all the re.sources of the Nation until 
the Rebel power is broken, and the peace and unity of the country is restored. They have gone 
further, and declared with clear and unmistakable emphasis that with the conquest of this rebell- 
ion must perish its most potent element, as well as one of its exciting causes ; and that when 
peace sheds its blessings again upon our people this shall be, what God and our fathers designed 

it — A LAND OF HUMAN FKEEDOM. 

" From the commencement of this great contest the State of Ohio has occupied no doubtful 
or hesitating position. Our people have assumed iheir burdens with alacrity, and borne them 
with cheerfulness. They have responded with promptitude to every call that has been made upon 
them ; and without passing the bounds of becoming modesty, they may point with emotions of 
pride to the record which her sons have made for the State in the council and in the field. Ohio 
officers have commanded with distinction and honor in nearly every department of the service ; 
and Ohio soldiers have battled with exalted courage and patriotism upon nearly every field of the 
war, and marched over portions of every State that the treasonable leaders took into rebellion. 
At all times and at all places they have nobly done their duty; achieving for themselves and 
reflecting upon their State the highest honor. True, there have been grievous 'sacrifices ; there 
has been mourning at many hearth-stones; and we have often been called upon to pause in our 
exultation over the noble conduct of our living heroes, to lament our heroes dead; but even the 
eye bedimmed with tears has caught a glance of the future, and the stricken heart has found con- 
solation in the assurance that all these sacrifices will be hallowed in the triumph of freedom, and 
the coming greatness and glory of our country. The commandment of the people is to you and 
to me, in our allotted spheres, to move onward to the accomplishment of this great end ; and to 
contribute all of ability and usefulness we possess to the consummation of that grand triumph in 
which not only we ourselves but the friends of free government throughout the world will rejoice." 

When at last the tidings from Appomattox C. H. flashed across the Land, f 
and the rapidly following reduction of the army that Avas no longer needed 
began, Secretary Stanton found nowhere more efficient aid in hurrying the sol- 
diers back to their peaceful avocations than in the Executive of Ohio, on whom 
he had so often relied. The tables elsewhere given* may show the rapidity 
with which the work was done, but they can not exhibit the fervid energy with 
which the Governor pressed it at ever}^ point; the ^persistency with which he 
assailed the paymasters and mustering officers, forcing them to work harder 
than they were accustomed, and greatly arousing their indignation thereby ; 
the vehemence with which he strove to prevent the addition of unnecessary 
expenses for a single daj^ to the enormous debt under which the Nation was 
staggering. At the same time he hastened temporary provision for a home for 
disabled soldiers. f These Avere services that gained him no credit then ; we 
OAve them at least the reward of grateful remembrance now. 

*Vol. IT, p. 7. 

t Charles Anderson became Governor of Ohio before these arrangements for the Soldiers' 



236 Ohio in the War. '^ 

The simple words with which the Governor had concluded his address ta 
the people of the State, declining the canvass for renomination, were soon to 
receive a sad significance. " I doubt very much," he then wrote, " whether my 

health much impaired by close confinement to official duties — would sustain 

me through a vigorous campaign, while increasing years and the arduous labor 
of a long life in public positions, strongly invite me to retirement and repose 
during the few years that may j^et remain to me." 

But the G-overnment had other purposes. Secretary Stanton wished to 
retire at the close of the war, and it was arranged that the man whom of all 
others he and Mr. Lincoln held fittest for the place should succeed him. Gov- 
ernor Brough was expected to assume charge of the War Department at least at 
the close of his term as Governor, if not at an earlier date. 

Neither his own longings for a few years' retirement and repose, nor Mr. 
Lincoln's wish that his services should be transferred to the National arena, 
were to be gratified. 

In the midst of his labors his health began to give way. The store of 
streno-th on which he had been drawing so profusely, was even lower than he 
thouo-ht when, with some natural forebodings, he doubted whether it would be 
sufficient to carry him through the labors of an active canvass of the State. 
Throuo-h the closing work, connected with the disbandment of the army, he 
labored more unremittingly than ever, often spending the whole night at his 
desk, in his efl'orts to hasten the reduction of expenses. No human system 
could endure this strain. 

Early in June, while his health was broken down by harassing labor, and 
before he seemed to have recovered from the shock and anxiety consequent upon 
the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, he stepped upon a stone in such a way as to 
bruise the foot and give a severe sprain to the ankle. His great weight and the 
soreness of this foot compelled him for days to lean heavily upon his cane, and 
in the diseased and impoverished condition of his blood, inflammation in the 
hand was thus brought on. In both foot and hand gangrene set in, and for two 
months his sufterings were continuous and acute. The liveliest alarm was man- 
ifested by the Government at his condition. The Secretary of War sent out the 
army Surgeon most conversant with such cases, to remain in constanf attend- 
ance upon him, in conjunction with the Surgeon-General of the State. Daily 
dispatches as to his condition were required to be forwarded to the Government. 
Every care which family affection or professional skill could suggest was given, 
but it all pi-oved vain. He Avas literall}^ woim out in the public service, and his 
system had no powers of recuperation. After incredible sufferings he at length 
passed into a state of insensibility, from which he was never in this life aroused. 
He died at his residence in Cleveland, on the afternoon of the 29th of August, about 
half a year before the expiration of Jiis term of office, and some weeks before 
the election of his successor. 

Home were finished. He placed it under the charge of five trustees, Surgeon-General R. N. Barr ; 
Hon. Lewis B. Gunckle, of Dayton ; Hon. Jas. C. Hall, of Toledo ; Stillman "Witt, Esq., of 
Cleveland; and Hon. Chas. F. Wilstach, of Cincinnati. It was first located at the old Tripler 
Hospital, near Columbus. 



Close of Brough's Administration. 237 

Of the administration thus brought to an untimely close it may ho said thai 
it was at once the most vigorous and the most unpopular, as well as perhaps the 
most able with which Ohio was honored throughout the war. It grappled with 
no such sudden rush of momentous and new questions as did Dennison's ; it 
passed through no such gloomy periods of depression as did Tod's. With fewer 
necessities therefor, it created more dissatisfaction than did either. Grovernor 
Brough was impetuous, strong-willed, indifferent to personal considerations, 
often regardless of men's feelings, always disposed to try them by a standard 
of integrity to which the world is not accustomed. His administration was 
constantly embroiled — now with the Sanitary Commission — then with the oflS- 
cers in the field — again with the surgeons. But every struggle was begun and 
ended in the interest of the private soldiers as against the tyranny or neglect 
of their superiors ; in the interest of subordinate officers as against those who 
sought to keep them down ; in the interest of the men who fought as against 
those who shirked ; in the interest of the maimed as against the sound ; in the 
interest of their families as against all other expenditures. Never was a Knight 
of the old Chivalry more unselfishly loyal to the defense of the defenseless. 

"We write no apology for his errors, attempt no concealment of his vices. 
We have no sympathy with the false charity that would belie history in order 
to hide them. They were such that, proud as is the heritage of fame he has 
left us, no parent in the State can point to John Brough as an example for 
his boy. But they rarely injured the public service ; and they scarcely mar 
the picture he has left us of statesmanlike ability and of patriotic devotion ; of 
an integrity like that of Cato, and an industry without a parallel. 



238 Ohio in the Wak. 



CHAPTER XX 



MILITARY LEGISLATION OF THE STATE, 



WITH the death of Governor Brough properly ends our account of the 
War Administrations of Ohio. What foUoAved was merely the resump- 
tion, with a rapidity that approached the marvellous, of their civil 
duties by the returning soldiers. 

After the initial war legislation of the Legislature at the session of 1860-61, 
we have taken little pains thus far to trace the additional acts by which the spirit 
of the people was mirrored in their laws. We may here, therefore, fitly present 
a summary of the legislation on military mattei'S at succeeding sessions through- 
out the war : 

LEGISLATION OF 1862. 

Dr. Scott, member from Warren County, introduced into the House in January, 1862, a bill 
for the relief of soldiers families. The bill provided for a levy of three-fourths of one mill on 
the dollar valuation on the grand list of the taxable property of the State. The revenue so 
raised was to be disbursed, without compensation by the commissioners of the several counties of 
the State, to the families of all volunteers enlisted in the service of the United States from this 
State. [A similar bill was introduced by Mr. Eeady in 1863, and passed, providing for a levy 
of one mill on the dollar — to be disbursed in the same manner.] 

Several bills of a local nature were passed at the session of 1862, authorizing the county com- 
missioners of several of the counties to transfer moneys from certain county funds to the relief 
fund for soldiers families. 

Mr. Sayler, member from Hamilton County, introduced in the House in January, 1862, a 
bill to enable the volunteers of Ohio, when in the military service of the State or of the United 
States, to exercise the right of suffrage, and designating the manner in which, where, and by 
whom, such elections should be conducted. The bill was referred to a select committee, who re- 
ported it back without recommendation. 

A bill upon the same subject was introduced into the Senate by Mr. Gunckle, Senator from 
the Montgomery District, which was passed by the Senate, and transmitted to the House for its 
action, where, after its second reading, it was referred to a select committee, who reported it bac^ 
without recommendation, when the House ordered it to be laid on the table. No further actioi 
was had upon this bill at that session. 

At the second session in 1863, Mr. Odlin, member from Montgomery County, reported from 
a select committee of the House an amended bill, which provided that whenever any of the 
qualified voters of this State shall be in the actual military service of this State or of the United 
States, they may, upon the usual days for holding county, state, congressional, and presidential 
elections, exercise the right of suffrage at any place where there shall be twenty such voters, as 
fully as if present at their usual places of election. The remaining sections of the bill provide 



Military Legislation of the State. 239 

the manner in which and by whom such elections shall be conducted; requiring the return of the 
poll-books used and ballots voted at such election to the proper county and State officers. 
This bill (House Amendments to S. B., No. 143) was passed by the House, and the amendments 
were agreed to by the Sentvte. 

Mr. Stiver, member from Preble County, introduced into the House a bill to prohibit per- 
sons in this State from trafficking with persons engaged in armed hostility to the Government of 
the United States. The penalty for violation of the provisions of this act was imprisonment in 
the penitentiary. The bill passed both branches of the General Assembly. 

Mr. Flagg, member from Hamilton County, introduced into the House in April, 1862, a bill 
authorizing the Governor to contribute out of his contingent fund to the Cincinnati branch of the 
United States Sanitary Commission, such sums of money as in his discretion he might deem 
proper, to be applied to the relief of the wounded and sick soldiers of the State of Ohio. The 
bill passed both branches of the General Assembly. 

A bill reported from the Senate Judiciary Committee was passed by both branches 6f the 
General Assembly in January, 1862, exempting from execution the property of all persons mus- 
tered into the service of the United States, so long as they continued in such service, and two 
months after muster out. This law was amendatory of the act of May, 1861. 

Mr. McVeigh, Senator from the Fairfield District, introduced into the Senate a bill supple- 
mentary to the act of April, 1861, to provide for the defense of the State, and for the support of 
the Federal Government against rebellion, and making appropriations for the payment of claims 
for the purchase of arms and equipments for the militia of the State; also troops of the United 
States where such purchases were made under the authority of the Governor, and creating a 
board of commissioners for the examination and adjustment of claims against the State arising 
out of military transactions. The Auditor of State, Secretary of State, and Attorney-General, 
constituted the board. The bill was passed by both branches of the General Assembly, 1862. 

]\Ir. Hitchcock, from a select committe of the Senate, reported a bill providing for the ap- 
pointment by the Governor of pay agents, whose duty it was to visit the volunteers from Ohio in 
the service of the United States, and obtain from them allotments of pay and remittances ©f 
money for the benefit of their families or friends. All moneys received by such agents was to 
be paid into the State Treasury. The bill was passed by both branches of the General Assembly, 
in 1862, and was found, for a year or two, to give tolerable satisfaction by its workings. 

Mr. Eggleston, Senator from Hamilton County, introduced into the Senate a bill appropri- 
ating three thousand dollars to aid the Cincinnati branch of the United Sanitary Commission, in 
promptly and efficiently giving relief to such wounded and sick Ohio soldiers in the service of 
the United States as might be brought to that point for care. The bill passed both branches of 
the General Assembly in 1862. 

A joint resolution was passed in January, 1862, tendering thanks to General Thomas and 
Colonels Garfield and McCook, and men of their commands, for the victory achieved by them in 
Kentucky over the enemies of the Union. 

A joint resolution was passed in February, 1862, tendering thanks to General Grant and 
Flag-Oflicer Foote, and men of their commands, for the courage, gallantry, and enterprise ex 
hibited in the bombardment and capture of Fort Henry ; also for capture of Fort Donelson. 

A joint resolution was passed in February, 1862, tendering thanks to General Burnside and 
Commander Goldsborough, and men of their commands, for the victories achieved in North 
Carolina. 

A joint resolution was passed in March, 1862, tendering thanks to Brigadier-General Cur- 
tis, Brigadier-General Sigel, and Colonels Asboth, Davis, and Carr, and men of their couimands, 
for the victory achieved over the Rebel forces under Van Dorn, Price, and McCulloch, at Pea 
Ridge, in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. 

A joint resolution was passed in March, 1862, declaring that the Government could make 
no peace save on the basis of an unconditional submission to the supremacy of the Constitution 
and the laws; that the future peace and permanency of the Government, as well as the best 



240 Ohio in the Wae. 

interests of humanity, demanded the speedy trial and summary execution of all the leading 
conspirators ; and that, in the name of the people of Ohio, the Legislature protested against any 
peace, save upon this basis. 

A joint resolution was passed in April, 1862, tendering thanks to Brigadier-General 
Shields and officers and men of his command for their gallant conduct in the victory achieved 
at Winchester, Virginia. 

LEGISLATION OF 1863. 

Mr. Krum, from a select committee of the House, reported a bill to provide for bounty paid 
to Ohio volunteers who enlisted and were mustered into the service of the United States, under the 
calls of the President issued on the second day of July and on the fourth day of August, A. D. 
1862, and creating the County Commissioners of the several counties of this State a County Board, 
whose duty it shall be to ascertain and make record of the amount of such bounty paid, or agreed 
to be paid, to volunteers in their respective counties, and the manner in which such bounty was 
paid, or agreed to be paid ; and authorizing the county commissioners to assess a tax upon the 
taxable property entered upon the grand tax duplicate of their respective counties for the pay- 
ment of such claims. The bill passed both branches of the General Assembly. 

Mr. McVeigh, Senator from the Fairfield District, introduced a bill to provide more eflfect- 
ually for the defense of the State against invasion. This bill authorized the Governor, in case 
of invasion of the State, or danger thereof, to call into active service the militia of the State, or 
such numbers as, in his opinion, might be necessary to defend the State and repel such invasion, 
and making an appropriation of five hundred thousand dollars for the payment of the necessary 
expenses that may be incurred by the Governor in calling out the militia of the State for any of 
the objects provided for in this act, and empowering the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund to 
borrow such sum on the faith and credit of the State, and to issue certificates to the parties loan- 
ing the State the said sum, bearing six per cent, interest, payable semi-annually, exempt from 
taxation under the authority of this State. This passed both branches of the General Assembly. 

Mr. Sinnet, Senator from the Licking District, introduced a bill empowering the Governor 
to appoint such number of military claim agents as the good of the service might require, 
whose duty it was to investigate, give advice, and take such other action as would enable dis- 
charged Ohio soldiers speedily to obtain, free of charge, the money due them from the General 
Government for military service. This passed both branches of the General Assembly. 

A joint resolution was passed in January, 1863, tendering thanks to Major-General Rose- 
crans, staff, officers, and men under their command, for the achievement of the victory at Mur- 
freesboro', Tennessee. 

A joint resolution was passed in January, tendering thanks to Major-General Benjamin F. 
Butler for his distinguished services to the country during the rebellion. 

A joint resolution, passed in February, 1863, tendering thanks to the Eighty-Third, Ninety- 
Sixth, and Seventy-Sixth Ohio Eegiments, and the Seventeenth Ohio Battery, for gallantry and 
good conduct at the capture of Arkansas Post. 

A joint resolution, passed in March, 1863, tendering thanks to patriotic citizen-soldiers 
of the State — the " Squirrel Hunters " — for their gallant conduct in repairing to points of danger 
on the border to defend the State from the threatened invasion of the Eebel hordes under the 
command of Kirby Smith. 

A joint resolution, passed in March, tendering thanks to Major-General Lew. Wallace, for 
the promptness, energy, and skill exhibited by him in organizing, planning the defense, and exe- 
cuting the movements of soldiers and citizens under his command at Cincinnati, at the time of 
the threatened invasion of Ohio by the forces under Kirby Smith. 

A joint resolution, passed in March, authorizing the Governor to procure lithographed dis- 
charges for the " Squirrel Hunters." 

A joint resolution, passed in March, tendering thanks to Captain Abner Eead, commander 
of United States gunboat " New London," for his patriotism, gallantry, and distinguished serv- 
ices against the enemies of his country. 



MiLiTAEY Legislation of the State. 241 

[Captain Eead captured fourteen, and aided in the capture of nine more vessels of the enemy, 
and also captured two Rebel forts, Wood and Pike.] 

The trustees of Green Lawn Cemetery, which is located near Columbus, Ohio, having pre- 
sented a lot in their cemetery grounds for the burial of Union soldiers who died in the camps in 
the vicinity of Columbus, the General Assembly, by joint resolution, authorized the Governor to 
contribute a sum not exceeding five hundred dollars out of his military contingent fund for the 
removal of tlie dead bodies of those brave men, and their proper interment in the grounds thus 
given for this purpose. 

LEGISLATION OF 1864. 

Mr. Odlin, member from Montgomery County, introduced into the House, in March, 1864, a 
bill to enable the qualified voters of any city in this State, who may be in the military service of 
this State or of the United States, to exercise the right of suffrage when absent in such service 
of the United States or of this State, on the days provided by law for electing the municipal 
officers thereof, the same as if present at their respective places of voting in said cities. The 
elections under this act were to be conducted in the same manner as provided in the act of April^ 
1863. The bill passed both branches of the General Assembly. 

Mr. Odlin, from the House Committee on Finance, reported a bill to provide more effectually 
for the defense of the State against invasion. This bill authorizes the procurement of arms, field 
batteries, equipments, camp equipage, subsistence, munitions of war, and all other means and 
appliances as may be necessary to provide the Stale against invasion, riot, insurrection, or danger 
thereof, and making an appropriation of one million dollars to pay the expenses incurrred by 
the Governor under authority of this act. The bill passed both branches of the General Assem- 
bly. Under it four batteries were equipped. 

Mr. Gunckle, Senator from the Montgomery District, introduced into the Senate, in Febru- 
ary, 1864, a bill to provide relief for the families of soldiers and marines. The act authorizes a 
levy of two mills on the dollar valuation of the grand list of taxable property of the State, and 
in counties where the State levy shall be insufficient, grants the board of county commissioners 
power to levy and assess an additional amount, not exceeding one mill on the dollar valuation»on 
the grand list of taxable property of such county ; also city councils the power to levy and assess 
an additional amount, not exceeding one-half mill on the dollar valuation of the grand list of 
taxable property of such city, for the purpose of affording the relief contemplated by this act. 

The benefits of this act extend to the families of colored soldiers and marines actually in the 
service of the United States, or who have died or been disabled therein. 

In cases of refusal or neglect of township and county officers to discharge the duties required 
by this act, the Governor was empowered to appoint suitable persons, citizens of such counties, to 
perform said duties. 

Mr. Stevenson, Senator from the Eoss District, introduced a bill to authorize county commis- 
sioners, trustees of townships, and city councils to levy a tax for the payment of bounties to vol- 
unteers, and to refund subscriptions made for that purpose. The act authorizes the commissioners 
of the several counties, the city council of the several cities, and the trustees of each township in 
this State (if they deem the same expedient), in 1864, to levy a tax upon the taxable property 
within their respective jurisdictions for the purpose of raising a fund to pay bounties to volun- 
teers, and fixing the amouni of bounty to be paid each volunteer at one hundred dollars. 

In order to anticipate the proceeds of the tax authorized by this law, the county commis- 
sioners, township trustees, and city councils were allowed to borrow moneys or transfer money 
from certain other funds in the county, township, or city treasuries. 

This act also authorizes the payment of bounty to each veteran volunteer not having previ- 
ously received a local bounty. Said bounty not to exceed one hundred dollars. 

This act also authorizes, upon proper evidence shown to the county commissioners, township- 
trustees, or president of the proper city council, the payment of all moneys advanced by indi- 
viduals for the purposes named in this act. 

Mr. Sinnet, a Senntor from the Licking District, introduced into the Senate, in February, 
1863, a bill to organize and discipline the militia of the State. This bill was passed by both 
branches of the General Assembly. See ante, Chap. " Organization of the National Guard." 
YOL. I.— 16. 



242 Ohio in the War. 



Colonel John M. Connell, Senator from the Fairfield District, introduced, in March, 1864, a 
bill for the same purpose, and repealing the act of 1863. It diflered therefrom mainly in being 
better arranged and more clearly expressed, in changing the name " Volunteer Ohio State Mili- 
tia" to "National Guard," in giving a more satisfactory system of exemptions, in abandoning 
the effort to keep up an official organization of the common militia until it shall be called out, 
and in perfecting the organization and arrangements for drilling the National Guard. The 
A-djutant- General, in his report for 1864, stated that the original draft for this bill was prepared 
by Hon. Len. A. Harris, then Mayor of Cincinnati, 

On the passage of the bill four Senators voted in the negative : Messrs. Converse, Lang, 
O'Connor, and Willett, all Democrats. 

Mr. Lang moved to amend the title as follows : 

" A bill establishing an expensive and oppressive standing army in the State of Ohio, and 
to tramp out of existence the few last vestiges of civil liberty still remaining with the people." 

The same Senators who voted negatively on the passage of the bill, voted affirmatively on 
the motion of Mr. Lang to amend the title. 

An act was passed in March, 1864, authorizing and requiring the Governor to appoint a com- 
mission of three persons, whose duty it was to examine claims growing out of the Morgan raid. 
The commissioners were required to appoint times and places for the examination of claims 
within the counties through which said raid passed, and to give notice by publication in a news- 
paper. The commissioners had power to call and examine witnesses. All claims examined by 
the commissioners to be reported to the Governor, separated into the following classes : 

1. Claims for property taken, destroyed, or injured by the Eebels. 

2. Claims for property taken, destroyed, or injured by the Union forces under command of 
United States officers. 

3. Claims for property taken, destroyed, or injured by Union forces not under the command 
of United States officers, with a statement showing specifically in each case under what circum- 
stances, and by what authority such property was so taken, injured, or destroyed." 

An act was passed in February, 1864, to prevent enlistments of residents of this Slate, by 
unauthorized persons, in or for military organizations of other States, and to punish any citizen 
of' the State who, by offers of bounties or otherwise, should attempt to induce such enlistments. 

An act was passed in March, 1864, to establish in the office of the Adjutant-General a bureau 
of military statistics, for the purpose of perpetuating the names and memories of the gallant and 
patriotic men of this State who volunteered as privates in the service of the United States, which 
was to be done by preserving lists of their names, and sketches of the organizations to which they 
belonged.! 

An act was passed in March, 1864, for the relief of debtors in the military service of the 
United States, providing that any party in a suit against whom judgment had been entered with- 
out defense made, while the said party was in the service, should have the privilege of re-opening 
judgment or order in his case at any time within one year after his discharge, for presentation 
of his defense. 

LEGISLATION OF 1865. 

An act was passed in February, 1865, creating a bureau of soldiers' claims, and providing for 
the appointment by the Governor of a commissioner, whose duty it shall be to furnish and give 
all necessary instructions, information, and advice, free of charge, to the soldiers and marines of 
Ohio, or their heirs or legal representatives, respecting any claims which may be due them from 
this State or the United States, t 



* The results of the investigation under this law have been given, mite, Chap. "The Morgan 
Raid." 

t Repeated efforts were subsequently made to secure an appropriation for publishing this 
matter, but it would have made a cart-load of volumes, and the Legislature always refused. 

t An attempt to make this bureau amount to something led to serious complications with the 
State Military Agent at Washington. 



Military Legislation of the State. 243 

A supplementary act to the act of March, 1864, enabling qualified voters of cities, etc., who 
may be in the military service of the State, or of this United States, to exercise the right of suf- 
frage, was passed March 31, 1865. It gave the privilege of voting for all township officers save 
assessors, and adapted other provisions of the existing law to correspond with this. 

A relief bill for the families of soldiers and marines in the State and United States service 
was passed in April, 1865, providing for a State levy of two mills on the dollar valuation of the 
grand list of taxable property of the State, and should the fund so raised be insufficient, author- 
izing the county commissioners to make an additional levy of two mills, and city councils an 
additional levy of one mill. 

An act was passed in April, 1865, for the relief of discharged soldiers and marines, being 
merely a modification of the State Agency system for their benefit. 

An act supplementary to an act entitled "an act to provide a board of commissioners to 
examine certain military claims," and making an appropriation for their payment, was passed 
in April, 1865. It gave system to previous legislative action looking to the payment of the 
irregular claims arising out of the necessity for haste and vigor in the early part of Governor 
Dennison's military administration. 

A considerable number of new amendments to the National Guard law were passed. 

An act to provide bounty for veteran volunteers, who had not previously received local 
bounty, was passed in April, 1865, authorizing the trustees of the several townships of this State 
to issue to each re-enlisted veteran volunteer a bond for the sum of one hundred dollars, bearing 
six per cent, interest, redeemable at the pleasure of the ti-ustees, one year after the date thereof. 

An act was passed in April, 1865, to authorize the trustees of townships, councils of cities, 
and commissioners of counties in this State, to levy a tax to refund money borrowed or pledged 
for local bounties. Bounty under this act limited to one hundred dollars. 

A bill was introduced into the Senate in March, 1865, to establish a soldiers' home. The 
home so established to be maintained at the expense of the State, for the care and support of 
such soldiers of the State as have been disabled in the war. 

The bill provided for the purchase of Ohio White Sulphur Springs Farm and buildings, at 
a cost not to exceed fifty thousand dollars. 

For the management and control of said home the Governor was authorized to appoint six 
trustees, who shall hold their office for one, two, and three years. Their successors for three 
years each. 

The board of trustees were empowered to appoint a superintendent and other necessary 
officers for the home. The home to be governed by such rules and regulations as shall be made 
by the board, and approved by the Governor. 

The board shall admit as many disabled soldiers as the home will comfortably contain, 
having due reference to a just and equitable distribution of the benefits thereof to the several 
counties of the State. 

All soldiers admitted to the home were required to tran.sfer to the board all incomes which 
they are entitled to receive from the State, United States, or other sources, except the amount 
of two dollars per month. 

The board was authorized to receive and accept in trust for said home any donations of 
land, money, or other property, and to hold or dispose of the same for the benefit of the home, 
as they deemed most advisable. 

The commissionei;^ of the several counties of the State were authorized and required to 
appropriate out of the fund raised for the relief of soldiers' families, a sufficient amount to sup- 
port indigent and disabled soldiers within their respective counties, until such dependent soldiers 
ehall be transferred to the home established by this act. 

Fifty thousand dollars were to be appropriated for the purpose of carrying out the pro- 
visions of this act. 

The bill did not pass. The General Assembly of 1866 passed a law establishing a home, 
which is now in successful operation near Dayton. 

At the session of the General Assembly in 1867 a memorial from Major-General Eaton and 



244 Ohio in the Wak. 

others, was presented to the Senate, asking an appropriation by the State to aid in erecting a 
monument to the memory of Major-General James B. McPherson, at Clyde, Ohio. 

The memorial was referred to a select committee of one — General Warner, Senator from the 
Licking District — who, in his report upon the prayer of the memorialists, recommended the 
adoption of the following joint resolution : 

"Resolved, by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That the sum of five thousand dollars 
is hereby directed to be appropriated out of any funds in the treasury, not otherwise appro- 
priated, to aid in the erection of a monument at Clyde, Ohio, to the memory of Major-General 
James B. McPherson." 

The resolution was adopted by the Senate by a strict party vote, every Democrat voting 

against it. 

The resolution was then transmitted to the House, by which body it was indefinitely post- 
poned. 



Ohio Surgeons in the War. 245 






CHAPTER XXI. 



OHIO SURGEONS IN THE WAR. 



"AT THING in the general management of Ohio military affairs through- 
\ out the war did more to raise the character of the State than the care 
-^^ with which medical officers were selected, and the unusually high class 
of officers thus obtained. 

Among the many excellent acts for which ex-Governor Dennison has never 
received proper credit, was his determination, in the very climax of the confu- 
sion that followed the first call to arms, that no Ohio regiment should enter the 
field without a surgeon whom the best judgment of the profession in the State 
would pronounce fitted for the place. It was the time of crudities in every 
branch of military organization — when troops were electing their officers, and 
regiments were demanding thirty wagons each for transportation, and recruits 
were receiving quarters at fii-st-class hotels at Government expense. To have 
perceived, in the midst of this rawness and ignorance, the necessity for rigid 
examinations of medical officers was a piece of sagacity that was to inure to the 
benefit of every soldier sent out, and to secure for the State pre-eminence in the 
surgical and medical history of the war. 

Within a few days after the organization of troops began, Governor Denni- 
Bon appointed George C. Blackman, M. D., of Cincinnati; J. W. Hamilton, M. 
D., of Columbus; and L. M. Whiting, M. D., of Canton, a board to examine all 
applicants for appointments as surgeons or assistant-surgeons for Ohio regi- 
ments. No one was to be eligible who had not been regularlj^ educated, had not 
been a practitioner in good standing for ten years, and could not pass a rigid 
examination before this board; while for even the assistant-surgeons, five years 
of previous practice were required. 

The system thus begun was kept up through the succeeding administra- 
tions. As the business of the war became more systematized, the State Surgeon- 
General assumed charge of such mattei-s, and saw to it that the standard 
required by the examining board should be raised rather than lowered. During 
the summer of 1861, Drs. Blackman and^Whiting retired, and S. M. Smith, M. 
D., and William M. Awl, M. D., of Columbus, took their places. These gentle- 
men discharged the delicate duties of the board throughout the administration 
of Governor Dennison. Governor Tod, on his entrance into office, appointed C. 



246 Ohio in the War. 

C. Cook, M. D., of Youngstown ; John W. Eussell, M. D., of Mount Yernon ; 
and John A. Murphy, M. D., of Cincinnati. Afterward, on the death of Dr. 
Cook, Gustav. C. E. Weber, M. D., of Cleveland, took his place Through the 
administi'ation of Governor Brough these gentlemen were retained ; but during 
the absence of Dr. Weber in Europe, and the illness of Dr. Murphy, Drs. S. M. 
Smith and Starling Loving, of Columbus, acted in their places. Before these 
gentlemen — all commanding the confidence of the profession throughout the 
State — every surgeon or assistant-surgeon for an Ohio regiment was compelled 
to pass. The examination was exhaustive, and moral habits in the appli- 
cant, temperance, and fair standing in the profession, were required as rigor- 
ously as satisfactory answers to the professional questions.* 

When, having appointed General McClellan in the hope of having him as 
military adviser, Governor Dennison asked of him who should be made Sur- 
geon-General, a prompt recommendation was given to George H. Shumard, cf 
Cincinnati, and an appointment was as promptly made. The profession, par- 
ticularly in Cincinnati, manifested some astonishment, and began to inquire who 
Dr. Shumard was. Presently it came to be known that he was really a repu- 
table physician, though long absent from Cincinnati, engaged in geological 
surveys in Texas when the war broke out, and for years previously a resident 
of Arkansas. He had avowed his Union sentiments in spite of the terrible 
pressure of public opinion against him, and when he was finally forced to flee, 
General McClellan, in introducing him to Governor Dennison's attention, had 
spoken of him as "the last Union man of Arkansas." These facts tended to 
mollify the first harsh judgment of the profession ; but they never quite recon- 
ciled themselves to his appointment as Surgeon-General of Ohio; and he was 
never popular. 

He nevertheless did some valuable, though fragmentary service. The 
troops first hurried into the field were ignorant of everything necessary to com- 
fort or health in camp life; the camps were filthy, the hospitals crowded, ill- 
ventilated, and worse attended, the medical supplies insufiicient. To the correc- 
tion of these evils Dr. Shumard addressed himself with industry and zeal. He 
visited the camps of the State troops, helped to organize their medical depart- 
ments, and did what in him lay to inaugurate system in medical matters. But 
he was made to feel so keenly the opinion of the profession that he was an 
interloper, enjoying undeserved promotion over Ohio physicians, that he was 
very glad to embrace the opportunity of entering the United States service as a 
brigade surgeon. 

He was succeeded by William L. McMillen, M. D., of Columbus, who had 
enjoyed opportunities of becoming familiar with army surgery in Russian hos- 

* The following is a summary of medical officers appointed, resigned, promoted, dismissed, 
and deceased during the rebellion : 

"Appointed — Surgeons, 287; AssistanttlSurgeons, 694. Eesigned — Surgeons, 122; Assist- 
ant-Surgeons, 171. Promotions — Assistant-Surgeons to Surgeons, 165 ; Surgeons and Assistants 
to Surgeons and Assistants U. S. V., 45. Dismissed — Surgeons, 2; Assistant-Surgeons, 12 
Deceased — Surgeons, 18; Assistant-Surgeons, 24." 



Ohio Sukgeons in the Wak. 247 

pitals during the Crimean war. He served as Surgeon -General during the few. 
remaining months of Governor Dennison's administration. 

Governor Tod appointed Gustav. C. E. Weber, M. D., Professor of Surgery 
in the Cleveland Medical College, as Surgeon -General on his staff. This gentle- 
man was of German birth and education, and was a physician of high repute 
in Cleveland and tiiroughout the State. He began the system of hospital boats, 
of which we have already had occasion to speak at length; visited the field of 
Pittsburg Landing and labored faithfully among the wounded, till he was 
himself prostrated by disease ; visited hospitals where Ohio soldiers were 
congregated elsewhere, and particularly those in Washington; had repeated con- 
ferences with the Surgeon-General of the United States army and co-operated 
zealously with him in promoting the good of the service; perfected the system 
of examination for applicants for appointment as regimental surgeons, and made 
it more stringent and systematic. 

When Dr. Weber's health gave way he was succeeded by Samuel M. Smith, 
M. D., Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine in Starling Medical Col- 
lege, and long a well-known and highly esteemed practitioner in Columbus. 
Dr. Smith had completed his medical studies in Paris, and had long been recog- 
nized as one of the foremost men in the profession in the State. He continued 
the system of hospital boats, and gave the closest personal attention to its work- 
ings. He was a man of peculiarly warm temperament, and his whole heart 
was in the work to which he now devoted himself. He made repeated personal 
visits to the great battle-fields; was always prepared to forward corps of select 
surgeons and nurses wherever needed; was active in seeking occasions for ren- 
dering aid to the medical officers in the field, and watchful as to the conduct of 
those whom he sent out. He maintained the high standard of appointments to 
the medical service. 

When Governor Brough entered upon the duties of his office he selected 
his personal friend, E. N. Barr, Professor of Anatomy in the Medical College 
of Cleveland, and a man of excellent standing in the profession, as his Surgeon- 
General. There was now less necessity for attention to the wants of the troops 
in the field, or special eff'orts to render assistance after great battles, since the 
more perfect organization of the medical strength of the army and the opera- 
tions of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions left less for the medical 
authorities of the several States to do. The Government now had its own 
hospital boats, hospital cars, and abundant medical supplies ; while, for special 
wants, the thorough organization of the charitable commissions might be 
safely trusted. Dr. Barr's duties were, therefore, more closely confined to the 
routine of office work than had been those of his predecessors. It is high 
praise to say that he kept up the standard they had fixed. 

Under the administrations of these several gentlemen the State expended, 
on her own account, in bringing home her wounded or in sending additional 
surgeons and supplies to them on the battle-fields where the}^ fell, nearlj' two 
hundred thousand dollars. 

Professor J. H. Salisbury, of Cleveland, under an appointment from Gov- 



248" 



Ohio in the Wak. 



ernor Tod, visited a number of hospitals in the different theaters of military 
operations, looking after the condition of the Ohio sick and wounded, and 
making known their wants. He gave, however, the larger share of his time to 
experiments and investigations bearing on the great epidemics that invade the 
army, and specially on chronic diarrhea, malarial fevers, and camp measles, as 
well as on the army ration as largely entering into the causation of many army 
diseases. He made meritorious experiments looking to the proof of the theory 
that some of these diseases have a cryptogamic origin, and presented an elab- 
orate report, Avhieh was given to the profession as an appendix in successive 
reports of the several Surgeon -Generals. 

Besides the regimental surgeons,* who embraced a representation of the 
best professional talent of the State, a number of the leading physicians entered 
the United States service as " United States Yolunteer Surgeons," with the 
rank of Major, or as assistants, with the rank of First-Lieutenant, after an 
exhaustive examination under authority of the Secretary of War, before a 
board of regular army surgeons at Washington.f They were assigned to duty 
as surgeons in charge of hospitals, division or corps surgeons, and in more than 
one instance as medical directors of great departments. 

One of these, Dr. Wm. H. Mussey, of Cincinnati, was subsequently pro- 
moted to be one of the small board of medical inspectors, who stood next to 

* Whose names appear, together with the important facts of their military history, in the 
rosters of their respective regiments, in Vol. II. 

tSUKGEONS OF VOLUNTEERS, WITH RANK. 



Major 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 

Do. 



Chas. O'Leart 

Wm. Clendenin 

Jas. D. R0BIN8ON 

Geo. H. Shumard 

F. N. BUEKE 

D. W. Haetshorn .... 
Geo. C. Blackman .., 

Wm. H. Mussey 

NoEMAN Gay 

RuFUS H. Johnston. 

Feedk. Seymour 

Wm. W. Holmes 

A. J. Phelps 

Clarke McDermott. 

Howard Culbertson 

Francis Salter 

Jno. M. Kobinson... 

Geo. K. Weeks 

Sam'l D. Turney 

Elmoee Y. Chase.... 
a. g. swaetzwelder 
Robert Fletcher. 

Samuel Haet 

J. Y. Gantwell .... 

W. C. Daniels 

Heney Z. Gill 

Thos. B. Hood 

Chas. H. Hood 

M. C. Woodworth 

— WOODWAED.. 



Se^t. 
Oct. 
Dec. 



let Lieutenant 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 
Do. 



ASS'T SURGEONS. 



Edwin Freeman... 
.1. W Applei;ate. 

M. K.. Moxley 

Geehabd Saal 

Henry M. Kirk... 
Samuel Kitchen. 
John McCueuy .... 

J. Sykes Ely 

John S. McGrew . 



date of com. 



residence. 



5, 
5, 
4, 
4, 

lol 

24, 
24, 
24, 



April 4, 1862 



Nov. 

Feb. 

March 

Mav 

July 

Nov. 

Jan. 

May 

June 



4, 
11, 

7, 

7, 
19, 
19, 
26, 
27, 

9, 
2U, 
19, 
18, 
30, 
311, 
3U, 
25, 



Ireland . 

Penn 

Ohio 

N.J 

Ireland . 

Mass 

N. Y 

N. H 

Vt 

Mass 

England 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ireland . 



Ohio 

England 
Ohio 



Nov. 
Feb. 

Sept. 
Nov. 
Jan. 

April 
July 



7, ISf. 
19, 18i« 
19, ■■ 

9, 
7, 

8, 1864 
8, 

20, 



Cincinnati... 
Cincinnati... 



Cincinnati... 
Cincinnati... 

Cincinnati... 
Cincinnati... 
Columbus.... 



Cincinnati... 

Athens 

Portsmouth 
Diiyton 



Ohio 

Ohio 

Penn 

England 

Ohio 

Ohio 

N. Y , 

Penn 

Ohio 

Ohio 

N. Y 

Ohio 



Circleville. 



N. S 
Ohi< 



Germ'ny 

Penn 

Canada . 
Ireland . 

^Ohio , 

lOhio 



Warren . 
Warren , 



Cinciunat 
Cincinnati.... 



Division Surgeon. 

Ass't Med. Dir. Dept. Cumberland. 

Superintendent Hospitals, Louisville. 

Division Surgeon. [Insp's of Army. 

Prom, to Lt. Col. and member Board Med. 
Corps Medical Director. 

Hospital Surgeon, Nashville. 
Division Surgeon. 

Med. Director, Department Kentucky. 
Med. Purveyor and Surg, in charge, Cum- 
berland Hospital, Nashville. 

Corps Medical Director. 

Hospital Surgeon. 

Hospital Surgeon. 

Div. and Post Med. Dir., Mnrfreesboro . 

Division Surgeon. 

Medical Purveyor, Army Cumberland. 

Hospital Surgeon. 

Division Surgeon. 

Division Surgeon. 



Hospital Surgeon. 
Division Surgeon. 



Youngstown. 
Cincinnati.... 



Hospital Surgeon, Cincinnati 
Hospital Surgeon. 

Division Medical Director. 



Ohio Surgeons in the War. 249 

the Surgeon -General and his Assistant as the ranking officers of the medical 
service in the army. In this capacity he proved singularly industrious in his 
search for mismanagement or abuses, and unshrinking, to a degree rarely wit- 
nessed, in exposing them and applying the necessary correctives. He was spe- 
cially watchful as to the character of the medicines and supplies furnished the 
hosjDitals, the rations issued to soldiers in the field, and the quality of clothing 
furnished to the troops. On the battle-fields his authority was interposed to 
save the wounded from unscrupulous operators. In all respects, he was an un- 
tiring and faithful public servant. 

Dr. Wm. Clendenin, of the same corps, aside from his professional serv- 
ices, was esteemed for the thorough system of registration of sick and wounded 
which he introduced, first into some hospitals under his own care, and after- 
ward into the entire medical service of the army. Under the old regulations it 
was impossible to trace, from the hospital records, the successive stages of any 
particular case, where the patient had either been transferred to another hos- 
pital or granted a furlough. Under the system introduced by Clendenin's 
blanks the hospitals of the entire service could be explored, the case could be 
followed anywhere, its ultimate result was always discoverable, and the entire 
multiform experience of the war thus became available for the instruction and 
advancement of the profession. Dr. Clendenin filled various posts of enlarged 
usefulness, and finally became Assistant Medical Director of the Army of the 
Cumberland. His chief, the honored director in this army through a large 
part of its bloody experience (Dr. Glover Perriu), though an old officer of the 
regular army, may, nevertheless, be properly reclaimed by his native State in 
a record like this. In establishing the chain of hospitals from Louisville to 
Kenesaw, and in organizing the medical and surgical work after the great bat- 
tles that mark this historic route, he did a work second to none in importance, 
and ever worthy to be gratefully cherished, not only by his State, but the Na- 
tion whose soldiers he served and saved. 

Another of the brigade surgeons. Dr. 'Fletcher, rose to distinction in the 
same field, as Medical Purveyor at Nashville for the great armies that, step by 
step, won Stone River and Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, and Atlanta, and 
Bwept thence to the sea and back through the Carolinas. He was pronounced 
by the Surgeon-General among the best, if not the best, of the j^urvej-ors in 
the service, and the grateful testimony of Rosecrans, Thomas, and Sherman 
more than confirms the encomium. Dr. McDermott of Dayton did a similar 
work as Medical Purveyor at Murfreesboro' for a time, and afterwai-d took charge 
of the noted Cumberland hospital at Nashville, the largest in the department. 

Dr. A. J. Phelps, at first a regimental surgeon, and then "surgeon of 
volunteers," became Medical Director of one of the army corjjs under Thomas, 
and afterward Medical Director of the Department of Kentucky. Dr. Francis 
Salter passed through the same promotions and became the chief medical officer 
of the cavalry of the whole army. Dr. W. W. Holmes became Medical Director 
in the command of General Cox, and gave up his life in the service. Dr. Nor- 
man Gay of Columbus became a Corps Medical Director. 



250 



Ohio in the War 



The high standing which these examples may illustrate, extended through- 
out the long rolls of regimental surgeons as well. They can appear on the rolls 
only in connection with their respective regiments; but they were constantly 
called to other and important fields of duty. Thus Dr. James, of the Fourth 
Ohio Cavalry, became the chief medical officer of the entire cavalry of the 
army, and held this place till the end of his service — making his administration 
notable for improvements in the ambulance system specially adapted to the 
peculiar wants of the cavalry service, a new form of haversack for cavalry use, 
and other reforms. Dr. Muscroft of the Tenth Ohio became a division surgeon, 
and performed a great variety of service on armj^ boards, medical inspections, 
and the like. Dr. Brelsford of Bellbrook had charge of the important hospitals 
at Cumberland. The list might be indefinitely extended. They made large 
and valuable contributions to the Army Museum of Surgery and Surgical and 
Medical Pathology at Washington ; in reports and office labors they did their 
full share toward the advancement of the profession which the war brought 
about; most of all, with a faithfulness more nearly uniform than could reasona- 
bly have been expected, they devoted themselves to the relief of those ready to 
perish on the ghastly battle-fields, and in the more ghastly hospitals that over 
half the continent marked the last sacrifices of the loyal people for the life of 
the Nation. In this work some of them fell on the battle-fields, more breathed 
their last in the hospitals, where they had so often ministered to the wants of 
othei'S,* more still carried back to civil life constitutions broken down by the 
exposures they had courted in the service of our braves. 

-DEATHS OF MEDICAL OFFICERS DURING THE REBELLION. 



Surgeon 

Ass't Surg. 
Surgeon 

Ass't Surg . 



Surgeon 
Ass't Surg 
Surgeon 
Ass t Surg 



Surgeon 
Ass't Surg . 

Surgeon 
Ass't Surg. 

Surgeon 

Ass't Surg . 

Surgeon 
Ass't Surg. 
Surgeon 

Ass't Surg . 
Surgeon 



B. K. McMeana , 

H. H. McAbe.- 

.lames Davenport 

W. W. Holmes , 

Henry ISpellman 

J. H. Biteraan , 

John G. Purple , 

William Y. Dean 

G. S. Gutlirie 

John A. Soliday , 

Francis D. Morris 

John N. Minor 

W. W. Bridge , 

Greenleaf C. Norton.... 

J. K. Lewis 

A. J. Rosa 

Samuel Mathers , 

N. H. Fisher 

John P. Haggett 

William D. Carlin 

Bruno Laukriut 

William S. Moore 

Moses B. Haines 

E. W. Steele 

Charles R. Pierce 

Robert P. Muenschor., 

Pardon Cook 

1(. C. Brown 

A. Longwell 

Alfred Taylor 

F. W. Marseilles 

G. W. Sayres 

F. M. Andrews 

Charles A. Hartman..., 

D. H. Silver 

A. R. Gilkey 

Thomas J. Shannon 

.■Martin Doty 

Z. Northway 

R. H. Tullius 

James W. Thompson.... 
William F. Brown 



REGIMENT. 


DATE. 


3d 0. V. I... 


Oct. 30, 1S62 


4th " ... 


Sept. — , 1864 


9th " ... 


Mar. 29, 1S63 


12th " ... 


April 2S, 1862 


15th " ... 




19th " ... 


Sept. 25, 1865 


20th " ... 


May 13, 1862 


25th " ... 


Sept. 17, " 


.32d " ... 


Feb. 20, 1864 


32d " ... 


Mar. 26, 1S65 


35th " ... 


Sept. 23, 1864 


42d " ... 


Dec. 13, 1862 


46th " ... 


Aug. 6, 1864 


46th " ... 


Aug. 10, 1862 


4Sth " ... 


Oct. 11, " 


52d " ... 


Feb. 20. 1864 


63d " ., 


May 23, 1865 


56th " ... 


Jan. 25, 1862 


57th " ... 


April 30, " 


57th " ... 


Dec. 26, " 


58th " ... 


Oct. 27, " 


61st " ... 


July 3, 1863 


69th " ... 




74th " ... 




76th " ... 


Jan. 29, 1863 


76th " ... 


Oct. 2, 1862 


77th " ... 


Sept. 23, 1863 


85th " ... 


Nov.—, 1862 


88th " ... 


Mar. 18, 1.S65 


89th " ... 


May 23, 1863 


98th " ... 


May 1, 1864 


]02d " ... 


Sept.—, " 


103d " ... 


Oct. 9, " 


107th " ... 


May 9, 1863 


lllth " ... 


June 27, 1864 


116th " ... 


June 4, 1863 


U6th " ... 


Oct. 19, 1864 


174th " ... 


Dec. 10, " 


6th 0. V. 0... 


Nov. 10, " 


7th " ... 


Sept. — , " 


10th " ... 


Nov. 25, " 


136th 0. N. G... 


June — , " 



Killed by railroad accident. 

Died of disease contracted in service. 

Died of consumption. 

Died at Evansville, Indiana. 

Died in Texas. 

Died of disease contracted in service. 

Died of disease contracted in service. 

Died at Chattanooga. 

Died at Goldsboro', North Carolina. 

Died at Hamilton, Ohio. 

Died at Marietta, Georgia. 



Died at Lookout Mountain, 

Died at Seminary Hospital, Columbus, O. 



Died at Memphis, Tennessee. 
Killed at Gettysburg. 

Died at Vicksburg, Mississippi. 



Died at Camp Chase, Ohio. 

Drowned in Ohio River. 

Died at Chattanooga. 

Died at home. 

Died at Atlanta. 

Killed at the battle of Fredericksburg, 

Died at Knoxville, Tennessee. 

Died at Winchester, Virginia. 

Killed in battle 

Died at home. 

Died at Ripley, Ohio. 

Died at home. 



Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 251 

In all this it can at least be claimed that Ohio stood second to no State in 
the Union. Certainly, in the care with which her medical officers were selected, 
and in their uniformly high professional character, she was in advance of the 
most; and in the early period in the war at which the rigid system of examina- 
tions before appointment was instituted, she was in advance of all. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



THE RELIEF WORK; AID SOCIETIES, ETC. 



OF the position of the great State throughout the war, of its support of 
the National armies, of its support of the National purpose, of its 
official care for its stricken ones, we have now some hope of having 
spoken — if not satisfactorily, at least suggestively. But of that great popular 
movement which made care for the soldiers and their families the business of 
life for our tenderest and best at home while the war lasted, no man may speak. 
Charity is not puffed up. Charity vaunteth not itself; and the myriad works of 
love and kindness to which the best of both sexes and all ages devoted them- 
selves, fell like the gentle dew and like it disappeared — leaving no sign and 
having a memory only in the immortality of their beneficent results. 

In closing, therefore, this sketch of the home history of the State during 
the war, with a refei-ence to the unofficial efforts of the whole people in behalf of 
their soldiers, we may gather up some records of their organized action through 
the medium of Aid Societies, and Sanitai-y Commissions, and Christian Com- 
missions, and Soldiers' Fairs; some names of the fortunate ones whose privilege 
it was to work as the almoners of the people's bounty; some traces of the more 
public demonstrations. But the real history of the work will never be 
written, never can be written, perhaps never ought to be written. Wli(? 
shall intrude to measure the love of the Mothers, and Sisters, and Wives, at 
home for the Soldiers in the field? — who shall chronicle the prayers and the 
labors to shield them from death and disease? — who shall speak worthily of 
that religious fervor which counted loss, and suffering, and life as nothing, so 
that by any means God's work might be done in the battle for Libertj' and 
Eight? 

Some of the mere tangible results, the organizations and visible work and 
dollars and cents of the great movement, that gathered into one common effort 
as they had never been gathered before, all the elements of a vast community, 
we may here set down ; and, with that, rest. 



252 Ohio in the War. 

The largest and most noted organization in Ohio for the relief of soldiers 
was, of course, the "Cincinnati Branch of the United States Sanitary Commis- 
sion." This body throughout its history pursued a policy little calculated to 
advance its own fame— admirably adapted to advance the interests of the sol- 
diers for whom it labored. It had but one salaried officer, and it gave him but 
a meager support for the devotion of his whole time. It spent no large funds 
in preserving statistics, and multiplying reports of its good works. It entered 
into no elaborate scientific investigations concerning theories as to the best san- 
itary conditions for large armies. It left ncf bulky volumes of tracts, discus- 
sions, statistics, eulogies, and defenses. Indeed, it scarcely left a report that 
might satifactorily exhibit the barest outline of its work. But it collected and 
used great sums of money and supplies for the soldiers. . First of i.ny consider- 
able bodies in the United States it sent relief to battle-fields on a scale com- 
mensurate with the wants of the wounded. It was the first to equip hospital 
boats, and it led in the patient fiiithful work among the armies, particularly in 
the West, throughout the war. Its guardianship of the funds committed to its 
care was held a sacred trust for the relief of needy soldiers ; the incidental 
expenses were kept down to the lowest possible figure, and were all defrayed 
out of the interest on moneys in its hands before they were needed in the field, 
80 that every dollar that was committed to it went at some time or other directly 
to a soldier, in some needed form. In short, it was business skill and Christian 
integrity in charge of the people's contributions for their men in the ranks. 

In some of these features it differed from other organizations of the Sani- 
tary Commission. "We mean here to utter no word in condemnation of the 
policy which they thought it wisest to pursue; we only speak of these features 
as peculiar and noteworthy. And with this introduction we can give no fitter 
record of a great work, faithfully done and modestly told, than in a synopsis 
of the operations of the Cincinnati Branch of the Sanitary Commission, under- 
stood to have been prepared under the eye of its executive officers:* 

"Soon after the surrender of Fort Sumter, the President and Secretary of War were induced 
by certain gentlemen to issue an order authorizing them* and their associates to co-operate with the 
Government in the relief of sick and wounded soldiers, and to prosecute such inquiries of a sanitary 
character as might further the same end. Under this authority these parties organized the 
United States Sanitary Commission, and have since elected to that body a few others not origin- 
ally acting with them. They also construed their powers as enabling them to create a class of 
associate members, several hundred in number, residing, respectively, in almost every loyal State 
and Territory. The duties of these associates, and the extent to which they share the power com- 
mitted to the original members, have never been precisely defined. 

"Appointments were made as early as May, 1861, of several such associate members, resident 
at Cincinnati; but no organization of a Branch Commission was effected until the succeeding fall. 

"Through the instrumentality of Dr. W. H. Mussey, the use of the United States Marine 
Hospital, an unfurnished building, originally intended for Western boatmen, was procured from 
Secretary Chase, a board of ladies and gentlemen organized for its management, and the house 
furnished by the donations of citizens, and opened for the reception of sick and wounded soldiers 
in May, 1861. This institution was carried on without cost to the Government, all necessary 



* From the History of the Great Western Sanitary Fair (C. F. Vent & Co., Cincinnati), pp. 
xxiii to XXX. 



Relief Work-, Aid Societies, Etc. 253 

services of surgeons and nurses, and all supplies, having been provided gratuitously until August, 
1S61, when the success of the enterprise induced the Government to adopt it, and it was taken 
cliarge of by tiie Medical Director of the Department.® 

"The Western Secretary of the Sanitary Commission having given notice to the associate 
members resident in Cincinnati of their appointment, the Cincinnati Branch was formally 
organized at a meeting at the residence of Dr. W. H. Mussey, November 27. 1861. Robert W. 
Burnet was elected President, George Hoadly Vice-President, Charles R. Fosdick Corresponding 
Secretary, B. P. Baker Recording Secretary, and Henry Pearce Treasurer. 

"The body thus created was left almost wholly without instructions or specification of powers. 
It had no other charge than to do the best it could with what it could get. It was permitted to 
work out its own fate by the light of the patriotism and intelligence of its members. If any 
authority was claimed over it, or power to direct or limit its action, it was not known to the 
members for nearly two years from the date of its organization. 

"The steps actually taken were, however, from time to time, communicated to ihe United 
States Sanitary Commission at Washington, and by them approved. Delegates more than oi>ce 
attended the sessions of that body, and were permitted to participate in its action. The Branch 
were requested to print, as one of the series (No. 44) of the publications of the Commission, 
their report of their doings to date of March 1, 1862, and two thousand five hundred copies of the 
edition were sent to Washington for distribution from that point. 

"Previous to the organization of this Branch, an address had been issued by the United 
States Sanitary Commission to the loyal women of America, in which the name of Dr. Mu«sey 
was mentioned as a proper party to whom supplies might be sent. A small stock had been 
received by him, which was transferred to the Branch, and circulars were at once prepared and 
issued, appealing for the means of such useful action as might seem open. A Central Ladies' 
Soldiers' Aid Society for Cincinnati and vicinity was organized,! and the co-operation of more 
than forty societies of ladies in Hamilton County thus secured. This Society, it is proper to 
add, continued its beneficial connection with the Branch in vigorous activity, furnishing large 
quantities of supplies of every description, for nearly two years, and until the dispiriting effect 
of the change hereafter to be noticed, in the relations of the Branch to the work of distribution, 
paralyzed its efforts, and resulted, finally, in a practical transfer of the labors of the ladies to 
other fields of no less patriotic service. 

"The camps and hospitals near Cincinnati were subjected to inspection, and all necessary 
relief was furnished. Concert of action was established with the Volunteer Aid Committee, 
appointed at a public meeting of citizens in October, 1861, of whom Messrs. C. F. Wilstach, E. 
C. Baldwin, and M. E. Reeves were elected members of the Branch. Their rooms, kindly fur- 
nished, free of expense, by the School Board, became its office and depot, and finally, in the 
spring of 1862, a complete transfer was made of all the stock in the hands of that Committee to 
the Cincinnati Branch, and the former body was merged in this. 

"Under the stimulus of constant appeals to the public, and by the wise use of the means 
received, the confidence of the community having been gained, large quantities of hospital and 
camp supplies, and some money, were received, and the members entered with zeal upon the 
duty of distribution. The force which the United States Sanitary Commission then had in the 
West consisted of the Western Secretary and a few inspectors, who were engaged in traveling 
from camp to camp, without any fixed head-quarters. That body was not prepared and did not 
profess to undertake this duty. 

" A serious question soon presented itself lo tlie mind of every active member of the Branch — 
whether to prosecute the work of distribution mainly through paid agents, or by means of volun- 
tary service. At times there have been difierences of opinion upon the subject, and some of the 
members have had occasion, with enlarged experience, to revise their views. The result of this 
experience is to confirm the judgment that the use of paid agents by such an organization, in 
such a crisis, is, except to a limited extent, inexpedient. It has been clearly proved that volun- 

* Mrs. Cadwell became its matron. Her name is a sacred one with thousands of soldiers 
throughout the West. 

tOf which Mrs. George Carlisle was President, and Mrs. Judge Hoadly Secretary. All its 
members were devoted workers. 



254 Ohio in the Wae. 

tary service can be had to a sufficient extent, and such service connects the army and the people 
by a constantly renewing chain of gratuitous, valuable, and tender labors, which many who can 
not serve in the field esteem it a privilege to be permitted to perform in the sick-room and the 
hospital, 

"The members of this Branch felt at liberty to pledge publicly, in their appeals for contribu- 
tions, that the work of distribution should be done under their personal supervision, subject, of 
course, to the control of the proper medical officers of the army; and, until late in the autumn 
of 1862, they faithfully kept this pledge, and were able to effect, as they all believe, a maximum 
of benefit with a minimum of complaint. Fault-finding never ceases while the seasons change; 
but the finding of fault with the gratuitous services of men well known in a community has no 
power to injure. 

"While their labors were prosecuted under this plan, nearly every member of the Branch 
was brought into personal contact with the work of distribution. They were present on the battle- 
field of Shiloh. They were first at Perryville and Fort Donelson, at which point they inaugurated 
the system of hospital steamers. They called to their aid successfully the services of the most 
emiiient sui'geons and physicians, and tlie first citizens of Cincinnati. They gained the confidence 
of the Legislature of Ohio, which made them an appropriation of three thousand dollars, and of 
the City Council of Cincinnati, who paid them in like manner the sum of two thousand dollars, 
and of the Secretary of War and Quartermastei'-General, wlio placed at their control, at Govern- 
ment expense, a steamer, which for months navigated the Western waters in the transportation 
of supplies and of the sick and wounded. They fitted out, in wliole or part, thirty-two such 
steamers, some running under their own management, others under that of the Governor of Ohio, 
the Mayor of Cincinnati, the United States Sanitary Commission, and the War Department. 

" The relief furnished at Fort Donelson by this Branch constituted a marked, and at the same 
time, novel instance of their mode of management, which may properly receive more specific men- 
tion here, as it elicited high praise from the Western Secretary and the compliment of a vote of 
encouragement from the United States Sanitary Commission. In this case a handsome sum was at 
once raised by subscription among the citizens, and the steamer 'Allen Collier' was chartered, 
loaded with hospital supplies and medicines, placed under the charge of five members of the 
Branch, with ten volunteer surgeons and thirty-six nurses, and dispatched to the Cumberland 
Kiver. At Louisville the Western Secretary accepted an invitation to join the party. It was 
also found practicable to accommodate on board one delegate from the Columbus, and another 
from the Indianapolis Branch Commission, with a further stock of supplies from the latter. The 
steamer reached Donelson in advance of any other relief agency. Great destitution was found 
to exist — on the field no chloroform at all, and but little morphia, and on the floating hospital 
'Fanny Bullitt,' occupied by three hundred wounded, only two ounces of cerate, no meat for soup, 
no wood for cooking, and the only bread, hard bread — not a spoon or a candlestick. The suffer- 
ing was corresponding. Happily the 'Collier' bore an ample stock, and with other parties on a 
like errand, who soon arrived, the surgeon's task was speedily made lighter, and his patients 
gained in comfort. The 'Collier' returned after a short delay, bringing a load of wounded to 
occupy hospitals at Cincinnati, wliich this Branch had meanwhile, under the authority of General 
Halleck, and with the aid of that efficient and able officer, Dr. John Moore, then Post-Surgeon at 
Cincinnati, procured and furnished. 

"This was but the beginning of very arduous and extensive services personally and gratuit- 
ously rendered by members of this Branch. They traveled thousands of miles on hospital 
steamers on their errands of mercy, and spent weeks and months in laborious service on battle- 
fields and in camps and hospitals. They aided the Government in the establishment of eight 
hospitals in Cincinnati and Covington, and suggested and assisted the work of preparing Camp 
Dennison, seventeen miles distant, as a general hospital, for the reception ofthousands of jiatients. 
They bought furniture, became responsible for rent and the pay of nurses, provided material for 
the supply table, hired physicians, and in numberless ways secured that full and careful attention 
to the care and conifort of the soldier, which, from inexperience, want of means, or the fear of 
' responsibility, would otherwise, during the first and second years of the war, have been wanting. 

"Duiing the period to which allusion has been made, the United States Sanitary Commission 
had few resources, and those mostly employed in proper service at the East, where the members 
principally reside. This Branch was called on to aid that body, and to the extent of its means, 



Relief Woek; Aid Societies, Etc. 255 

resporded. At one time (early in 1862) it was supposed impossible to sustain that organization, 
except by a monthly contribution from each of the several branches, continued for six months; 
and this Branch was assessed to pay to that end the sum of two hundred and fifty dollars per 
month for the time specified, which call was met by an advance of the entire sum required, viz, : 
two thousand three hundred and seventy-tive dollars. This sum, small as it now seems in com- 
parison with the enormous contributions of a later date, was then considered no mean subsidy by 
either of the parties to it. 

"In May, 1862, the Soldiers' Home of the branch was established, an institution which, since 
its opening, has entertained with a degree of comfort scarcely surpassed by the best hotels of the 
city, over eighty thousand soldiers — furnishing them three hundred and seventy-two thousand 
meals. It has recently been furnished with one liundred new iron bedsteads at a cost of five 
hundred dollars. The establishment and maintenance of the Home the members of the Cincin- 
nati Branch look upon as one of their most valuable works, seSond in importance only to the 
relief furnished by the 'sanitary steamers' dispatched promptly to the battle-fields, with surgeons, 
nurses, and stores, and with beds to bring away the wounded and the sick, and they may, per- 
haps, be permitted with some pride to point to these two important systems of relief inaugurated 
by them. The necessity for the last-mentioned method of relief has nearly passed away; we 
hope it may soon pass away entirely, never to return. The Home long stood, under the efficient 
superintendence of G. W. D. Andrews, offering food and rest to the hungry and way-worn sol- 
dier, and reminding us of the kind hearts and loyal hands whose patriotic contributions and 
patient toil, supplementing the aid furnished by the Government through the quartermaster and 
commissary departments of the army, enabled them to establish it. To this aid of a generous 
and benign Government, dispensed with kindness and alacrity by the oflicers who have been at 
the heads of these departments in this city, this institution is indebted, in great measure, for its 
existence and usefulness. 

"The importance of perpetuating the names of all soldiers whose lives had been or might be 
sacrificed in the defense of our Government, being an anxious concern of many of the members 
of our Commission, and regarded by them as of so much importance, they early resolved that, so 
far as they could control this matter, not only should this be done, but that their last resting-place 
should be in our beautiful city of the dead, Spring Grove Cemetery. An early interview was 
had with the trustees, who promptly responded to the wishes of the Commission, and gratuitously 
donated for that purpose a conspicuous lot, near the charming lake, of a circular shape, and in 
size sufficient to contain three hundred bodies. In addition thereto, this generous association 
have interred, free of expense for interment, all. the soldiers buried there. This lot having be- 
come occupied, the Commission arranged for another of similar size and shape near by, for the 
sum of fifteen hundred dollars. The subject of the payment of the same having been presented 
to the Legislature of Ohio, the members unanimously agreed that, as a large proportion of those 
who were to occupy this ground as their last home were the sons of Ohio, it was the proper duty 
of the State to contribute thereto. In accordance therewith, an appropriation of three tliousand 
dollars was made for the purpose, subject to the approval of liis Excellency, Governor Tod. A 
third circle, of the same size and shape, adjacent to the others, was therefore secured at the same 
price. The propriety of this expenditure was approved of by the Governor, after a careful ex- 
amination of the ground and its value. Two of these lots have been filled, and the third is in 
readiness for occupancy, should it become necessary. A record is carefully made on the books 
of the cemetery, of the name, age, company, and regiment of each soldier interred there, that 
relatives, friends, and strangers may know, in all time to come, that we, for whom their lives 
were given, were not unmindful of the sacrifice they had made, and that we properly appreciate 
the obligations we are under to them for their efibrts in aiding to secure to us and future genera- 
tions the blessings of a redeemed and regenerated countiy. 

" In view of the work of this Branch from the commencement, we can not but express our 
heartfelt gratitude to that kind Providence which has so signally blessed its ejBTorts, and made 
the Commission instrumental in the distribution of the large amount of donations which have 
been poured into their hands by full and free hearts, lor the benefit of sufferers who are bravely 
defending our country and our homes. 

" It will be seen that one and a half per cent, on the cash receipts, from the commencement, 
will cover all expenses for clerk-hire, labor, freight, drayage, and other incidental matters; and 



256 Ohio in the War. 

this comparative small expense is, in great measure, owing to the extreme liberality, which 
should here be gratefully acknowledged, of the free use of the telegraph wires, and the free car 
riage of hundreds of tons of stores by the several express companies, railroads, and steamboats.* 
"With all this liberality our supplies would long since have been exhausted by the con-j 
stantly-increasing requirements of our soldiers, had not the sagacity and enterprise of a num- 
ber of energetic and patriotic gentlemen suggested the idea of and inaugurated the Great West-- 
ern Sanitary Fair of this city, the wonderful result of which realized (to the Commission) over] 
a quarter of a million dollars. R. W. EUENET, President. 

" Geo. Hoadly, Larz Anderson, Vice-Pr«sidents. 
"J. J. Broadwell, Recording Secretary. 

"R. W. Burnet, Thomas G. Odiorne, Charles F. Wilstach, Executive Committee. 
"Geo. K. Shoenberger, A. Aub, M. Bailey, Eli C. Baldwin, Joshua H, Bates, E. S. Brooks, A. E. . 
Chamberlain, Rev. B. W. (ihidlaw, Charles E. Cist, C. G. Comegys, M. D. ; Geo. F. Davis, 
Charles R. Fosdick, L. B. Harrison, James M. Johnston, B. F. Baker, David Judkins, M. 
D.; Edward Mead, M. D. ; George Mendenhall, M. D. ; W. H. Mussey, M. D. ; Henry 
Pearce, Elliott H. Pendleton, Chas. Thomas, Mark E. Reeves, E. Y. Robbing, all of Cincin- 
nati ; Charles Butler, of Franklin ; James McDaniel, J. D. Phillips, R. W. Steele, of Day- 
ton ; David S. Brooks, of Zanesville. J. B. Heich, General Secretary." 

To this sketch it need onl}' be added that the Cincinnati Branch of the San- 
itary Commission continued to devote its moneys sacredly to the precise pur- 
pose for which they Avere contributed. At the close of the war many thousands 
of dollars were in its treasury. These it kept invested in United States bonds, 
using the interest and drawing on the principal from time to time as it was 
needed for the relief of destitute soldiers, and specially for their transportation J 
to their homes, in cases where other provision was not made for them. Three 
years after the close of the war it still had a remnant of the sacred sum, and 
was still charging itself as carefully as ever with its disbursement. 

Incomparably the greatest and most efficient organization of this kind for 
the aid of soldiers, outside of the leading city of the State, was that first 

*The following statement shows fully the' receipts and disbursements of money from the treasury to August 11, 
1864. A detailed account of the variety of stores and supplies which has passed through the storeroom of the Branch 
would cover many pages. The value can not be accurately estimated, but the donations alone exceed one million of 
dolliirs. 

RECEIPTS. 

From the State of Ohio (part of $3,000 appropriated) 31,000 00 

" city of Cincinnati— donation 2,000 00 

" citizens of Cincinnati— donations 38,265 73 

citizens of other parts of Ohio 14,423 43 

" Bale of unconsumed rations at Soldiers' Home 2,175 52 

" Sanitary Fair (per committee) _ 235,406 62 

citizens of California, through the United States Sanitary Commission 15,000 00 

" interest and premium on securities 5,655 00 

Total $313,926 30 

DISBURSEMENTS. 

For purchase of medicines $1,412 37 

" three sets of hospital-car trucks 3,108 00 

" expenses at rooms (fur salaries of clerks, porters, laborers, freights on receipts, shipments, etc.) 16,402 IS 

" Ladies' Central Soldiers Aid Society 3,104 65 

" charter of hospital steamboats 13,272 31 

" disbursements on account of Soldiers' Home 5,502 49 

" supplies for distribution to hospitals, camps, etc 146,215 40 

" remittance to United States Sanitary Commission 2,003 75 

Balance on hand, eighty five-twenty bonds $80,000 00 

Thirty-eight one-year certificates 37,184 45 

Cash in bank 5,720 70 

122,905 15 

Total $313,926 30 

After this date the receipts were mainly from the interest on the investments in United States 



Relief Wokk; Aid Societies, Etc. 



257 



known as the " Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio," and afterward as the 
Cleveland Branch of the Sanitary Commission. Indeed it may be questioned 
if, considering its location and opportunities, it was not the first in efficiency in 
the West. 

On another account it deserves honorable distinction and a cheerful award 
of pre-eminence. It was the first general organization in the United States for the 
relief of soldiers in this war. The " Woman's Central Association of New York," 
which has been generally regarded the first, was organized on the 25th of April, 
1861. The Cleveland association was organized on the 20th of April, 1861, five 
days earlier than that in New York, and only five days after the first call for 
troops. For the quick charity of her generous women let Cleveland bear the 
palm she fairl}^ merits, and Ohio — proud in so many great achievements — be 
proud also of this. 

Of the spirit with which the women of Cleveland entered upon the work 

bonds. The following summary was afterward published of aggregate receipts of Sanitary stores 
from December 1, 1861, to March 28, 1865, by the Cincinnnati Branch : 



Arm-slin.as, 306S. 
Alum, pulv. 3 pounds. 
Arrow Root, 3 pounds. 
Ale, 1(1 bis., Hlilf. bis., 

12kgs., 2,o92 bottles. 
Apples, green, 1547 bus. 
Apple Butter, 34 bis., 

■48 hlf. bis., 115 kegs, 

y boxes, 116 cans and 

jars. 
Agricultural Imple- 
ments, 25. 
Artichokes, 1 bushel. 
Blankets, 5,97ti. 
Betlticks, 9,lflfi. 
Bed Gowns, 369. 
Boots and Shoes, 1,285 

pairs. 
Bags, 995. 
Basters, 61. 
Bedste'ds,Cots,etc.732. 
Iron Bedsteads, 100. 
Bed Pans, 244. 
Bowls, drinking, 3019. 
Brushes, 305. 
Beets, 91 bush. 
Beans, 35^ bush. 
Butter, 10,233 pounds. 
Bread, 2,043 loaves. 
Barley, Pearl, 2,090 lbs. 
Buckets, 360. 
Bowls, wash, .516. 
Beef, dried, 11,0513^ lbs. 
Blacking, 15 boxes. 
Brooms, 83. 
Blackberry Root, 137 

pounds. 
Blackberry Svrup, 7 

bis., 4 hlf. bis, and 13 

kegs. 
Beef,Extract of, 6 c'ns. 
Comforts, 13,892. 
Cushions, 21,953. 
Coats, 2,914. 
Crutches, 1,250. 
Combs 7,830. 
Carrots, 7)4 bush. 
Cabbage,green,6hhd8, 

11 bis., 181 bush., and 

522 heads. 
Candles, lis pounds. 
Crackers, 137,488 lbs. 
Codfish, 5,460. 
Cups and Saucers, 270. 
Canteens, 28. 
Cinnamon, 25 pounds. 
Cocoa, 407 pounds. 
Chocolate, 312 pounds. 
CofBns, 72. 
Chambers, 344. 
Colosne, 77 bottles and 

1 gallon. 
Chairs. 341. 
Coffee, 1,133 pounds. 
Chickens, dressed and 

live, 2,659. 
Citric Acid, 20 bottles 



Corn-meal, 10,553 lbs. 
Coffee Mugs, 402. 
Cheese, 1,606 pounds. 
Corn, parched, 503 lbs. 
Corn, dried, 783>6 lbs. 
Cigars, 3 boxes. 
Candlesticks, 72. 
Cakes, 2,639 pounds. 
Corn Starch, 7,177 lbs. 
Collars, 53. 
Coffee Pots, 87. 
Condensed Millc,61,761. 
Cranberries, fresh, 1 

Catsup, '3 bis., 4 hlf. 

brl,, 3 kegs, 9 jugs, 

1,181 bottles. 
Cabbage in curry, 176 

bis. and 386 hlf. bis. 
Checker Board, 31. 
Currant Wiue, 2 kegs 

and 1 jug. 
Compound Tincture of 

Gentian, 10 gallons. 
Drawers, 47,312 pairs. 
Dressiug-gowns, 3,7.^9. 
Dried Fruits, 250,743 

pounds. 
Dishes, 90. 
Dippers, 49. 
Desks, 3. 

Drinking tubes, lOS. 
Dandelion Root, 2 lbs. 
Eggs, 15,319 dozen. 
Egg-beaters, 4. 
Envelopes 73,800. 
Eye-shades, 1,949. 
Fruits, 75,079 cans and 

jars. 
Flour, 2 bis. 
Fish, white, 7 bis. and 

1 keg. 
Flaxseed, 209 pounds. 
Faucets, 24. 
Fans, 10,214. 
Feeders, 180. 
Flat-irons, 6. 
Finger-stalls, 626. 
Foot-warmers, 6. 
Farina, 13,139 pounds. 
Fruit Saucers, 288. 
Funnels, 2. 
Fly-brushes, 171. 
Flannel, 1,466 yards. 
Groceries, Sundries, 2,- 

700 pounds. 
Green Corn, 3 sacks. 
Groats, 100 pounds. 
Gastrions. 3 pounds. 
Grapes, 130 boxes and 2 

half boxes. 
Ginger, dry, 2,239 pkgs. 

and 4 cans. 
Ginger, Essence of Ja- 

maca, 16 bottles. 
Gooseberries, ripe, 

bushels. 



Graters, 23. 

Garden Seeds, 20 boxes 

Gridirons, 4. 

Hospital Car-trucks, 3 
sets. 

Handkerchiefs, M,?A5. 

Hats and Caps, 1,156. 

Housewives, 3,878. 

Hams, 686. 

Haversacks, IS. 

Hops, 561>^ pounds. 

Herbs, 5'j/i pounds and 
227 packages. 

Hatchets, 16. 

Herrings, 22 boxes. 

Hominy, 1,955 pounds. 

Honev, 9 cans 2 bottles. 

Havelocks, 319. 

Horseradish, I keg, 
sack, 63 jars, 228 bot 
ties. 

Head Covers, 13. 

Ice, 81 tons. 

Ice-cream Free/.ers, 2. 

Ink. 432 bottles. 

Knives and F<3rks,l , 

Kettles, 13. 

Lard Oil, 2 kegs and 1 
can. 

Lanterns, 128. 

Lumber, 14,.500 feet. 

Lemons, 131 boxes and 
83 dozen. 

Liquorice, 6 pounds 

Lemon, extract of, 120 
jars. 

Lemon Syrup 141 bot- 
tles. 

Linseed Oil, 1 keg. 

Lobsters, 26 cans. 

Lard, 41 pounds. 

Ladles, 2. 

Lead Pencils, 209 doz. 

INteats, 4,165. 

Jlitteus, 11,174 pairs. 

31c Lean's Pills, 6bxs. 

Miner' 1 Plan ts, 250 bxs. 

3Iilk, 129 gallons. 

JIattresses, 472. 

■Mellons. 7. 

Mustard, ground, 14}^ 
pounds. 102 bottles, 
and 898 boxes. 

Mops, 78. 

Macaroni, 3 boxes. 

Molasses, 4 hlf. bis. and 
8kgs, IScans, 15 jugs, 
15 bottles, and 78 gal- 
lons. 

Mugs, 200. 

Mosquito Bars, 1,758. 

Mess Pans, 28. 

MuttonTallow,123 c'ns 
and 5>^ pounds. 

Mustard Seed, 21 lbs. 

Neck-ties, 914. 

Napkins, 1,359. 



Nuts, Hickory, 19 bush 

Nuts, Walnuts, 6 bush 

Nails, 1,350 pounds. 

Night-caps, 153. 

Nutmegs, 13 pounds. 

Needles, 7,000. 

Oat-meal, 495 pounds. 

Orajiges, 23>^ boxes. 

Oysters, 1,310 cans. 

Oakum, 6 packages. 

Onic.us, 10,908 bushels 

Pillows, 26,234. 

Pillow-cases, 71,671. 

Pants, 2,993 pairs. 

Pin-cushions, 8,963. 

Pig's Feet, 29 kegs. 

Pepper, ground, COM 
lbs. and 1,587 papers 

Parsnips, 17M busliels. 

Pretzels, 282. 

Prunes 280 pounds. 

Porter. 36 dozen. 

Pen-holders, 84 dozen. 

Pins, 15 packs. 

Peppers, 6 buttles and 
6 jars. 

Potatoes, 29,.592 bush 

Peaches, ripe, 24 bush. 

Pie Plant, .56 pounds. 

Pepper-sauce, 113 bot- 
tles. 

Puzzles, 7. 

Pickles, 911 bis., 355 
hlf. bis., 501 kegs, 
firkins, 14 crocks, 77 
bottles, 752 cans and 
jars. 

Portable Lemonade, 300 
cans. 

Paper, Writ! ng,28S rms 

Rice, 921 pounds. 

Raisins, 19 boxes. 

Kags, Lint, and Band- 
ages, .55,018 pounds. 

Shawls, 54. 

Spit-cups, 1,125. 

Slippers, 6, 590 pairs. 

Sheets, 37,777. 

Socks, 50,774 pairs. 

Shirts, 104,199. 

Strainers, 20. 

Slippery-elm Flour, 2 
packages. 

Shoulders. Pork, 556 
pounds. 

Strawberries, 24 boxes. 

Sardines, 23 boxes. 

Sausages, 375 pounds. 

Spittoiis, 292. 

Straw, 79 bales. 

Sponges, 15 packages. 

Scissors, 24 pairs. 

Stretchers, 16. 

Stone Jugs, 612. 

Soap, 3,689>^ pounds, 
1,017 cakes, 168 bars, 
and 6 boxes. 



Sago, 1,032 pounds. 
Spoons, Table and Tea, 

2,028. 
Sugar, 5,797>i pounds. 
Shovels, 6. 

Spices, boxe9,67 pack- 
ages, and 15 pounds. 
Skimmers, 14. 
Suspenders, 547 pairs. 
Salt, 404 pounds and 2 

barrels. 
Sticking salve, 6 boxes 

and 11 rolls 
Saucepans, 60. 
Sour-krout, 1,174 bis., 

193 hlf. bis., 17 kegs, 

and 5 jars. 
Starch, 7,732 pounds. 
Solitaire Boards, 25.. 
Steel pens, 5 gross. 
Towels, 62,126. 
Tin Cups, 21,341. 
Tincture of Blackb'ry 

Root, 5 gallons. 
Turnips, 99 bushels. 
Tamarinds. 6 jars. 
Thumb-stalls, 22. 
Tin Plates, 1,062. 
Tinware, assorted, 2 

boxes. 
Tongues, dried, 717. 
Toast, dry, 26 bis. and 

l,6so pounds. 
Tumblers 762. 
Tea, 1,570>^ pounds. 
Tables, .34. 
Tea Pots, .33. 
Tapioca, 76 pounds. 
Tobacco, 3,088 papers, 

8)4 boxes, 1,051 lbs., 

and 3 barrels. 
Thread, Patent, 128 lbs. 
Tomatoes, ripe,3V4 bush 
Turkeys, live and dr'sd, 

29. 
Tomatoes, canned, 2,- 

765 pounds. 
Urinals, 125. 
Vests, 538. 

Vermicelli, 70 pounds. 
Vinegar, 19bls., 3 kegs, 

4 jugs, and 10 bottles. 
White-wash brushes, 

24. 
Wines, Liquors, and 

Cordials, 28,269 bot- 
tles. 
Wash-stands, 100. 
White Lead, 1 keg. 
Whiskj-, 10 gallons. 
Yeast Powders, 20 lbs. 
Yeast Cakes, 28 lbs. 
Yeast, 7 sacks. 



Vol. I.— 17. 



258 Ohio in the Wak. 

lb at was to be so long, so sad, and so honorable, no better illustration can be 
given than this extract from the (unpublished) "History of the Cleveland 
Branch Sanitary Commission," by Miss Mary Clark Brayton : 

"Two days later (April 23, 1861), while busy but unskillful hands were plying the sad task 
of bandage-rolling, a gentleman from the camp of instruction just opened near the city begged 
to interrupt. Mounting the platform, he announced that one thousand men, from towns adjoin- 
ing, were at that moment marching into camp, and that, expecting (with the pardonable igno- 
rance of our citizen -soldiery at that early day) to be fully equipped on reaching this rendezvous, 
many had brought no blankets, and had now the prospect of passing a sharp April night uncov- 
ered on the ground. This unexpected occasion for benevolence was eagerly seized. Two ladiea 
hastened to engage carriages; others rapidly districted the city. In a few minutes eight hacks 
were at the door, two young ladies in each, their course marked out, and they dispatched to rep- 
resent to the matrons of the towns this desperate case. At three o'clock this novel expedition 
setoff; all the afternoon the carriages rolled rapidly through the streets; bright faces glowed 
with excitement ; grave eyes gave back an answering gleam of generous sympathy. A word of 
explanation sufficed to bring out delicate rose blankets, chintz quilts, thick counterpanes, and 
by nightfall seven hundred and twenty-nine blankets were carried into camp. 

" Next morning the work was resumed, and before another night every volunteer in Camp 
Taylor had been provided for. 

"While yet this ' blanket raid ' was going on the ladies at the meeting, startled by sound of 
fife and drum, hurried to the door just in time to see a company of recruits, mostly farmer lads, 
march down the street toward the new camp. These had 'left the plow in the furrow,' and, 
imagining that the enlistment-roll would transform them at once into Uncle Sam's blue-coated 
soldier-boys, they had marched away in the clothes that they were wearing when the call first 
reached them. Before they turned the corner motherly watchfulness had discovered that some 
had no coats, that others wore their linen blouses, and that the clothing of all was insufficient for 
the exposure of the scarcely-inclosed camp. On this discovery the bandage meeting broke up, 
and the ladies hurried home to gather up the clothing of their own boys for the comfort of these 
young patriots. Two carriages heaped with half-worn clothing drove into camp at sundown." 

Of the results to which this spirit ultimately led, the barest outlines may 
be read in these suggestive figures : 

Estimated value of stores disbursed •■ $1,000,000 00 

Total cash disbursed to November, 1867 $162,956 09 

Number registered at Soldiers' Home * 56,645 

Number lodgings given at Soldiers' Home 30,000 

Number meals given at Soldiers' Home - 112,000 

Number of soldiers supplied with employment 206 

Number of claims received at the Free Agency 1,900 

Keceipts (net) of Cleveland sanitary fair $78,000 

Number of Aid Societies enrolled as branches 525 

Office of the Society still open (November, 1867) for settlement of remaining claims— about 
three hundred. 

And of the general history of their work we can give no better outline than 
in this summary by one of the members : 

"The officers, at organization, were: Mrs. B. Eouse, President; Mrs. John Shelley, Mrs. 
Wm. Melhinch, Vice Presidents ; Mary Clark Brayton, Secretary ; Ellen F. Terry, Treasurer. 

"No changes occurred, except the resignation of Mrs. Shelley, on removal from the city in 
1863, when Mrs. Lewis Burton was elected to her place. She soon resigned and Mrs. J. A. Har- 
ris was chosen to succeed her. The list as given below best expresses the working force of the 
society throughout its whole existence : 

" Mrs. B. Rouse, President ; Mrs. Wm. Melhinch, Mrs. J. A. Harris, Vice Presidents ; Mary 
Clark Brayton, Secretary; Ellen F. Terry, Treasurer; Carrie P. Younglove, Document C!lerk. 



Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 259 

" The society was the outgrowth of an earnest purpose to do with a might whatsoever a 
woman's hand sliould find to do. In the eagerness to work, no form of constitution or by-laws was 
ever thought or spoken of. Beyond a membership fee of twenty-five cents monthly, and a verbal 
pledge to work while the war should last, no form of association was ever adopted ; no written 
word held the society together even to its latest day. 

"The entire business of influencing, receiving, and disbursing money and stores — the prac- 
tical details of invoicing, shipping, and purchasing — were done by the officers of the society. 
There was no finance, advisory, or auditing committee of gentlemen, as was usual elsewhere in 
such institutions. The services of officers and managers were entirely gratuitous , no salary was 
ever asked or received by any one of them. Several of the officers made repeated trips to the 
front; to head-quarters Sanitary Commission at Louisville and Washington; to hospitals of 
Wheeling, Louisville, Nashville, and minor points ; to the battle-fields of Pittsburg Landing, 
Perryville, Stone Eiver, and Chattanooga. These trips were undertaken with a view to stimu- 
late the benevolence of the people of Northern Ohio, by informing them of the real needs of the 
sick and wounded. The officers were happily able to bear their own charges, and not one cent 
was ever drawn from the treasury of the society for traveling or other expenses. 

" The teritory from which supplies were drawn was extremely limited, being embraced in 
eighteen counties in the north-eastern part of Ohio. A few towns in Southern Michigan and 
North-western Pennsylvania were, during the first years, tributary to the Cleveland Society, but 
later these were naturally withdrawn and associated with the agencies established at Detroit and 
Pittsburg. Meadville, Pennsylvania, was the only considerable town outside of the State of Ohio 
that remained to the end a branch of the Cleveland Commission, The north-western part of 
Ohio having more direct railroad communication with Cincinnati, sent its gifts generally to that 
supply center. Columbus had its own agency.* The geographical position of Cleveland limited 
the territory influenced by its society, since it could not be expected that towns in the central part 
of the State would send their stores northward, knowing they would be at once reshipped south 
toward the army. The small field was carefully and thoroughly cultivated, and from it a con- 
stituency was built up of branch societies numbering, at the close of the war, five hundred and 
twenty-five. 

* The officers of this Columbus society were: " Dr. W. JI. Awl, President ; Dr. J. B. Thompson, Vice-President ; 
John W. Andrews, Secretary ; Prof. T. G. Wormly, Trensurer ; Dr. J. B. Thompson, Peter Ambos, and F. C. Sessions, 
Executive Committee. Mr. Andrews, though continuing a zealous worker wlien in the city, was compelled to resign 
the secretaryship, when F. C. Sessions took his place. The society was organized in the summer of 1861 . A brief out- 
line of its workings is furnished in the following extract from a letter from one of its members : 

" The Soldier s Home was started at the depot, April 22, 1S62, under the charge of Isaac Dalton. A two-story build- 
ing, twenty-four by sixty, near the depot, was commenced in the spring of 1S6.3, and occupied in October following, 
erected by Columbus Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, at a cost of about two thousand three hun- 
dred dollars. It was finished so as to appear as home-like, comfortable, and attractive as possible to the soldiers. It 
was plastered and painted, and we were often told by the soldiers that it was the most attractive Home that they had 
ever visited in any place. Soon after we erected an addition, twenty-six by eighty feet, at a cost of about two thou- 
sand dollars, making the whole building twenty-four by one hundred and forty. Afterward another small building 
was erectti, eleven by twenty-five. The whole cost about five thousand dollars. It was furnished mostly by the cit- 
izens of Columbus. T. E.Botsford and Isaac Dalton were superintendents. Mr. Dalton was superintendent from 
the first, and proved a faithful and self-sacrificing officer. The same could be said of Mr. Botsford. It was their duty 
to care for the sick and wounded, to furnish soldiers with meals and lodging, to assist them to and from the depot, 
oneorbothto be present at the arrival and departure of every train, procuring transportation, and in every way 
assisting the soldiers who came to the city on business, or were on their way to and from the front. One hundred and 
thirty-six thousand meals were furnished, and about fifty thousand with beds. Several of the members of our Com- 
mission visited the battle-fields to take supplies to our sick and wounded, and assist in various ways, as their services 
were needed. Dr. S. M. Smith, Dr. Loving, and F. C. Sessions at diiTerent times, the latter spending most of hia 
time without pay for nearly two years, visiting Kentucky, Fort Donelson, Pittsburg Landing, Murfreesboro', Nasli- 
ville, Antietam, Fremont's and Grant's armies on the Potomac several times. 

"The Ladies' Aid Society was indefatigable and self-sacrificing in their labors in providing clothing and delica- 
cies for the sick and wounded, and sending them to the hospitals by some member of the Commission, or as they 
might learn where they were most needed, without reference to what State the soldiers were from. The amount s«nt 
U valued by those most familiar with its work at about seventy-five thousand dollars. It is difficult to single out any 
to name as most active In the work during the war, when so many were so faithful, but I will venture to name Mrs. 
Governor Dennison, who was the first President, and Mrs. W. E. Ide, who succeeded Mrs. Dennison, and acted until 
nearly the close of the war, and by whose sympathy and enthusiasm otliers were aroused to duty. Also Mrs. S.J. 
Haver, Mrs. George Heyl, Mrs. Lewis Heyl, Miss M. L. Swayue, Mrs. S. M. Smith, Miss Pamelia SuUivant, Mrs. H. 
C. Koble, Mrs. Harvey Coit, Mrs. Alex. Housten, Mrs. Joseph Geiger, Mrs. Isaac Castor.Mrs. James Beebe, Mrs. John 
S. Hall, Mrs. Wm. G. Deshler, Mrs. Walter Brown, Mrs. E. T. Morgan, Mrs. Sessions, and Mrs. John W. Andrews 
were among its officers and active members. 

"Our Sanitary Commission visited the camps and hospitals in the city and vicinity, and suggested such changes 
in sewerage, food, and location as they deemed best. We employed a police force at the depot, to see that the soldiers 
were not swindled." 



260 Ohio in the War. 

"It is believed that no other arm of the Sanitary Commission had so intimate communica- 
tion with its tributary societies, or drew from so small a district such large results. The stores 
contributed run very close to the receipts of Cincinnati and Chicago, and in some leading arti- 
cles outrun their tables. No attempt was ever made to divert contributions out of the direct 
channel toward the army. Towns were always advised to send to the sanitary agency nearest the 
point of demand. 

State lines were ever scrupulously ignored ; the only passport to aid was the suffering need 
of a Union soldier, without a question whether his enlistment roll was signed in Maine or 
Minnesota. 

"It is believed that the Aid Societies of Northern Ohio were a power for loyalty. The work 
at first undertaken for sweet charity only, soon became an exponent of political sentiment. The 
'Peace' or 'Union' proclivities of a man was surely indicated by his generosity and good will 
toward ' the Sanitary,' or his open or covert attacks upon it. The Union sentiment of a town was 
sure to crystallize around its Aid Society. The hands of Union men at home were as certainly 
held up by this little band of workers in every town and village, as were the hearts of the sol- 
diers in the field cheered and strengthened by knowledge of the agencies employed at home for 
their comfort. This was sharply brought out in the Brough-Vallandigham campaign. Thou- 
sands of loyal documents were scattered both at home and in the army by the Aid Societies; mass 
conventions and Union leagues recognized the power and value of these organizations, and showed 
their appreciation by liberal contributions to them. 

" For the first six or eight months the Cleveland society had a hard struggle for life. So 
much desultory work was done by the people directly to their friends in the army that it was 
only by much persistence that sanitary labors were centralized. The society does not claim to 
have engrossed all the relief work of its territory, but to have gathered it into form, and have 
given it wise direction and made it more effective. 

" The supply work was strictly confined to issues of hospital stores, except during the sum- 
mers of 1863 and 1864, when the campaign against scurvy began, and the Sanitary Commission 
called upon its branches to furnish the regiments in the field the vegetables that became the 
ounce of prevention which proverbially outweighs even the pound of cure. Through these sea- 
sons four and five car-loads of vegetables per week, on an average, were sent down to the army 
from the Cleveland rooms, exclusive of the usual shipments of hospital stores in the same 
direction. 

" The stores disbursed were the clothing, bedding, surgeons' supplies, light groceries, stimu- 
lants, dairy stores, fruits, vegetables, and articles of hospital furniture, common to all sanitary 
supply stations. The estimated value of stores disbursed is over one million of dollars. 

"A great deal was done in Northern Ohio in sending boxes to individuals in the army; pro- 
visions, Christmas and thanksgiving boxes to camps, presentations of socks and mittens to regi- 
ments marching away; sending messengers loaded with good things down to the front. (See 
I Samuel, xviii: 17, 18.) This outside work enters into no records of sanitary effort, but it is cer- 
tain that the Aid Societies were the ' head centers ' of all communication between the home and 
the army, and that their being kept in so healthy and vigorous condition gave an impetus to all 
such work, whether done strictly within their limits or not. 

" The agencies used for stimulating supplies were the frequent issues of circulars, containing 
appeals and instructions ; publications in newspapers ; the circulation of sanitary documents 
from the General Commission (about seventy thousand copies) ; the employment of canvassers 
among farmers in the home-field ; and constant personal correspondence with the oflicers of 
branch societies. As a ready means of communicating with branches, a small printing office was 
added to the rooms, and its frequent bulletins sensibly increased the receipts by giving prompt 
information of the ever varying demand ; while the cheering letters that we received from the 
army were thus made to stimulate and strengthen the hands of many who waited only to be 
directed and encouraged. For more than two years the ladies of the Cleveland Society were 
allowed a space in the Cleveland Leader of two columns weekly. This was devoted to the inter- 
ests of sanitary work, and was edited at the aid rooms. 

"After the establishment of head-quarters of Sanitary Commission at Louisville, most of 
the shipments went down from Cleveland by car-load, in locked cars, to the Ohio River ; thence 
transferred to steamers and shipped to Louisville, there to be forwarded to the army at the dis- 
cretion of Dr. S. S. Newberry, General Secretary for the West. The books of the society, how- 



Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 261 

ever, show that so early as the close of the year 1862 its stores had reached fifty-seven camps, 
regimental hospitals, and recruiting stations ; forty general and post hospitals ; eighteen estab- 
lished or temporary depots of the Sanitary Commission, besides supplies to floating hospitals and 
storeboats. These issues had been made to points in Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Ten- 
nessee, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, besides small supplies to the army of the Potomac. 

" The money shown in the summary of operations was obtained by contributions and by 
entertainments given under management of the society. It also includes ten thousand dollars 
given by California, a part of the one hundred thousand dollars divided among the "Western 
branches of the Sanitary Commission in the winter of 1862-3, and money received at various 
times from the General Commission for purchase of vegetables, krout, etc., in the war against 
scurvy. Personal solicitation of money by the officers of the Cleveland Society was scrupulously 
avoided, and never resorted to save in raising means for building a Soldiers' Home, in August 
and September, 1863, when one thousand seven hundred dollars were obtained from citizens of 
Cleveland for that specific object. 

" The Cleveland Soldiers' Home was built upon land adjoining the Union Depot. It was 
sustained and conducted by the Aid Society, and large additions were subsequently made for the 
entertainment of returning regiments. The records of this Home show : 

•'Number registered 56,645 

Number of lodgings given 30,000 

Number of meals given 112,000 

"No Government support was received, atid no rations drawn from the commissary stores, 
as was usual in institutions of this kind. Below is a short report which illustrates the character 
of the Home: 

"It is scarcely a year since the building now used as our Soldiers' Home was opened, and as its walls rose manj 
had been the doubts expressed of its usefulness. Time has proved us not unwise in thus extending our means foi 
•entertaining the sick and friendless soldier while passing through our city. The number of men admitted into the 
Home in the last six months is greater than the whole number previously receiving our care since the opening of the 
war. The Home was soon found too small, and in August last repairs and additions were made. The house, now two 
hundred feet long, with sixty beds, two small wards for the veiy sick, reading room, bathing room, and good dining 
and kitchen arrangements, is but barely sufficient to i-eceive those who have a right to claim its shelter. 

" The Home stands near the Union Depot, and each railroad train that enters our city, day or night, brings its 
freight of worn and weary travelers to its door. The sick, wounded, or destitute discharged man, who can no longer 
•draw help from the Government— the soldier on his sick furlough, or painfully bearing homeward hia honorable 
wounds— the released prisoner or the homeless refugee, all have in their need of kindness and aid, a passport to this 
way-side inn, where a hospitable welcome, good cheer, and a comfortable bed are freely given in the name of the 
Sanitary Commission. 

" A few hours generally finds the soldier on his way again, rested and refreshed ; but there are often cases of seTere 
and lingering illness to watch and tend, and seven times within the period embraced in this report has the angel of 
death thrown the shadow of liis sable wing across the threshold of our Home. 

"We have often begged for the Home the notice and the charities of onr friends, and no one enters its doors with- 
out acknowledging its claims upon the benevolent ; yet its good Samaritan work can never be fully known to any but 
a constant visitor. Though conducted on an average of only twelve cents to each meal and lodging, the expenses of so 
large a household are a serious draft upon our treasury, and we gratefully acknowledge all gifts of money, provisions, 
and coal; also the gratuitous medical and surgical attendance, and medicines and dressings furnished. Several of 
our Branch Societies have sent bread, cake, apple-butter, poultry, apples, and spring vegetables to the Home, and one 
small township has lately given one hundred pounds of butter. The amount due for milk left daily during the month 
of December was given as a ' Christmas present,' and ma.iiy similar tokens have come from those who sympathize with 
its charitable mission. 

" We again beg from the abundance of our citizens and friends in the country anything that will furnish the 
tables and make the soldier feel that the ' Home' to which he is directed is not unworthy of its name. All who are 
interested in learning more of its objects and management are cordially invited to visit it when in the city, and we 
hope that in the coming year our Home may find many new friends." 

" In the autumn of 1863 the Cleveland Society, catching the enthusiasm and the spirit of 
sanitary fairs, from a visit to the fair of Chicago, resolved to launch its own little boat upon the 
the wave of prosperity, and projected a fair, which opened February 22, 1864, running sixteen 
days, with net results of seventy-eight thousand dollars ; a brilliant success for Cleveland. The 
fair, though not as large as many others, was considered extremely attractive. It was held in a 
building erected for the purpose on the public square, and on an area of sixty-four thousand 
square feet. The structure was in form of a Greek cross, the four arms being respectively, a 
bazaar, bright and bewildering in its gay ornamentation and profusion of costly, ingenious, fan- 
ciful, and useful wares ; a mechanics' or power hall, filled with inventions of machinery or fab- 
rics of their manufacture;, a vast dining-hall, where scores of pretty girls, in bewitching 



262 Ohio in the War. 

cap and coquettish apron, served the visitors to a ' feast of fat things ; ' a grand audience room, with 
seats for three thousand persons, where evening entertainments of varied character were given. 
The central building — forming a junction of all these halls — was an octagon, seventy-six feet in 
diameter, rising in a dome, and inclosing the Perry Statue. This building was decorated as a Floral 
Hall, and was the crowning beauty and attraction of the fair — a marvel of taste and skill, where 
' well-skilled art, taking its text from nature, formed grottoes that might have been fairy homes — 
bowers fit for the garden of a king — cascades, rocky hillsides, and tangled copses that vie with 
nature itself.' In connection with the fair there was also a museum of heaped-up wonders, and a 
picture gallery, where the art treasures loaned by citizens, or given by artists, were exhibited. 

"The unexpectedly successful results of the Sanitary Fair placed the Cleveland Society in a 
state of financial security to the end of its existence. Its plans were enlarged, and were thor- 
oughly carried out. Until the close of the war money was freely used in purchasing vegetables, 
and material for hospital clothing, and in sustaining the branch societies, by furnishing to them 
material to make up for the hospitals. When the close of hostilities diminished the work of the 
supply department, and regiments began to return, the Soldiers' Home was much enlarged, and 
a cordial welcome was extended to every returning regiment or squad. Day after day, and night 
after night, the long dining tables were spread with an abundance of home dainties, such as the 
soldier had long been a stranger to. The ladies of the Society were always at the Home to wel- 
come the regiments, and to serve at the tables. 

"After the troops were disbanded, an employment agency was opened, and continued for 
eight months. 

" Out of four hundred and eleven applicants two hundred and six were supplied with situa- 
tions. A considerable number failed to report a second time, and were discharged from the books, 
so that only ninety-seven remained unsupplied with business. Most of these were disabled men, 
unfit for any duty, and these were admitted into the Home, or became regular pensioners of the 
Society in their own homes. 

"The Society could not consider its duties over till the last soldier had been supplied. The 
following bulletin shows how the supply department was kept up for months after the war closed : 

"'Soldiers' Aid Society of Noethekn Ohio, •> 
"'Central Office, No. 89 Bank Street, Cleveland, July 10, lSfi5. J 
•' ' Dear Madam : We are convinced that the closing of your Society is premature, and it is certain that for three 
months longer your work should continue. Will you not at once call together your faithful members and reorganize? 
" ' Until you can raise means to purchase material we will continue to furnish cut garments as heretofore, and 
would b?g you to have these made and returned as soon as tiossible. 

" ' Our returned soldiers, without money, and with clothing worn and travel-stained, are daily besieging our door» 
for articles of comfort, which we, foe lack of your help, have not to give them! These men, now disowned by 
Government, are properly our care until they assume their citizen's duties, and can provide themselves with citizen's 

dress. 

" ' We are daily purchasing and giving out cotton socks, suspenders, combs, soap, writing material, etc. W e ask 
your help in supplying shirts, drawers, towels, and handkerchiefs. You have nobly followed our soldiers into camp 
and field with your gifts— do not let them ask in vain when they return to this land of plenty. 

" ' It is no time to stop now, and it will bring discredit upon all that has been done should we close our"aoors in the 
face of any demand. One day in our rooms would satisfy any one that Sanitary work is by no means over. Let us go 
on until we can all close, knowing that our work has been well and thoroughly done. 

" ' Send for a package of garments to make up. MAKY C. BRAYTON, Secretary.' 

" In October 1865, when the Ohio State Soldiers' Home was opened, the Cleveland society 
appropriated from the treasury five thousand dollars to support that institution until the State 
appropriation should be received. 

"On January 1, 1865, a free claim agency was established under the auspices of the Cleve- 
land society. This agency has received about nineteen hundred claims, and in November, 1867, 
was still open for prosecution of the unsettled claims. It ceased to take new claims January 1, 
1867. The claim agency was under the immediate supervision of the Secretary and Treasurer 
of the society, who employed clerical assistance in the business." 

To these outline sketches of the work accomplished, at the two gi-eat dis- 
tributing centers of the relief associations of the State, may here be fitly added 
a synopsis, prepared by a member, of the fiicts in the history of the Ohio Ee- 
lief Association at Washington, of some of the operations of which we have, in 
preceding chapters, had occasion to make mention ; 



Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 263 

" Early in June, 1862, it 'was found necessary to establish a large number of hospitals in 
and near Washington, D. C, for the care and shelter of the numerous sick and wounded soldiers 
■who required attention. The Government at this time was, in a great measure, without suitable 
buildings and necessary supplies for them. In the emergency, churches were seized by military 
authority and occupied, and medical officers placed in charge of them. Some of these latter 
took delight in showing their ' little brief authority,' by snubbing individual visitors who called 
to see that our suffering soldiers were made as comfortable as possible. On the 12th of June a 
number of ladies and gentlemen from Ohio, temporarily residing in Washington, met at the 
residence of A. M. Gangewer, No. 537 H street, and organized the ' Ohio Kelief Association,' by 
electing Hon. S. T. Worcester President, Major G. P. Williamson Vice-President, David Recs 
Treasurer, and A. M. Gangewer Secretary. Committees were appointed to visit the various hos- 
pitals and report the names and condition of Ohio soldiers in them, with the companies and 
regiments to which they belonged, in order that a record might be made of them, their friends 
advised of their condition, and their wants supplied, so far as the means of the society would 
enable them to supply them. As there were nearly fifty hospitals established in and near tlie 
city, it will be readily seen that the work to be done was one of some magnitude. Weekly 
meetings were held at No. 537 H street, 'Ohio Head-quarters,' to hear reports of committees 
:ind devise means to relieve the wants of the suffering soldiers. A committee of three (Messrs. 
U. H. Hutchins, John R. French, and D. Rees) was appointed to solicit funds and procure del- 
icacies for the soldiers. Governors Dennison and Tod, and the Senators and members of Con- 
gress from Ohio gave the society their confidence and favor. From this time until near the close 
of the war these weekly meetings were kept up, and much good was done in an unobtrusive way 
to our disabled soldiers. 

" In April, 1863, Mrs. S. T. Worcester wrote as follows to the Norwalk Reflector respecting 
the operations of the association : 

" ' The operations of this association are well known to me, having been an attendant upon their weeklj' meetings 
during the past winter; and I take this opportunity to ask tlie friends of the sick soldier, especially those who have 
sons, brothers, cousins, or acquaintances in Eastern Virginia, to send money or hospital stores to it. Its comijiittees 
go to the bedside of every sick Ohio soldier within their reach, converse freely with them, ascertain in what manner 
they can assist tnem, and then do the best possible thing for them. Government allows the association the use of an 
ambulance, two mules, and a driver, so that they are able to reach the hospitals within seven miles of the city. In 
many cases these sick men need something that can be better purchased in Washington than sent from here. Such, 
for instance, as apples, oranges, lemons, wine, a baker's biscuit, a custard (for which eggs, milk, and sugar must be 
bought), newspapers, both English and German, a Testament, a hymn-book, a towel of their own, a piece of soap, 
strawberries in their season, etc. The visits of these ladies and gentlemen, from their own State, with their little 
comforts, the men tell me, do them more good than medicine. Let me mention a single case from fifty which I could 
enumerate. Last week I received a letter froni a young German, to whose wants I attended while in Wasliington. In 
it lie says : ' I suppose my poor heart would have bursted if it had not been for the Gel-man hymn-book yon gave mo. 
There I found my hopes wlien near dying. 1 shall take good care of it in remembrance of you, and try to keep its 
words holy. It used to be hard for me to shed tears, but since I have been sick it has often been the case.' For this 
young man I provided while I staid in Washington, and Mrs. Gansrewer attended to him afterward. He is now fast 
recovering. He had lost all his clothing, had not a cent of money, and had a ' cry ' every day because ' no onu from 
Ohio came to see him.' The German hymn-book (Lutheran) alluded to came from the Belgian legation, and was sent, 
with many other publications in the same language, to us for distribution. 

" ' I can testify to the excellent character of the ladies and gentlemen of the Ohio Kelief Association. I know 
what (/(ej^ receive goes dire<;% to the sick soldier, and is the answer to his own requests. All the other loy^il States, 
except the border States, have similar organizations. Each looks after its own men tenderly.' 

" The names of those who were most active in the association were Messrs. J, C. Wetmore, 
D. Rees, Rev. B. F. Morris, G. P. Williamson, J. Van Offenbacher, W. G. Finney, J. R. 
French, J. W. Dwyer, Henry Beard, L. H. Ranney, C. S. Mattoon, L. A. Lyons, J. C. Winn, U. 
H. Hutchins, J. C. Brand, J. W. Schuckers, J. D. Patton, J. R. Dodge, J. H. WiIkin.son, D. 
Chambers, L. D. Reynolds, J. R. Fitch, O. B. Olmstead, and a few ladies — Mrs. D. Rees, Mrs. 
A. M. Gangewer, Mrs. Gunckel, Mrs. Staats, Miss Maggie Rees, Miss Sue Helmick, Miss .J. H. 
Gangewer, Miss Julia Baldwin, and others. Quite a number of ladies in Ohio co-operated with 
the society in furthering its objects, among the more prominent of whom were Mrs. T. L. Jew- 
ett, of Steubenville ; Mrs. Annie P. Trimble, of Chillicothe ; Mrs. J. R. Osborn, of Toledo; 
Mr«. S. T. Worcester, of Norwalk, and various ladies connected with local ladies' soldiers' aid 
societies in Ohio, all of whom contributed generously to sustain its operations. 

"In December, 1862, the Secretary of the association, A. M. Gangewer, published the fol- 
lowing statement of the articles distributed by the society to that date, viz. : 

"' Clothing, Etc.— IQ.'i wool shirts, 131 wool drawers, 40jpr8 wool socks, 1,054 prs cotton socks, 700 pre cotton drawers. 



264 Ohio in the War. 

1,147 cotton shirts, 45 coats, 65 prs pants, 117 prs slippers, 47 prs shoes, 16 vests, 43 hats, 36 caps, 31 dressing-goundB, 1,267 
handkerchiefs, 1,401 towels, 36 prs suspenders, hair-brushes, looking-glasses, combs, fans, pins, needles, thread, pin- 
cnshions, tobacco, letter-paper, envelopes, books, magazines, newspapers, etc. 

" 'Bedding, Etc.— 116 sheets, lfc5 pillows, 253 pillow-cases, 59 bedticks, 155 blankets, 37 quilts and comforts. 

'"Sanitary Stores, Etc.— 397 cans fruit, 997 bottles wines and cordials. 14 bottles shrub, 64 bottles brandy, 2 jars 
beef essence, 5 jars pickles, 15 jars apple-butter, 1 keg do., 1 tub kale slau, 2 boxes onions, 209 cans jellies, 2 brls toast 
bread, 4 brls green apples, 53 sacks, 7 bushels, and 5 boxes dried fruit, corn starch, grapes, lemons, dried beef, honey, 
tea, sago, dried corn, cornmeal, crackers, cheese, peppers, 4 tubs butter, farina, sugar, hams, tomatoes, peach-butter, 
oysters, chickens, lint, bandages, pads, soap, crutches, 18 rocking-chairs, etc. 

" ' Cooking Utensils, Etc.— 2 coffee boilers, 3 tin pans, 30 knives and forks, 24 table-spoons, .50 tin cups, 24 plates, 
cooking lamps, cups and saucers, etc. 

'"The number of names of Ohio soldiers entered on the register as visiterl by their committees, is 3,766, but the 
wants of a much larger number have been supplied whose names have not been reported, and the urgent needs of 
many soldiers from other States have been met, when made known to their visiting committees. 

"'The amount of money collected, principally from Ohio residents iu this city, was $1,296 67; amount expended 
$1,240 92, leaving in the hands of the treasurer $55 75.' 

"About this time a committee was appointed to represent to the State authorities the necessity 
of having an agent in Washington, to especially look after sick soldiers who are unable to reach 
home without assistance, and to see that they obtain their pay promptly. The Association recom- 
mended the appointment of Mr. J. C. Wetniore, who had been active and untiring in his efforts 
to aid our weak and suffering soldiers. Newspaper representations having inforced the same 
policy, he was accordingly appointed. 

"The Association did not confine its operations to Washington, but sent visitors to hospitals 
at Fredericksburg, Alexandria, and camps in Virginia; to Baltimore, Annapolis, and Frederick, 
Maryland, and to Gettysburg. 

"On the 24th of February, 1863, a special meeting was held to present a service of silver to 
Mrs. A. M. Gangewer, for her e:Jertions in behalf of the soldiers. The meeting was attended by 
Hon. S. P. Chase, Secretary of the Treasury; Judge Johnson of Cincinnati, and a crowd of Ohio 
people then in Washington. 

"On the 5th of August, 1863, the Association rented a room near the City Hall for a store- 
room. By this time the Government was enabled to supply the wants of the inmates of the hos- 
pitals, which were generally efficiently managed; but still there were occasional isolated cases ot 
suffering which needed attention, and relief was freely bestowed. Tiiose who are acquainted 
with the operations of the society know well that it has done a work of which none who partici- 
pated in it need be ashamed. Governor Brough made appeals to the people of Ohio to support 
it, and its work was constantly performed in harmony with the State Agency system." 

The general work in the more active of the home organizations through the 
State may be best illustrated, on a large scale, by this graphic picture of the 
Cleveland Aid Eooms, from the forthcoming history of that association, by Miss 
Mary Clark Brayton : 

" At eight o'clock, or even earlier, the rooms are open for the business of the day. The 
boxes unloaded from the dray upon the sidewalk are trundled through the wide doors, and the 
lids skillfully removed by the porter, or energetically pried off by some impatient member of the 
unpacking committee, whose duties now begin. 

" Cautiously she peeps under the layers, not without fear that some mischievous cork, false 
to its trust, may have spread liquid ruin among the soft folds. Shirts, drawers, and gowns, as 
thev are drawn forth, are duly counted, examined, and noted. If zealous haste has dispatched 
them minus a button or a string, the deficiency is supplied by some careful matron who sits near. 
The garment is then thrown with the others upon a high counter, behind which is enthroned a 
third committee woman with stencil-plate and brush. The labels and mottoes that she may find 
nestlincf in the pocket of a dressing-gown, or hidden in the soldier's thread-case are not removed, 
but steadily she works there, affixing the indelible stamp, ' Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern 
Ohio,' and each article passes from her hand into its appointed place in one or another of the 
great hinged receiving cases that form a row down the long wall. 

"Books and pamphlets, too, are stamped and piled upon their allotted shelf, where some 
soldier from the city camps may often be seen turning over their leaves, with free permission to 
choose. 

"Bags of dried fruit are tumbled in a heap upon the scales Bottles and jars, as they appear, 



Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 265 

re closely inspected ; the sound to be carefully repacked in saw-dust, and the defective 
jmented anew, or, if too far gone for that, they are set aside for the ' Home,' the city hospital, 
r the sick soldier not many squares off. 

" At a table in the center of the room a bandage machine is whirling under a hand grown 
exterous by much practice in these sad days; and at the old-linen box stands an embodiment of 
atience, vainly toiling to bring order out of the ever-uprising mass. 

"Just behind is the busy packing committee, upon whose skillfulness rests the good name 
F the society with the army. Bending over their work, they fold and smooth and crowd down 
ich article with its kind, until there is space only for the invoice sheet at top, and the box awaits 
le porter's hammer and its tally number before being consigned to the store-house. 

" The long table at the end of the room is occupied by the work committee. Here bed- 
icks and sheets are torn off with an electrifying report, and two pairs of savage shears are cut- 
ng their vigorous way through a bolt of army-blue flannel. The cut garments, rolled and 
cketed, are stowed away in the great work-box till given out to ladies of the city, or sent in 
ackages to bridge over a financial gap in some country Aid Society. 

" Two or three ladies, delegates from neighboring branches, are narrowly watching this busy 
;ene, while receiving from highest official sources suggestions and sympathy, if need be, and 
ader the same hospitable guida:nce are making a tour of inspection through the room and into 
le little office in the rear, which is separated from the main apartment only by a glazed partition, 
[ere some tokens of femininity have crept in, despite the evident determination to give it a 
ivere business air. A modest carpet covers the floor; the big box of documents in the corner, 
lanningly cushioned, takes ambitious rank as a sofa ; some kind body has sent in a rocking- 
bair; occasionally a bouquet graces the table; two or three pictures have found their way upon 
le walls, among railroad time-tables and shipping guides. But the latest war bulletin hangs 
ith them there, and all these amenities fail to disguise the character of the room, or to draw 
ttention from the duties of the hour. 

"Here at her desk sits one whom fate and the responsibilities of office have called to 'carry 
le bag,' and to make the neatest of figures in the largest of ledgers. There stands another, 
nitting her brows over the complications of a country invoice or a ' short shipping bill.' A 
lird is perpetually flitting between the entry desk in the main room and the bright-eyed girls 
'ho are folding circulars at the office table ; and a fourth drops her plethoric file of ' letters unan- 
ivered ' to read proof for the printer's boy waiting at her elbow, or to note down for future use 
le sanitary news as it falls fresh from the lips of an agent who has called in en route from the 
front,' to give a cordial hand to the ladies." 

lu October, 1863, the patriotic citizens of Chicago held a great fair, an ex- 
lansion of the common church festivals given by ladies in the interest of the 
iauitary Commission. As the reports of its success came to attract attention, 
be gentlemen of the Sanitary Commission and the National Union Association 
Q Cincinnati began to discuss the policy of undertaking a similar enterprise 
in a larger scale. For some days the matter was confined to private discus- 
ions. Meantime, as happened so often through the war, a woman stepped for- 
vavd to lead in the movement for good works for the soldiers. On the after- 
loon of the 31st of October this communication, the first public appeal for a 
Sanitary Fair in Cincinnati, api^eared in the Evening Times: 

" Editor Times : I wish to call the attention of the patriotic ladies of Cincinnati to the 
air that is now progressing in Chicago for the benefit of the soldiers, and which is realizing a 
landsome sum of money. Taking into consideration the fact that the winter is fast approach- 
ng, and that the soldiers will stand in need of much assistance, would it not be well for our Cin- 
innati ladies to get aroused up in the same cause, and in the same way ? We should not let 
Chicago, or any other place, be in advance of us in our efforts. I know we have ladies here who 
ire devoted friends of the soldiers, and now is the time for them to be up and doing. Please 
iall public attention to this subject, and oblige. A LADY." 



266 Ohio in the Wak. 



I 



This appeal* was copied in the morning papers, but no public action was 
taken till, on November 7th, in resj)onse to an article on the subject in the 
Gazette, "Who speaks for Cincinnati?" Mr. Jno. D. Caldwell inserted in the 
papers a call for a meeting of the executive and finance committees of the 
National Union Association, " to initiate movements toward a grand fair in Cin- 
cinnati, in aid of the cause of families of Union soldiers." At this meeting a 
committee of public-spirited citizens was appointed to hold a conference with 
committees of existing organizations on the 11th of November. Circulars and 
public notices followed ; the attention of the entire community was arrested ; 
the enterprise rapidly took shape; Mr. Edgar Conkling reported a plan of oper- 
ations involving an undertaking incomparably more extensive than any jirevi- 
ous one in the same direction ; and presently the whole city was alive with the 
enthusiasm of a common generous effort. Those who best know the usuallj', 
staid and undemonstrative Queen City unite in the testimony that she was- 
never before so stirred through all the strata of her society, never before so 
warm and glowing for any cause or on anj^ occasion. Churches, citizens' asso- 
ciations, business men, mechanics took hold of the work. Committees were 
appointed, embracing the leading men and the best workers in every walk of i 
life throughout the city; meetings of ladies were held ; cii'culars were distrib- 
uted ; public appeals filled the newspapers. General Rosecrans, then fx-esh from i 
the Tullahoma and Chickamauga campaigns, and the more popular in the city* 
of his residence in proportion to his loss of favor with the War Dej^artment, 
was made President of the fair, and his name evoked fresh enthusiasm for thet; 
effort. 

On the 25th of November the organization had been completed, and the 
following general address to the public was issued : 

"This fair, in aid of the Cincinnati Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, will 
be opened, with appropriate ceremonies, on Monday, the 21st day of December next, and con- 
tinue through the holidays. Arrangements have been made on an extensive scale for collecting 
and disposing of every article of a salable nature that may be contributed. Nothing will be 
amiss that can aid the Sanitary Commission, either in funds or in any of the stores so well known 
to be wanted in the camp and hospital. 

" This branch of the Sanitary Commission extends relief throughout the armies of the Union 
operating in the West and South-west. It supplies, without distinction, all who are in thosei 
armies, no matter whence they come. Therefore, the far East and the Central States will see andi 
feel, as well as the West, the grand object to be accomplished by this fair, and may well join and^ 
share with us in this grateful effort, before the rigors of winter beset them, to provide for the 
wants and cheer the hearts of their sons who are with ours in these fields. Each congregation oii 
society, of whatever name, in all the loyal States, is invited to elect a lady delegate or corres- 
ponding member, who will be registered as such, and, if an active contributor, will be entitled to 
a handsomely-engraved certificate, commemorative of the occasion, bearing her name and 
residence. 

" Contributions from far and wide will be thankfully received ; contributions in money ; con* 
tributions of every production of the farmers, manufacturers, machinists, mechanics, merchants,: 
clothiers, jewelers, milliners, gardeners ; contributions of music, decorations, fruits, flowers, and 
refreshments ; contributions or loans for exhibition in the fine arts and sciences ; relics, memo< 

■:•:- "Written by Mrs. Dr. Mendenhall, who afterward became the ladies' Vice-President of th<| 
fair. 



Relief Work; Aid Societies, Etc. 267 

rials and curiosities of every sort ; contributions of lectures, concerts, and dramatic or other ben- 
efits • and to give efficiency to all, a general contribution of the influence of the press in fur- 
thering our efforts. Every offering, in short, which can add beauty, interest, or profit, to any 
department of the fair, or be used as material in the work of the Sanitary Commission will be 
acceptable. In order, moreover, that nothing, however small, which even our youth can con- 
tribute, may be lost to the general offering, it is requested that directors and teachers of schooks, 
public and private, everywhere, invite their pupils to prepare articles of their own handiwork, 
which will form a special department of the fair. And, above all, we invoke the aid and influ- 
ence of the <romen of the land, as individuals, in their home and social circles, and as classes, 
in their churches, aid societies, and other organizations. 

" The whole arrangements of the fair have been assigned to committees on finance, buildings, 
machinery and mechanical exhibitions, public conveyances and transportation, merchandise and 
donations, refreshments, art hall, gallery of paintings, music and decorations, floricultural exhi- 
bitions, relics, curiosities and war memorials, lectures, concerts, and benefits, each having duties 
corresponding to their titles. The character of the parties comprising these committees is suffi- 
cient evidence of their ability to provide extraordinary attractions and accommodations for our 
visitors and patrons, no matter how large their number. 

" One of the chief attractions of the fair will consist of an immense hazaar, four hundred 
feet long by sixty feet wide, under charge of the ladies, and devoted to the sale of fancy and 
useful merchandise. Similar buildings, for use as refreshment hall and exhibition and saleroom 
of heavier articles of merchandise, machinery, etc. 

" Mozart Hall and its anterooms have been secured for the purposes of lectures, concerts, 
exhibitions, etc. 

" The most liberal terms that could be desired are proffered to our transportation committee 
by all the express, railroad, and steamboat lines centering at this city. 

" The dining hall will be in charge of a committee of ladies, and will be able to accommo- 
date, in space and variety, all who may come. 

" A plan is under consideration for the publication of a complete history of the fair, from 
its inception to its close. This is intended to embrace a list of the officers, committees, managers, 
and corresponding members, the name of every contributor, a list of the articles donated, and 
such other matters of interest as may occur, and will serve to give permanency in history to this 
evidence that the people of the Union never forget their brave defenders. 

" All contributions of money should be remitted to Kobert W. Burnet, Esq., Treasurer. All 
the express, railroad, and steamboat lines centering in this city have offered to carry freight for 
the fair FREE OF CHARGE. Heavy goods should be sent by railroad; light and valuable pack- 
ages by express. All articles should be carefully packed, and marked 'Sanitary Fair, Cincin- 
nati, Ohio.' 

" When articles are donated a list of the articles, their estimated value, and the donor's 
name and residence, should be sent by mail to John D. Caldwell, Corresponding Secretary, to 
whom all correspondence may be addressed. Articles for exhibition should be accompanied by 
directions for their return, similarly addressed. 

" Special information as to any department may be obtained by addressing the chairman of 
the proper committee, whose name appears in the annexed list. 

" No further appeal is needed ; all hearts will feel and respond to this call. Let no one sup- 
pose that enough is or ever will be done in this direction. The Cincinnati Branch of the Sani- 
tary Commission has distributed to the army nearly nine hundred thousand dollars' worth of 
supplies generously furnished; but it has never yet reached the maximum of demands upon it. 

" Present movements indicate a winter campaign of unusual activity and liardship. Let 
every one do his part, that there may be no want or suffering among our brave soldiers. 

" Major-General W. S. ROSECRANS, President.* 
" John D. Caldwell, Corresponding Secretary." 

*The organization of the working force of the fair was large and complicated. We append the names of the lead- 
ing officers, and of the chairmen of committees: 

OFFICERS. 

Major-General Rosecrans, President; Mayor L. A. Haeeib, First Vice-President; Sirs. Dr. G. MendenhalLj 
Second Vice-President ; R. W. Burnet, Treasurer; Joseph C. Bctles, Assistant Treasurer; John D. Caldwell, Cor- 
responding Secretary. 



268 Ohio in the Wae. 

The committees and the whole community now pressed forward their labors, 
and for the time the "cause of sweet charity'" for the soldiers was the engross- 
ing subject of all thought. 

On the morning of the 21st of December the fair was opened with an 
address from General Eosecrans at Mozart Hall. That evening the various 
halls were crowded with a curious and liberal throng; and for weeks thereafter 
there followed such a lavish expenditure of money as the city had never before 
dreamed of. 

The great salesroom of the ladies — the "Bazaar" — was in a building specially 
erected for the purpose on the Fifth Street Market-Space, four hundred feet long 
and sixty feet broad. On the Sixth Street Market-Space was another building 
of the same dimensions — "Produce Hall" — used for the display of agricultural 
productions. In Mozart Hall were the relics, war memorials, art gallery, etc. 
Greenwood Hall was devoted to the horticultural department; and the Palace 
Garden was made a refreshment hall. 

To describe the display in these various departments were an endless task. 
The bewildering exhibition in the Ladies' Bazaar was, of course, the center of 
attraction, and its appearance was the result of a degree of faithful and varied 
labor on the part of thousands of ladies not easily expressed. From every 
quarter came the gifts that filled the attractive tables — from aged fingers which, 
could scarcely direct the needle, but must needs make something for the fair 
that was to help the grandson soldier — from children eager to do something for 
the cause to which their fathers were offering their lives — from the wealthiest 
and most fashionable — from the humblest poverty-stricken homes that were 
still not too poor to help the soldiers — from even the Lunatic Asylums and the 
Home of the Friendless. Ladies presided behind the counters, fair prices were 
charged, and the sales were enormous.* 

In the other halls were collected such displays as the city had never before 

HONORARY OFFICERS. 
His Excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States; Hon. Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President; the 
Honorable the Governors of the Lotal States. 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
Gentlemen.— 'Eds&r Conklin, Chairman ; David T. Woodrow, Charles Reakirt, Benjamin Bruce, Charles F. Wilstach, 
L. C. Hopkins, James Dalton, Charles E. Cist. 

Ladies— ilrs. S. B. Williams, Mrs. W. F. Nelson, Mrs. R. M. W. Taylor, Mrs. Robert Hosea, Mrs. Josepli Tilney, 
Mrs. Joseph Guild, Mrs. C. W. Starbuck, Mrs. John Kebler, Mrs. Dr. C. A. Schneider. 

COMMITTEES. 
Circulars and Printing.— John D. Caldwell, Chairman. Finance.— S. S. Davis, Chairman. Buildings.— VhiHp Hinkle, 
Chairman. Merchandise and Donations.— W . T. Perkins, Chairman. Conntry Produce.— k^\o\p\\ Wood, Chairman. 3Ia- 
chinery and Mechanical Exhibitions.— 'E. M. Shield, Chairman. On Agricultural Machinery .—3 . M. McCullough, Chair- 
man. Ee/reshments.—J . W. Garrison, Chairman. Art Hall, Gallery o/ Paintings, Music, and Decorations.— Wm. Wiswell, i 
Chairman. War Memorials, Relics, and Curiosities.— George Graham, Cliairman. Circulars and Correspondfnce.—Rev . E. 
T. Collins, Chairman. War Memorials.— Colonel A, W. Gilbert, Chairman. Coins and Autographs.— T. C. Day, Chairman. 
Horticultural and Pomological Department.— Gentlemen : D. B. Pierson, Chairman ; Ladies : Mrs. W. S. Groesbeck, Chair- 
man. Fruits and Flowers.— Mrs. D. T. Woodrow, Chairman. Christmas Trees.— Miss Rebecca Groesbeck, Chairman. 
Refreshments, -yirs. W. H. Dominick, Chairman. Evergreen Decorations.— Mrs. Wm. Proctor, Chairman. Telegraph and 
Post-Ojfice.—'&IiBa. E. C. Smith, Chairman. Lectures, Concerts, Dramatic, and other Entertainmejits.—W. C. Peters, Chair- 
man. Lectures.— S. S. Smith, Chairman. Concerts.— S. Davis, jr.. Chairman. Dramatic ayid Operatic Entertainments.— W . 
Clongh, Chairman. School Ezhibitions.—'M.. Glenn, Chairman. On Tableaux.— J. B. Enneking, Chairman. Halls and 
Theaters.— li. C. Hopkins, Chairman. Military Organizations.— J . J. Dobmeyer, Chairman. Orchestral J)f«s2C.— Carl 
BaruB, Chairman. Vocal Music— Y . Williams, Chairman. Public Conveyance and Transportation. — Hugh McBirney. 
Chairman. Employees. — James H. Walker, Chairman. Children's Department. — Lyman Harding, Chairman. 



* L. C. Hopkins, the well-known dry goods merchant, was the Superintendent of the Bazaar. 



^1 



Relief Woek; Aid Societies, Etc. 269 

' gathered— an accumulation of autographs immense and unique; a vast number 
of relics and mementos of the war; cabinets of shells and scientific specimens; 
a gallery of paintings that included some works of European masters, and a fine 
representation of American, and particularly of Western artists; "a glimpse 
of Fairy Land" in the luxuriant profusion of the Horticultural Department; 
machinery, agricultural implements— something to interest and attract from 
every walk of life. The great Mozart Hall was night after night filled with 
audiences that congregated to hear readings from Jas. E. Murdoch or Buchanan 
Eead, or lectures from others who patriotically gave their services to the cause ; 
and the refreshment saloon was filled with the first ladies of the city, who served 
like waiters in some mammoth restaurant. 

The net result of all this labor and display was the payment of $235,406 to 
the Cincinnati Branch of the Sanitary Commission.* The indirect result was 
the quickening of the sympathies of a vast community for the soldiers, a warmer 
flame of loyalty throughout the State, invigoration in the purpose that upheld 
•the war, and an example that was to stir up Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburo-, 
and St. Louis, to j^et more splendid exhibitions of the munificent generosity 
of the people. 

The suggestion of these fairs came from Chicago. Cincinnati showed the 
Nation what a large plan and liberal purpose could make out of them,f and 
may well cherish her record in this particular as one of the brightest pages in 
her history through the war. 

In the story of noble deeds at home, which we must now end, we have 
reserved the noblest feature for the last. From the outbreak of the war till 
the hour of its close, the hands of the Government and of the army were held up 
by the warm hearty zeal of the churches and the clerg}^ They led in the 
demand for the maintenance of the National supremacy. They inspired the 
moral purpose of the war and made it a thing of more than territorial signifi- 
cance. They furnished the nucleus for home organizations for the relief of the 
soldiers. They followed with their ministrations to the camps and the battle- 
fields. 'They pierced the disguises of the false pretense of Humanity and 
Christianity that clamored for peace without Liberty and Union. The sun did 
stand on the mountains of Gilboa at their prayer — the most excitable and 
unstable people of the Anglo-Saxon race were held true to a fixed purpose, 
through rivers of blood, and mourning by every hearth-stone, and the countless 
cost of a four years' fearful struggle, till the battle between Freedom and 
Slavery should be manfully fought out. 

Among the earliest volunteers were clergymen. The pulpits of the various 

®The outlay for expenses amounted to eight and one-fifth per cent, on this amount, which 
added thereto gives the gross receipts. 

t The receipts of the Cincinnati Fair were larger in proportion to population than those held 
in any other cities, excepting Pittsburg and St. Louis, which, coming later, had the advantage 
and stimulus of the experience and success elsewhere. The net result of the series of Sanitary 
Fairs which this in Cincinnati fairly opened, was over four million dollars, given in aid of sol- 
diers and their families. 



270 Ohio in the Wak. 

churches became the foremost stimulants to recruiting. As earlj^ as the 3d of 
June, 1861, the association of Evangelical ministers of Cincinnati adopted a 
deliverance,* whereof these sentences should not pass out of men's memories in 
the State they inspired : 

" Deeply grateful to Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, for his past mercies to this Nation, '< 
and particularly noting at this time His gracious goodness in leading our fathers to establish and *" 
preserve for us a Constitutional Government unequalled among the governments of the earth in 
guarding the rights and promoting the entire welfare of a great people — we, the Evangelical 
ministry of Cincinnati, have been lead by a constrained sense of accountability to Him, the 
author of all our good, and by unfeigned love for our country, to adopt the following statement: 

" We are compelled to regard the rebellion which now afflicts our land and jeopardizes some 
of the most precious hopes of mankind, as to the result of a long-contemplated and wide-spread 
conspiracy against the principles of liberty, justice, mercy, and righteousness proclaimed in the 
Word of God, sustained by our Constitutional Government, and lying at the foundation of all 
public and private welfare. In the present conflict, therefore, our Government stands before us as 
representing the cause of God and man against a rebellion threatening the Nation with ruin, in 
order to perpetuate and spread a system of unrighteous oppression. In this emergency, as min- 
isters of God, we can not hesitate to support, by every legitimate method, the Government 
in maintaining its authority unimpaired throughout the whole country, and over this whole 
people." 

The sentiments thus expressed were echoed by almost every religious body 
throughout the State. Among others, was this declaration from the venerable 
Bishop Mcllvaine, in the Protestant Episcopal Convention at Cleveland, in June, 
1861: "Our duty in this emergency is bravely, earnestly, to sustain our Govern- 
ment in its administration in the use of all lawful means to preserve the integrity 
of the Union." Not less emphatic and early were the expressions of Archbishop 
Purcell, who caused the American flag to be raised over the Cathedral at Cin- 
cinnati, and the churches in every part of his diocese, and whose great influence 
in the Eoman Catholic Church was thrown throughout in favor of the G-overn- 
ment in this holy war. 

As the struggle progressed, the efforts for the relief of soldiers clustered 
around the prayer-meetings, Sunday-school associations, and ladies' mite socie- 
ties of the church congregations throughout the State. To trace the history of 
these societies here would be impossible — they were in every village and hamlet — 
but the good works they wrought are faithfully set down in the record of Him 
who rewardeth openly. 

As the Sanitary Commission grew up, the stream of church contributions 
was turned into this channel. After a time the good men who had followed 
the army with the Bible and the sermon felt the need of an organization for 
specific religious effort for the soldiers, combined with relief labor, and the 
Christian Commission began its noble work.f 

* Reported by a committee consisting of Granville Moody, H. M. Storrs, C. B. Boynton, E. 
T. Robinson, and Joseph White. 

t In the last annual report of this Commission the following list of the Ohio membersliip is 
given : 

CINCINNATI BRANCH UNITED STATES CHBISTIAN COMMISSION. 
A. E. Chamberlain, President; H. Thane Miller, Vice-President; Rev. J, F. Marlay, Secretary; Rev. B. W. 
Chidlaw, General Agent. 

Committee— William T. Perkins, Thomas F. Shaw, George H. Warner, E. Sargent, W. W. Scarborough, Hon. 



Relief \v 

The reports g've the cash receipts of th n^b Hj. Lxh .a: 

Cincinnati Branch up to 1864 '■ $70,493 

Cincinnati Branch up to 1865 38,396 

Cleveland Branch— total 8,144 

Total , ' $117,033 

Besides, stores were received in Cincinnati amounting in value to the 
splendid sum of two hundred and eighty-nine thousand six hundred and two 
dollars, and publications for distribution among the soldiers, valued at three 
thousand and twenty-four dollars. In Cleveland the gifts of stores amounted to 
five thousand five hundred dollars, and of publications to twelve hundred dollars* 

Some further facts as to the operations of this unobtrusive but most eflS- 
cient organization may be presented in the condensed closing report of the 
Cincinnati Branch: 

" From the 1st of January, 1865, tlie date of the last annual report, until the office was 
closed, about the middle of August, the work of the Cincinnati Branch continued to prosper. It 
was understood, soon after the fall of Kichmond, that the business of the Commission would be 
closed up as speedily as possible. Notwithstanding a public statement to this effect, the people 
of Ohio continued to furnish the means necessary to carry on our operations creditably and suc- 
cessfully, until supplies were no longer needed. Some of the most prominent items of receipts 
and distributions are given in the following table : 

Number of boxes, etc., of stores sent to the field, or distributed at Home, exclusive of those sent to, or 

received from the Central or Branch offices 3,446 

Number of boxes, etc., of publications sent to the field, or distributed at Home, exclusive of those sent to, 

or received from Central or Branch offices .• 161 

Number of boxes of stores donated directly to this Branch SilK 

Number of boxes of publications donated directly to this Branch 27 

Estimated value of these donated stores $289,602 74 

Estimated value of these donated publications $3,024 00 

Number of copies of Scriptures, or portions of them distributed 9,3*0 

Number of hymn and psalm-books •" 55,091 

Number of soldiers' and sailors' knapsack books, in paper or flexible covers 458,083 

Number of bound volumes of library and other books .'. 8,678 

Number of magazines and pamphlets _ 18,117 

Aggregate number of weekly and monthly religious newspapers 803,236 

Number of pages of tracts 101,658 

"In making up this final statement of our Branch of the United States Christian Commis- 
sion, it is due the generous people who have so freely contributed to sustain it, to make a grateful 
acknowledgment of their untiring liberality. From the opening of the office, at No. 51 Vine 
Street, until it was closed, an uninterrupted stream of money and stores poured in upon us from 
the patriotic men and women of the West, and especially of the State of Ohio. Soldiers' Aid 



Bellamy Storer, Phillip Pliillips, T. G. Odiorne, B. Homans, jr., George F. Davis, Wm. J. Breed, Eli Johnson, Benja- ^ 
min Frankland, H. Wilson Brown, Thomas Fraukland, J. M. Johnston, Hugh Stewart, M. B. Hagans, Matthew* 
Addy, H. A. Holden. Gambiee— Rev. Archibald M. Slorrison. 

CLEVELAND COMMITTEE tJNITED STATES CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. 

ExEcxJTiVK Committee— Hon. Stillman Witt, President; Joseph Perkins, Vice-President; L. F. Mellen, Sec- 
retary; S. H. Mather, Treasurer; George JIyoatt, Receiver of Supplies ; Hon. William Castle, Bev. T. H. Hawks, 
D. D.; T. P. Handy, Dr. H. K. Gushing, Rev. J. M. Hoyt, Daniel P. Eels, Horace Benton. 

Committee— Hon. William A. Otis, Rev. Samuel Wolcott, D. D.; Bev. Dr. W. H. Goodrich, Ansel Roberts, J. E. 
Ingersoll, Bev. J. Montieth, jr.; Bev. S. B. Page, George W. Whitney, Hon. John A. Foote, Bev. Charles Hammer, Di. 
AUeyne Maynard, Jay Odell, Hon. J. P. Bishop, Bev. William A. Hoge, Dr. Edward Taylor, Bev. C. Rutenick, E. R. 
Perkins, J. H. Dewitt, Bev. J. A. Thome, Bev. Moses Hill, Bev. Bishop C. Kingsley. 

NORTH-WESTERN BRANCH UNITED STATES CHRISTIAN COMMISSION, TOLEDO. 
W. Bakee, President; Rev. C. T. Wales, Recording Secretary; Bev. H. W. Pierson, D. D., Corresponding Sec- 
retary ; D. B. Smith, Ti-easurer. 

••• The Toledo collections seem, in the reports of the Christian Commission, to have gone to 
swell the sums credited to Chicago. 



^70 Ohio in the W^ak. 

Societies al^rLJfl^^tb^.ir'JJiran'X^t stimsons, by scores and hundreds, kept us supplied with the 
means to minister largely to the co' Ev'^nd temporal wants of our noble boys in blue! We held 
no large sum of money in our treasy^^ believing that Providence would furnish us the means to 
do our work. God honored the faith of his servants — since, although our funds were often low 
we never were without the means to jaeet our obligations. 

"The removal of Rev. E. P. Siiith, the efficient and successful Field Agent of our depart- 
ment, to the Eastern work, was felt : o be a severe loss. From the beginning he had superin- 
tended the work in the West with a sagacity, discrimination and zeal worthy of the highest 
praise. His self-denying labors, f-mid suffering and personal dangers, in behalf of his country, 
in all the dark days and months of the great rebellion, should endear him to the hearts of his 
countrymen. 

"His place at Nashville was well filled by Mr. T. R. Ewing, an earnest Christian gentleman, 
and a most genial, kind-hearted man and efficient administrator. Mrs. E. P. Smith remained in 
charge of the 'home' at Nashville, performing a service for which few women could have been 
found equally qualified, with a cheerfulness and hearty enthusiasm worthy of all honor. Hun- 
dreds and thousands of soldiers, who have been in the hospitals of Nashville, will remember 
Mrs. Smith to their dying day. Not a few will join in gratitude with an Illinois soldier, who 
said to the friend at his cot, taking his dying message, 'Tell Mrs. Smith I shall thank her in 
heaven for the ice.' 

"The transfer of Eev. J. F. Loyd to the Louisville agency was an important and satisfactory 
change. Under his wise and faithful administration, and by the transfer of General Sherman to 
Louisville, this became one of our most interesting fields. We believe that the Christian Com- 
mission has had few workers more reliable, faithful, and competent than Mr. Loyd. The statis- 
tical tables published in this report will exhibit the receipts and expenditures of the year. ■ 
During the last year of our work our financial records were kept by Mr. W. J. Breed, of the 
Commission, who rendered thus, gratuitously, a service of great magnitude and importance, in 
addition to his very liberal cash contributions. 

" A. E. Chamberlain & Co., have given us office and store-room without charge. 

"Our President, Mr. Chamberlain, continued to serve the cause with unabated zeal and suc- 
cess until the last. For more than two years all his time was consecrated to his suffering country. 
By public addresses, all over Ohio, he aroused the zeal of others, and contributed more largely 
than any other person to make the Christian Commission the people's favorite channel of com- 
munication with the army. In this work of appeal to the people at home, we have, also, been 
very largely aided by services most cheerfully and efficiently rendered by Hon. Bellamy Storer 
and Rev. B. W. Chidlaw. The volume which records the closing labors of so beneficent au 
institution would be incomplete and unsatisfactory if it did not make special mention of these 
noble men, who rendered such unselfish and signal service to the best Government God ever gave 
to man, in the darkest hour of its whole history. JOHN F. MARLAY, Secretary." 

With this we close. No effort has been made to present m detail this great 
Relief Work, in which, through various organizations and in many ways for all 
the weary years of the war, those at home strove in labors, privations, and 
prayers, to emulate the sacrifices and the achievements of the men in the field. To 
do that were impossible. But we hope to have left some traces, however imper- 
fect, which may show to those who come after us that the people of Ohio were 
worthy of their Soldiers. And so we turn from the work at home to the front 




0| -^^^s^M&^s^0^-' ^^ "^S^^^-; 



:B>j^Ttrr xx. 



THE LIVES OF OHIO GENERALS, 



WITH SKETCHES OF THE 



YAR GOVERNORS AND OTHER POBLIC MEN, 

IISrOIDENTS, ETC. 



Vol. I.— 18. 



Geoege B. McClellan. 275 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN. 



"The uncertain future, O king, has yet to come, with every possible variety of fortune; and 
him only to whom the gods have continued happiness unto the end, we call happy. To salute as 
happy, one still in the midst of life and hazard, we think as little safe and conclusive as to crown 
and proclaim victorious the wrestler that is yet in the ring."* 

IT was the peculiar misfortune of the first General whom Ohio gave to 
the War for the Union, that his friends, not even satisfied with proclaim- 
ing victorious the wrestler yet in the ring, insisted upon crowning him 
at the very moment of his entrance. Christened "Young Napoleon " before he 
had ever commanded a regiment under fire,f and accepted by the Nation, in its 
piteous want of a Leader, at his ostensible valuation, it was not wonderful that 
when summer had ripened into fall around his motionless battalions, and winter 
had snowed them in, and spring had found them motionless still, he discovered the 
patient people begin to demand some sign of Napoleonic deeds. Thenceforward 
he was forever judged by the false standard which his own friends had set up. 

And when he failed to reach this standard, whether through lack of sup- 
port or in spite of it, in the eyes of the Government that had accepted him in 
implicit faith, and in the eyes of the People that had crowned him Leader in 
advance and on trust, his failure was absolute. No excuses were heard ; no 
just and proper pleas of youth and inexperience were admitted in abatement. 
He had not been taken from the obscurity of his Cincinnati home, and his 
resigned Captaincy to a Major-Generalship above Harney and "Wool, and the 
whole hierarchy of our body of regulars ; from the theater of insignificant 
mountain skirmishes to tlie command of the grandest army ever assembled 
on the continent, and thence to the still giddier height of the command of all 
our armies, because he had been an industrious military student, and had 
written pains-taking accounts of the various organizations of European troops. 
So much was true of him, and with this basis for his starting-point, he might 
have run a creditable career. But this would not satisfy- the vaulting ambition 
of his quick-witted and influential friends. The Country must take him — the 
Country did take him through their solicitation, and, (alas that it must be writ- 
ten ! ) through his own connivance — as a very god of War, leaping in full panoply, 
as from the bi^ain of Jove himself, out of the smoke and coal-dust of the Ohio and 
Mississippi Eailroad OflBce. Fifteen months of trial brought forth, jjerhaps 
respectable, but certainly neither god-like nor Napoleonic achievements ; and 
so it came to pass, through an inevitable law of the human mind, that when, 

* Plutarch, Life of Croesus. 

tFor his achievements in West Virginia rose to no sucli dignity. 



276 Ohio in the Wae. 

after this time, men spoke of him they gave no credit for what he really did, 
but recited what he had promised to do ; treated him as men treat those who 
have obtained valuables of them under false pretenses; stigmatized the friends 
who had borne him forward as the uttei-ers of false coin. 

But these friends were blinder than the Bourbons. On the platform of 
militaiy failure they conceived the project of erecting a fabric of political 
success. An elegant writer has very justly said, that "the outposts of an army 
mark the line where the sphere of party politics ends."* But in this case the 
very head-quarters of the army marked the spot where the sphere of party 
politics began. For more than a year the utterances of those head-quarters 
were addressed scarcely more to soldiers than to voters — were meant to inspire 
ballots quite as much as bayonets. From such command of the army, the 
General passed into the heat of a fervid Presidential campaign ; and from that 
time whatever ill he had done was magnified and distorted by his opponents. 
whatever good he had done was magnified and distorted by his partisans, till 
the atmosphere about the man being thus perpetually disturbed, a clear, honest 
view of him was impossible. 

If now, the war being over, and the political campaign which he led being 
no less definitely closed, we find, in reviewing his character and cai-eer, some- 
what to praise, for which due praise has not been given, some blame to lift to 
other shoulders which his have thus far borne, it will be none the less satisfac- 
tory that at last an impartial judgment of the man and his doings seems 
possible. 

George Brinton McClellan, the first General appointed in Ohio after the 
outbreak of the War for the Union, was born in Philadelphia, December 3d, 
1826. His father, who was of Scottish descent, was a physician of high repute, and 
had been graduated from Yale College. Young McClellan spent his school- 
boy days, under careful training, in Philadelphia ; first in Mr. Walker's select 
school, then in Mr. Schipper's, then in the University of Pennsj'lvania. He 
came to be known as a solid, pains-taking scholar, not at all precocious, rather 
slow than otherwise in mastering his tasks, but likely to be thorough in any- 
thing which he professed to know. 

When not quite sixteen years of age an appointment was procured for him 
at West Point, whither some hints of a military taste seemed to indicate that 
he should be sent. In the military academy he was guilty of no escapades, was 
involved in no combinations against the discipline of the institution. Youth 
and elasticity of spirits were happilj" bent to the duties of his class, and Rt the 
end of his four years he came out just what might have been expected fi'om the 
promise of the preparatory schools, a good, plodding, industrious, well-read 
military scholar. One of his classmates has since made immortal the name of 
Stonewall Jackson. Among others were such names as John G. Foster, Jesse 
L. Eeno, Darius N. Couch, George Stoneman, Dabney H. Maury, George H. 
Gordon, and George E. Pickett. Among these men Stonewall Jackson ranked 

* Life of McClellan, by George S. Hillard, page 139. 



G-EOKGE B. McClellan. 277 

rieventeenth, George B. McClellan second, and Charles G. Stewart (now a Major 
of Engineers), the first. So worthless are academy standards as an indication 
of standing in life and in history ! 

Young McClellan, a well-educated, well-featured, well-mannered, strong- 
limbed boy of twenty, came out from the academy with the golden opinions of 
his professors, just as the outbreak of the Mexican War gave special meaning 
to the uniform he wore. He was at once assigned to the duty of organizing a 
company of sappers and miners, and, in September, he sailed with his command 
for the seat of war. Presently we find him a brevet Second Lieutenant, tracing 
lines of investment before Vera Cruz, under such immediate superiors as Cap- 
tain E. E. Lee, First Lieutenant P. G. T. Beauregard, and Second Lieutenant 
G. W. Smith. Good old Colonel Totten thanked them all in a lot for their 
work, and reported them to Winfield Scott as having rendered engineering 
services whose value could not be overestimated. 

Thenceforward we catch occasional glimpses of Lieutenant McClellan, in 
lists of official reports, in notes of recommendation to superior officers, in orders 
of thanks. At Cerro Gordo his command cleared away the obstacles in front 
of Pillow's assaulting columns ; at Puebla, while reconnoitering, he captured a 
Mexican cavalryman; at Mexicalcingo he made another reconnoissance, and 
Lieutenant Beauregard saved him from capture; at Contreras, while posting 
batteries, he had two horses killed under him, and finally was himself knocked 
down by a spent grape shot, w^hich struck the hilt of his sword. At last the 
City of Mexico was assaulted, and we get a fresh glimpse of Lieutenant McClel- 
lan at the San Cosme gate, burrowing with his miners through the walls of a 
block of adobe houses, to emerge in the street at the rear of a Mexican battery 
which held the gate, and, in his eagerness, falling full length into a ditch of 
dirty water that had nearly been the death of him. And so his services in 
Mexico ended. 

Our boy of twenty was now a little more than a year older. He had seen 
yome active campaigning; had behaved as any lad of spirit Avould ; and had 
come out with praise and brevets, some of which he deserved, and some of 
which, to his credit, he refused.* 

He returned with his company to West Point; and, for a time, was engaged 
in drilling them, (does it not sound characteristic that, writing to his sister-in- 
law of this formidable work, he should say, " I've enough to do to occupy half 
a dozen persons; but I rather think I can get through with it?") in writing 
military papers to be read before his club, and, finally, in ti-anslating from the 
French a manual of bayonet exercise for the use of our little army. Then 
followed a short service under Captain Marcy, in explorations on the Indian 
frontier; and a longer task of coast-soundings and harbor-surveys aloug the 
coast of Texas. A brief, business-like report to Colonel Totten, suggesting 

* It is curiously illustrative of the value of these Mexican honors, and of the miscellaneous 
manner in which they were dealt out, that Lieutenant McClellan was brevetted fcaptain for 
"gallant conduct in the battle of Molino del Key." He declined the honor, for the very satis- 
factory reason that he had not been present at the battle. 



278 Ohio in the Wak. 

improvements in the harbors and giving estimates, closed this labor, in 
April, 1853. 

Captain McClellan* was now given charge of an exploring expedition of 
his own among the Cascade Mountains of Oregon and Washington — being one 
of the general series of Pacific Eailroad Explorations about this time ordered. 
The summer and fall were spent in the duties of this exploration — the result 
being, in brief, the report to the Secretary of War, that through the region 
explored he had found but two practicable passes for a railroad, the best of 
which, that of the Columbia Eiver, was quite easy. 

On his return to Washington Captain McClellan was given the duty of 
visiting the West Indies secretly, and selecting a desirable coaling-station for 
the United States navy. He chose the harbor and peninsula of Samana, in 
Hayti, a point which the United States has thus far failed to secure. 

In these various services Captain McClellan had shown industry and com- 
mendable skill. The Secretary of War, Mr. Jefferson Davis, now selected him 
as the third of a commission charged with the duty of visiting Europe, during 
the progress of the Crimean War, to take note of the military organizations 
and improvements there displayed. A year thus spent, with only average 
facilities for observation, resulted in an elaborate report to Secretary Davis on 
-the organization of European armies — a work well but not brilliantly written, 
furnishing much that had been dug out of books and reports, and a little that 
was derived from personal observation, the whole giving a disproportionate 
prominence to the cavalry arm, to which the author had been recently trans- 
ferred. 

Shortly after his return, in January, 1857, Captain McClellan tendered 
his resignation as an officer of the army. He had been in it from boyhood; he 
was now thirty years of age and still a Captain. Other pursuits, for which his 
military education fitted him, offered pleasanter life and far more lucrative 
returns. He was soon selected as Engineer of the Illinois Central Eailroad, 
and, shoi'tly afterward, as its Yice-President. Here he continued for three 
years, winning little outside fame, but making such an impression upon rail- 
road men, that in 1860 he was elected as the President of the Ohio and Mississippi. 
He accepted the situation, and removed to Cincinnati, where he continued to 
reside till the outbreak of the war. 

In May, 1860, in his thirty-third year, he married Miss Ellen Marcy, the 
daughter of Captain E. B. Marcy, of the army, under whom he had served in 
his first frontier exploration. 

Such was the entire public career of the man whom the Covernment was 
about to advance to its highest trusts. He had behaved well as a Second Lieu- 
tenant through the Mexican War; had, as an Engineer, made some good coast- 
soundings and a couple of minor frontier explorations, and had written a highly 
respectable work about European armies. But, beyond this, he had made such 
an impression upon the small body of men giving attention to the affairs of our 

* For the Department had followed up its brevet for Molino del Eey by the better-deserved 
one of " Captain for meritorious services in the assault on the City of Mexico." 



George B. McClellan. 279 

army, that they thought of him as among the most promising of its younger 
officers. His experience in civil life was iDractieally nothing, save as connected 
with railroading. Of politics he knew nothing, and was careless. He had 
voted but once in his life; then it was in Illinois, against Mr. Lincoln and in 
favor of Mr. Douglas. 

When the whirlwind of military enthusiasm, that followed the assault on 
Fort Sumter, swept over Ohio, Governor Dennison, overrun with military 
questions of which he felt himself ignorant, and with military applicants for 
offices the very duties of which he did not understand, felt at once the necessity 
of advice from experts, and cast about him for West Point officers. He had 
been largely in the railroad business himself, and thus happened to know that 
the Ohio and Mississippi road was managed by a Captain McClellan. of whom 
army men had spoken highly. He telegraphed for the Captain at once, asked 
his aid in the organization of the Ohio volunteers, and, at the request of the 
Captain himself, sent to Washington, asking his re-instatement in the regular 
army, in some position commensurate with the wants of the service. No im- 
mediate reply was received. Meantime, Captain McClellan two or three times 
visited the Governor's office, and spent an hour or two answering questions and 
making suggestions. Presently, under authority of a law hurried through the 
Legislature, Captain McClellan was appointed Major-General, and Messrs. 
Schleich, Cox, and Bates, Brigadier-Generals of Ohio Militia Volunteers. Three 
weeks later, on the 14th of May, 1861, the War Department, on the suggestion 
of General Scott, commissioned Captain McClellan a Major-General of the regu- 
lar army ; John C. Fremont being, on the same day, re-appointed to the army 
and promoted to the same rank. At the same time the new Major-General was 
assigned to the command of a department, embracing the States of Ohio, 
Lidiana, and Hlinois — so that Governor Dennison lost almost at the moment of 
receiving the aid he had sought in the organization of Ohio troops. 

But he was soon to experience an unexpected result of the promotion he 
had suggested. A camp of instruction was formed near Cincinnati, known as 
Camp Dennison, where, as fast as they were raised, troops were rendezvoused 
and turned over to General McClellan and the other United States author- 
ities. For months the people of the State were besieged with complaints 
as to the mismanagement of this camp, to the great injury of the recruiting 
service, not less than to the demoralization of the troops already raised. The 
whole burden of the complaint — for lack of proper food, insufficient arms, tents, 
clothing, everything— was laid upon Governor Dennison. General McClellan 
never uttered a word to relieve him of this obloquy, though the entire matter 
was all the time entirely in his own hands ! Much of the complaint was unjust 
and unreasonable ; but it would at least have been considerate, as well as a del- 
icate courtesy to the man who had first appointed him, to have simply borne 
his own burdens. 

One of General McClellan's earliest actions as department commander was 
to enter into negotiation wuth General Buckner, then Inspector-General of Ken- 



280 Ohio in the War. • 

tucky, on the subject of the "neutrality" of that State. He went so far as to 
agree that " the territory of Kentucky sliould be respected on the part of the 
United States, even though the Southern States should occupy it," only exact- 
ing a promise that, in this last case, Kentucky should try to drive them out, 
and, in event of her failure, McClellan should then have permission to do it, on 
condition of straightway retiring again to the north side of the Ohio Eiver.* 

* General McClellan having subsequently disputed General Buckner's statements concerning 
this agreement, and the matter having formed the subject of some acrimonious political discus- 
sion, I subjoin the correspondence of different parties concerned, throwing light upon it. Gen- 
eral McClellan's denial is first given : 

" Gkafton, Virginia, June 26, 1861. 
" Captain W. Wilson, United States Navy : 

" My interview with General Buckner was personal, not official. It was solicited by him 
more than once. I made no stipulation on the part of the General Government, and regarded 
his voluntary promise to drive out the Confederate troops as the only result of the interview. 
His letter gives his own views, not mine. G. B. McCLELLAN." j 

" Head-Quarters Kentucky State Guard, ] 
Louisville, June 10, 1861. j 

"Sir: On the 8th instant, at Cincinnati, Ohio, I entered into an arrangement with Major- 
General George B. McClellan, commander of the United States troops in the States north of the 
Ohio Biver, to the following effect : 

"The authorities of the State of Kentucky are to protect the United States property within 
the limits of the State, to enforce the laws of the United States in accordance with the interpreta- 
tions of the United States Courts, as far as those laws may be applicable to Kentucky, and to 
enforce, with all the power of the State, our obligations of neutrality as against the Southern 
States, as long as the position we have assumed shall be respected by the United States. 

" General McClellan stipulates that the territory of Kentucky shall be respected on the part 
of the United States, even though the Southern States should occupy it ; but in the latter case he 
will call upon the authorities of Kentucky to remove the Southern forces from our territory. 
Should Kentucky fail to accomplish this object in a reasonable time. General McClellan claims 
the right of occupancy given the Southern forces. I have stipulated, in that case, to advise him 
of the inability of Kentucky to comply with her obligations, and to invite him to dislodge the 
Southern forces. He stipulates that, if successful in so doing, he will withdraw his forces from 
the territory of the State as soon as the Southern forces shall be removed. 

" This, he assures me, is the policy he will adopt toward Kentucky. 

" Should the Administration hereafter adopt a different policy, he is to give me timely notice 
of the fact. 

" The well-known character of General McClellan is a sufficient guarantee for the fulfillment 
of every stipulation on his part. 

" I am. Sir, very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" S. B. BUCKNER, Inspector-General." 

" Cincinnati, June 7, 1861. 
" To Hon. J. J. Crittenden, Frankfort, Kentucky : 

" The papers of this morning state that General Prentiss, commander United States forces at 
Cairo, has sent troops across the Ohio River into Kentucky. I have no official notice of such a 
movement ; but I at once telegraphed General Prentiss for the facts, and stated to him that if the 
report were true, I disapproved his course, and ordered him to make no more such movements 
without my sanction previously obtained. GEO. B. McCLELLAN, Major-General." 

" Cincinnati, -June 11, 1861. 
** Governor B. Magoffin : 

" I have received information that Tennessee troops are under orders to occupy Island No. 1, 
six miles below Cairo, In accordance with my understanding with General Buckner I call upon 



I 



Geoege B. McClellan. 281 

And General Buckner was good enough to assure Governor Magoffin that " tlie 
well -known character of General McClellan is a sufficient guarantee for the ful- 
fillment of every stipulation on his part." It is not known that there was any 
Government sanction for this extraordinary action; but, so anomalous and un- 
settled were the times, it was never noticed, and soon, of course, became a dead 
letter. 

Meanwhile a few regiments of Ohio State troops had been hurried across 
the "West "Virginia border; they had been followed by Indiana re-enforce- 
ments, under General Thomas A. Morris, to whom General McClellan addressed 
a sagacious and comprehensive letter of instructions ; and proclamations had 
been, issued to the soldiers on taking the field, and to the West Virginians on 
entering their territory. This last assured the people that there would be no 
interference with their slaves; that, on the contraiy, "we will, with an iron 
hand, crush any attempt at insurrection on their part." The equipment of 
troops was hastened ; most of all, eftbrts were made to secure adequate trans- 
portation, by which, at that early period, was meant not less than fifteen to 
eighteen wagons for a regiment.* At last, on the 20th of June, 1861^ General 
McClellan himself started for the field. 

The army now under the command of General McClellan at Grafton and 
Clarksburg, West Virginia, was about eighteen thousand strong. The Eebel 
force, under General Garnett, probably reached six thousand — fifteen hundred, 
under Colonel Pegram, in fortifications at Eich Mountain, the remaining forty- 
five hundred, under Garnett himself, in a fortified camp on Laurel Hill. The 
troops Avere equally raw on either side, and whatever advantage there was from 
the sympathy of the inhabitants inured to the benefit of the National forces. 

The plan for the campaign, as elaborated during the few days spent by 
General McClellan at Grafton, was simple. Colonel Pegram's force at Rich 
Mountain was a mere outpost, protecting Garnett's flank and rear. If that 
could be suddenly overpowered, the victors would be planted upon Pegram's 
line of retreat. He was, therefore, to be amused by the demonstrations of a 
considerable force in his front while the outpost was being carried. Then, 
from front and rear, a simultaneous advance upon him was to end in his surren- 
der of his whole command. To General Morris, with a force little if any supe- 
rior to Garnett's, was assigned the task of moving upon his front and keeping 
him occupied on Laurel Hill, while General McClellan himself, at the head of 
the bulk of the army, was to move hastily from Clarksburg across the country 

you to prevent this step. Do you regard the islands in the Mississippi River above the Tennes- 
see line as within your jurisdiction ? and if so, what ones ? 

" Eespectfully, GEO. B. McCLELLAN, 

" Major-General United States Army." 

" Frankfort, June 11, 1861. 
^' General Oeo. B. McClellan, Cincinnati, Ohio : 

" General Buckner has gone to Paducah and Columbus ; has orders to carry out his under- 
standing with you ; am investigating the questions of jurisdiction over the islands to which you 
allude ; will answer further probably to-morrow. B. MAGOFFJN " 

■*Some of the troops moving on Philippi complained bitterly of having only twelve I 



282 Ohio in the Wae. 

to Eich Mountain, capture Pegrara, and reach Garnett's rear. JVIcClellan'a 
march was about four times as long as that of Morris. The latter officer made 
his movement on the night the order was received, reaching Laurel Hill a little 
after daybreak on the morning of the 7th of July. 

General McClellan, however, found difficulties in getting up supplies — so 
early did this chronic complaint make its aj)pearance — and was not ready for 
decisive movements at Eich Mountain until the 10th. Genei'al Eosecrans, com- 
manding one of his brigades, then asked permission to make a detour and 
attack Pegram in the rear, to which General McClellan assented. Eosecrans 
fought and drove the enemy, bitterly comj)laining that McClellan utterly failed 
to second him by an attack in front. McClellan explains that he meant to do 
this — next morning ! and that he was prevented from doing it then, up to the 
time when the news of Eosecrans's success arrived, by accidents to the artillery.* 
Pegram, however, beaten by Eosecrans, and with McClellan in his front, was 
compelled to take to the mountains, where, in a day or two, he surrendered the- 
shattered remnants of his command. Garnett, hearing of this disaster, retreated, 
and McClellan having failed to move promptly forward in his rear,f the bulk of 
the Eebel army escaped in a demoralized condition, and with the loss of bag- 
gage and artillery — the latter secured by Morris's pursuit and engagement with 
the rear-guard. 

Of this brief little campaign, afterward so loudly lauded and so little under- 
stood, it may be said that the conception was excellent and the execution indif- 
ferent. It was undei'taken without orders from Washington and carried forward 
solely on the General's own responsibility. Up to the time when, having 
ordered Morris to Garnett's front at Laurel Hill, General McClellan put him- 
self at the head of the main column, moving against Pegram, and so to Gar- 
nett's rear, he had controlled the various movements with good judgment. 
Once, however, in the field in j)ei'Son, he delayed needlessly, lost the advantage 
of a surprise, handled his force irresolutely and without nerve. Li the excite- 
ment over Eosecrans's victory he seems to have forgotten that, in his original 
plan, this had been but a preliminary movement, and tailed to move rapidly 
forward upon Garnett's rear. He thus lost the ultimate object of the Avhole 
campaign, in failing to secure the surrender of the main Eebel force. He had 
still seen no actual fighting, having at no time during the movement been so 
near troops in action as when, from his head-quarters tent, he listened to the 
sound of Eosecrans's guns, three miles away, 

■■ Rep. Com. Con. War, series of 1865, Vol. I. Eosecrans's Campaigns, p. 6. McClellan's 
Eeport, preliminary chapter. — It is even true that McClellan, instead of attacking when he heard 
the sound of Eosecrans's guns, fearing, on account of the Eebel cheers, for the safety of his own 
camp, sent back orders to arm the teamsters, so as to be prepared for any emergency ! Yet the 
force then about him (aside from Eosecrans's brigade) was more than double Pegram's entire 
command. 

t It was not till the second day after Eich Mountain that McClellan reached Beverly. Gar- 
nett indeed supposed him to be there, and did not retreat that way ; but had McClellan moved 
only a few miles toward him, he would have shut up the St. George Eoad, and prevented the 
possibility of retreat in any direction. 



i 



Geoege B. McClellan. 283 

But Fortune, whom most soldiers at first find very lil^e a step-mother in her 
regards, seemed determined to exhaust all means of forcing greatness upon this 
favorite young son. Four months ago a retired Captain, three months ago an 
officer of Ohio militia, he was already commander of a great department and 
the popular hero of a successful campaign. The Country, recovering from the 
stupefaction of Bull Eun, read with delight the story of the marches and skir- 
mishes that had liberated "West Virginia. The newspapers, quick to furnish 
what was pleasing, dilated on the glories of the achievement, and compared it 
to Napoleon's liberation of Italy. General Scott, broken down under the failure 
before Washington, telegraphed General McClellan to come on and take com- 
mand of the Potomac army, and the people hailed him as a victor, come from 
the mountains, to secure, by another campaign not less brief, results as much 
more brilliant as the field was more extensive. 

Never was a General more completely master of the situation. The Gov- 
ernment received him with unlimited confidence, and practically gave him 
unlimited power. The people, humiliated and chastened by Bull Eun, hastened 
to support and re-enforce the new General. The soldiers, led to look upon him 
as a veritable " organizer of victoiy," became his enthusiastic champions. 
Arms, artillery, ammunition, horses, supplies were demanded for the reorgan- 
izing army on a scale rarely witnessed in the history of modern war, but there 
was no question of anything — it was McClellan who asked it. From every 
State the stream of new regiments set steadily to Washington, for McClellan 
had said that his army must be quadrupled. 

When he took the command, he found the remnants of McDowell's Bull 
Eun army, fifty thousand infantry, one thousand cavalry, and less than a thou- 
sand artillery with thirty guns. These men were dispirited by defeat and bad 
management. Their commissariat and quartermasters' arrangements were 
defective, and the vicious system of electing their own officers had effectually 
prevented any respectable disciiDline. McClellan at once addressed himself to 
the work of reorganization with a skill to be expected from one who had, under 
Government support, made the organization of armies a special study, and with 
a vigor which deserves the highest praise. A Provost-Marshal speedily thinned 
the streets of the stragglers and deserters, who were still retailing their stories 
of how" they had performed prodigies of valor till the "Black Horse Cavalry" 
swept down at the very moment a "masked battery" had opened and was cut- 
ting them to pieces. A Board weeded out the incompetent officers. Thorough 
inspections, drill, and reviews reduced the regiments to discijDline. 

An accomplished tactician (General Casey) was assigned to the task of 
brigading the new troops as they came in. As they began to acquire some skill 
in the evolutions, and the qualifications of their commanders began to be ascer- 
tained, the brigades were formed into divisions. 

A skillful artillerist (General Barry) was instructed to form an artillery 
establishment for the army, and a body of trained officers of the regular service 
were assigned to duty under him. Field batteries, comjDosed of guns of uniform 
caliber, were assigned to divisions, in the proportion of at least five pieces to 



284 Ohio in the Wak. 

each two thousand men; an artillery reserve of a hundred guns and a siege- 
train of nearly a hundred more were equipped, and careful instruction in their 
duties, both by text-books and practice, was given the artillerists of each 
division.* 

Into the hands of a no less skillful "specialist," Major (subsequently Major- 
General) Barnard, of the Engineers, was given the task of placing Washington 
in a condition of defense. The works on the Virginia side were strengthened 
and connected, and fortifications soon began to crown the heights to the north- 
ward, till a chain of earthworks, professedly modeled on the lines of Torres 
Vedras,f encircled the Capital with a sweep of forts on every eminence, and 
infantry parapets spanning every valley for a circumference of thirty-three 
miles. 

In like manner the Quartermaster's and Commissariat Departments were 
reorganized, competent Ordnance oflScers were appointed; the whole business 
of the army was systematized. 

In all this it is true that the plans were not of General McClellan's origina- 
tion. General Barry submitted a memorandum of the j^rinciples on which the 
artillery should be organized; General Barnard traced the fortifications; Gen- 
eral McDowell had left a nucleus of fift}^ thousand men, properly brigaded and 
divisioned; General Casey took charge of the new levies of infantry, and Gen- 
eral Stoneman of those of cavalry. Nor were the plans new plans; the work 
was but to follow the beaten path which the best armies of Europe had trodden 
for a hundred years. But it was McClellan who enforced the necessity for this 
work, and selected these men for their respective duties; who procured for them 
the materials they demanded; who supervised their operations, and after due 
investigation, gave to all the sanction of his authority. 

Of high credit for all this, no fair criticism can deprive Genei-al McClellan. 
It was not great work, stamping its author as a man of the highest genius, but 
it was congenial work, exactly in the line of his studies, leading him over pre- 
cisely the ground, in the whole scope of the Art of War, with which he was 
most familiar, and he did it faithfully, wisely, and w^ell. "If other Generals, 
the successors of McClellan, were able to achieve more decisive resialts than he, 
it was in no small degree because they had the pei-fect instrument he had fash- 
ioned to work withal." X 

But now the army had grown to triple its original size. Three months 
had been consumed in giving it form and consistency; while, meantime, a foe 
every way its inferior held it close under the fortifications of the besieged 
Capital. The people had by no sign or word diminished the fullness of the trust 
in which, with touching patience, they awaited their General's own time for 
using this trenchant blade. The very abandon of their confidence increased the 
weight under which it placed the trusted General. 

But already had begun the development of that strange perversity of vision 

* Report Engineer and Artillery Operations Army Potomac, p. 106. 

t Barnard's Eeport, p. 12. JSwinton''s History Army of Potomac, p. 61. 



Geokge B. McClellax. 285 

which was to prove among the foremost causes for the downfall of the popular 
idol; that worse than near-sightedness which not only diminished tenfold what- 
ever obstacles were at a distance or in other departments, but no less exaggerated 
such as were near at hand. As early as the 4th of August General McClellan 
had, in an elaborate memorandum, assured the President that no large additions 
to the troojDS in Missouri were needed, that twenty thousand would form an 
amply strong column for Kentucky and Tennessee, and that for his own army 
he Avould need two hundred and seventy-three thousand men ! Toward the 
close of October, having then an army of one hundred and sixty-eight thousand, 
he informed the Secretary of War that he considered at least two hundred and 
eight thousand requisite to enable him to advance! And his reason for demand- 
ing this colossal army was, that "the enemy have a force on the Potomac not 
less than one hundred and fifty thousand strong, well-drilled and equipped, ably 
commanded, and strongly intrenched!" Outside the head-quarters few then 
believed the enemy's force to be more than half this number; we now know 
fi'om General Jos. E. Johnston's official report, and from the actual consolidated 
morning returns of his army, that the entire Eebel strength in Northern Vir- 
ginia on 31st of October, 1861, was sixty-six thousand two hundred and forty- 
three, of which only forty-four thousand one hundred and thirty-one were 
present for duty. General McClellan, while ciphering his own army down to 
its lowest point, depreciating its arms, and complaining of its rawness, had mag- 
nified the raw levies of the enemy nearly fourfold, and had ascribed to them an 
equipment and discipline which, according to the confessions of their own 
commanders, they neither had then, nor ever subsequently acquired! But he 
still thought he might move by the 25th of November. 

Meantime, as vague hints of these strange conceptions of the enemy's force, 
and these enormous demands percolated official circles, a feeling of uneasiness 
began to appear. The Rebel columns, in a spirit of taunting braggadocio, had 
been advanced till their flags could be seen from the President's windows. 
Pebel batteries lined the Potomac till, with an enormous army lying idly about 
it, and a sufficient navy within call, the Capital of the Nation was actually 
blockaded. Foreign nations construed the endurance of these things as signs 
of conscious weakness; and statesmen regarded the danger of European inter- 
vention, or at least of European recognition of the Southern Confederacy, as 
imminent. A strange afi'air happened at Ball's Bluff, on the Upper Potomac, 
not indeed by General McClellan's direct orders, but certainly with his implied 
sanction, in which there was a sad waste of life, without appreciable object, and 
under the grossest mismanagement; and the fall in it of a highly-esteemed 
Senator of the United States intensified the public horror at the details. But 
when men asked why our immense force did not remedy some of these things, 
they were pointed, for answer, to the glittering staif surrounding the handsome 
young Napoleon, as he swept down the Avenue and across the Long Bridge to 
some new review, to the sight of which, as to a holiday jDarade. the wives and 
daughters of Congressmen had been invited. 

Still, though the whispers swelled to muttering, there was little open dis- 



286 Ohio in the Wae. 

content, and when, at the close of October, the President was called to appoint 
a successor to General Scott, he was subsequently able to say, "neither in council 
nor country was there, so far as I know, any difference of opinion as to the 
proper person to be selected."* It was indeed known, even then, to a few, that 
the retiring chieftain had bitterly complained of lack of resjDect and even of 
actual insubordination on the part of General McClellan; but Scott was old and 
testy, and little importance was attached to these complaints. f 

By the middle of November, however, the patience of the public became 
pretty thoroughly wearied, and frequent demands were made as to why nothing 
could be done with the grand Arm}' of the Potomac. But there had now 
sprung up about the General commanding a knot of parasites and flatterers, 
who deemed such inquiries from those whose sons and brothers constituted this 
army a great impertinence. The General was maturing his plans; they would 
in due time be found to cover every point and satisfy every expectation; and 
till he chose, in his own good time, to develop them in action, it only became 
the public to be thankful for his genius and to admire such fruits of it as were 
already apparent. Talk like this from the head-quarters was taken up and 
amplified by the newspapers, and for months the public heard little but eulogies 
upon the matchless General and his mysterious plans; glowing descriptions of 
his martial appearance on a review; and sanguine accounts of the havoc he 
would work upon the Eebel hordes, when once his strategy dictated the time for 
placing himself at the head of his heroic battalions and leading them to glory. 
Meanwhile, sword presentations, addresses of admiring delegations, and the like 
filled up the time, and still the Army of the Potomac lay motionless before 
Washington, while Eebel guns by river and by land still besieged it. 

It would seem — so absolute was the deference with our young favorite of 
Fortune yet commanded — that even now the President failed to require of him 
his reasons for continued inaction. He himself informs us;]; that, "had the 
discipline, organization, and equipment of the army been as complete, at the 
close of the fall as was necessary, the unprecedented condition of the roads and 
Virginia soil would have delayed an advance till February." Here, again, we 
have the strange visual defect. The unprecedented condition of the roads con-' 
sisted in this, as described by a Southern annalist: "A long, lingering Indian 
summer, with roads more hard and skies more beautiful than Virginia had seen 
for many a year, invited the enemy (i. e., the United States forces), to advance. 
He steadily refused the invitation to a general action; the advance of our lines 
to Munson's Hill was tolerated, and opportunities were sought in vain by the 
Confederates, in heavy skirmishing, to engage the lines of the two armies. The 
young Napoleon was twitted as a dastard in the Southern newspapei-s." |1 

With an army nearly four times the size of that which confronted it, the 

* President's Annual Message, December, 1861. 

t The letter on which these statements are based was written by General Scott before his 
resignation, and was read by Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, in the course of debate in the House of 
Representatives, nearly two years later. 

t McClellan 's Eeport, Government edition, p. 35. I| Pollard's History, Vol. I, p. 184. 



George B. McClellan. 287 

•daily increasing demand of the public, who, after all, controlled the war, for a 
movement that should at least clear away the Rebels from the front of the 
Capital, was reasonable. .As G-eneral-in -Chief, McClellan naturally desired that 
the movements of the Potomac armj^ should be simultaneous with those of the 
Western armies, whose "total unpreparedness" he makes a plea for still further 
delay. But a special movement upon Manassas would not have interfered with 
such subsequent co-operation, while its moral effect would have been invaluable. 
Here was the grave error General McClellan now committed. Accepting the 
confidence with which he had been received as an unreserved tribute to his 
merits, he forgot that the stress under which he was placing popular expecta- 
tion must within a reasonable time be relieved; that he could not be forever 
taken upon trust, while, in the absence of actual performance, he called for such 
supplies as were unheard of in this countrj", and almost unparalleled among the 
most warlike nations of Europe. But to the complaints which indignant Con- 
gressmen soon began to make, the only reply from head -quarters came from 
the glittering young staff-officers, who roundly denounced the interference of 
civilians, and especially of politicians, in military affairs, which they could not 
"be expected to understand. 

The winter passed in profound inactivity. General letters of instruction 
were addressed to the commanders of the various departments, all good, and in 
■one case (that of the letter to General Butler, giving directions for the move- 
ment against New Orleans), exceptionally clear-sighted and explicit. No new 
operations, however, were planned ; the General-in-Chief seemed satisfied either 
with countermanding or permitting the completion of the operations already in 
progress. 

The stress of the public demand, that something should be shown in return 
for the -vast resources bestowed upon the commander of the Army of the Poto- 
mac, became greater; the danger of foreign recognition was now known to be 
imminent; and Mr. Lincoln grew very uneasy. "If General McClellan does 
not want to use the Arm}^ of the Potomac," he said, quaintly and almost patheti- 
cally, to some officers with whom he was consulting, "T should like very much 
to borrow it of him;" and, "if something is not done soon, the bottom will be 
out of the whole affair."* Just at this time McClellan became ill; and, in his 
distress, the President, failing several times to secure interviews with his Gen- 
eral-in-Chief, sent for other officers, and sought, by their aid. to find out how 
"something could be done." Before the last of these consultations. General 
McClellan recovered. He scarcely concealed his chagrin at what had been 
going on, and with great reluctance imparted even to the President, the pur- 
poses he had been nourishing so long. These, it proved, were to transfer the 
army by water to the Lower Chesapeake, and move thence "from some such base 
as Urbana on the Eappahannock, against Richmond, leaving at Washington 
only a sufficient body of the newest troops to garrison the forts. 

But, on the 13th of January, before the President, members of the Cabinet, 

* McDowell's Memorandum of Interviews with President Lincoln. Swinton's Historv Arniv 
Potomac, p. 80. 



288 Ohio in the Wae. 

and army officers, whom the President had called in consultation, General 
McCIellan, after evading a direct answer to the question what he intended to 
do with the army, had finally protested against developing his plans, unless 
under peremptory orders, but had given assurance that he had a time fixed for 
beginning operations. Two weeks later, the President having received no 
further information, had lost all patience and issued a peremptory order, fixing 
a date, about a month in advance, for the movement of all the armies of the 
United States. After this, McCIellan came forward with his jDlan for taking 
sail to Fortress Monroe. There was manifestly not time to accomplish this and 
be ready for offensive operations within the time alread}^ fixed by the President. 
Partly for this reason, partly also, without doubt, because of a sincere conviction 
of the injudicious nature of the jjlan, Mr. Lincoln promptly disapproved it, and 
ordered instead a turning movement against Manassas. 

McCIellan, instead of obej^ing, inquired if this order was final, or if he 
might present his objections to it in writing. Leave was granted, his objections 
were set forth, and finally, less because the President was convinced than be- 
cause he feared that he could look for no hearty execution of any other plan, he 
yielded to McClellan's urgency, and ordered the water transportation to be pre- 
pared for the execution of McClellan's j)hin, requiring, however, that it should 
be approved by his corps commanders, that the Eebel blockade of the Potomac 
should be broken, and that an ample force should be left for the security of 
Washington. 

While these preparations were in pi"Ogress, the enemy quietly evacuated 
Manassas, in pursuance of measures begun three weeks before, for moving 
nearer their base of supplies. The troops of the grand Army of the Potomac 
were now marched out, over the roads which up to this time had been gazetted 
as "impassable," and then, there being nothing for them to do, were marched 
back again. The movement intensified the popular discontent, and led to innu- 
merable pasquinades. 

At last the preparations for the long-expected movement were complete. 
Eighteen thousand men only were left in garrison at Washington, but General 
McCIellan reckoned, as also available for its defense, the thirty-five thousand in 
the Shenandoah Yalley, and those at Warrenton and Manassas. One hundred 
and twenty-one thousand (besides Blenker's division, withdrawn at the start, 
and McDowell's corps, subsequently withheld), were left for the movement from 
Foi'tress Monroe. 

The temper of the Administration, by this time, may be inferred from the 
closing sentence of an order from the Secretary of War: "Move the remainder 
of the force down the Potomac, choosing a new base at Fortress Monroe, or any- 
where between here and there, or at all events, move such remainder of the 
army at once in pursuit of the enemy by some route!"* Under such pressure, 
the movement finally began. By the 2d of April — eight months after receiving 
the command — General McCIellan was at Foi'tress Monroe, ready to begin his 
campaign. He had, in the meantime, possessed the unlimited confidence of the 

* McClellan's Eeport, Government edition, p. 60. 



George B. McClellan. 289 

Government and the country, and had measurably lost that of both ; he had 
received the baton of General-in-Chief, and had lost it again; had at first been 
so absolute that not even the President thought of inquiring as to his plans; 
and had at last been fairly ordered out of Washington in words that, scarcely 
veiled in polite phraseology, meant "go anywhere, move anywhere you please, 
only let us have an end of excuses — do some^Mn^r." He still possessed, how- 
ever, in a remarkable degree, the admiration of his untried soldiers. 

General McClellan's original plan had been to land at Urbana on the Eap- 
pahannock, and move thence on Eichmond. The retreat of Johnston from 
Manassas, placing the Eebel army behind the line of the Eappahannoek, had 
prevented this. He had then proposed to move up the James. The presence 
of the dreaded Eebel iron-clad Merrimac prevented this. And so it was now 
determined to move up the York Eiver. 

The second day's march brought the army to a halt. It was discovered 
that the Eebels had earthworks at Yorktown as well as at Manassas. These 
works were manned by General Magruder, (an officer who in the old army had 
ranked chiefly as a coxcomb), with a force, in all, of not quite eleven thousand 
men.* Here, at the very outset of his campaign, where if ever vigor and dash 
were required, that the objective might be reached before the enemy had time 
to concentrate his troops on the new line of operations, General McClellan's 
evil genius overcame him. All his troops not yet having arrived, he only had 
about five times as large an army as that which confronted him, and so he 
deliberately sat down to besiege them! His information, he said, "placed Gen- 
eral Magruder's command at from fifteen thousand to twenty thousand men, 
independently of General Huger's force at Norfolk, estimated at about fifteen 
thousand men!f Huger's real force at Norfolk is now known to have been 
eight thousand, so that the whole force possible to be combined against General 
McClellan at Yorktown was nineteen thousand, instead of the thirty -five thou- 
sand which he thus estimates. It was the painful story of "one hundred and 
fifty thousand behind the intrenchments of Manassas" over again. 

Then General Johnston had arrived with part of the Manassas army, and 
he felt sure that -he "should have the whole force of the enemy, not less than 
one hundred thousand," on his hands! "In consequence of the loss of Blenker's 
division and McDowell's corps," his force was already "j^ossibly less than that 
of the enemy." J And one of his corps Generals confidentially wrote, with his 
approval, that "the line in front of us is one of the strongest ever opposed to an 
invading force in any country." || In point of fact. General Johnston had then 
brought down no re-enforcements at all, had only come to inspect the defenses, 

* This seems to be the largest number that any of the authorities will allow. It is proper, 
however, to say that Pollard (Southern History of the AYar, p. 293) says that Magruder had only 
oeven thousand five hundred. Magruder himself reports his strength, exclusive of the garrisons 
at Gloucester Point and elsewhere, at five thousand. 

t McClellan's Eeport, Government edition, p. 74. 

I McClellan's Report, Government edition, p. 79. || Ibid, p. 81. 

Vol. I.— 19. 



290 Ohio in the Wae. 

hud pronounced them faulty in construction, and untenable, (in which oi^inion 
he was fully sustained by General Eobert E. Lee, then chief-of- staff to Mr. 
Davis), and had therefore stronglj^ recommended the entire evacuation of the 
Peninsula.*^ 

That the Eebel works at Yorktown could and should have been taken by 
assault, without one day's delay, is therefore a verdict which no informed mili- 
tary critic, in the light of facts now known, will presume to question. But, 
while nothing can excuse the G-enerai, who, at the outset of a great campaign, 
planned by himself, suffers a force only one-tenth as great as his own to para- 
lyze his army and destroy his plans, there are still some circumstances which 
tend to place General McClellan's conduct in a more favorable light. He had 
desired to turn Yorktown by a movement on Gloucester, but the navy was 
unwilling to undertake its share of such an enterprise, and McDowell's corps, 
to which he had assigned the task, failed to reach him. His mind, always mor- 
bid on the subject of the numbers of his army, was thus greatly depressed; he 
never formed new plans with rapidity, and his old ones for the disposition of 
his troops were thus shattered. And to this it should be added, that the opinion 
of his engineer was decidedly against assault. f 

It may further be remarked, that while nothing can excuse General McClel- 
lan's failure to use the abundant forces he had, in sweeping over Yorktown and 
on up the peninsula, there is likewise no sufficient excuse for the vexations to which 
the Administration now subjected him. He had been given the command of 
Fortress Monroe and the forces there, that he might thus control his own base 
of operations. Alarmed at finding how nearly he had stripped Washington ot 
effective troops, and fearing a similar performance at Fortress Monroe, this com- 
mand was taken from him, almost before he had begun to exercise it — a humilia- 
tion, under all the circumstances, which it was unwise to inflict upon a General 
left at the head of an army. If he could not be trusted with the troops at his 
own base, he could not be trusted with troops anywhere, and the Administra 
tion should have promptly sixperseded him. Equally unwise was the withdrawal 

■■■■The above facts have been repeatedly stated by both the Confederate Generals named. 
They may be found as given by General Johnston to the author, in Swinton's History Army 
Potomac, pp. 102, 103. 

1 1 make no account whatever of the t'wo excuses urged by General McClelhxn himself in 
his report, and continued, in the form of charges, against the Administration, with such perti- 
nacity by his friends ; viz., that there had been just ground to expect the co-operation of the 
navy, and that there was just cause of complaint for the withholding of McDowell's corps. 

It was General McClellan's business, before he set out on a campaign to which the Govern- 
ment had been steadily opposed from the beginning, and which was only tolerated in deference 
to his persistent advocacy of it, and virtual unwillingness to undertake any other, to know 
whether or not he could count on the support of the navy. His Council of Corps Commanders 
had made this a peremptory siwe ^wa mow, (McClellan's Keport, p. 60), and he had given the 
President assurance that the conditions imposed by that Council had been complied with. 

The disposition made of McDowell's corps by Mr. Lincoln was, of course, unmilitary, and 
the consequent disappointment great, but the force left General McClellan was still overwhelm- 
ingly superior to that of the enemy, or to any force v/hich, for the next three weeks, the enemy 
could, by any possibility, have concentrated against him. And, furthermore, eleven thousand of 
McDowell's corps did reach him before he left Yorktown. 



Geokge B. McClellan. 291 

of McDowell's corps. It was not needed for the defense of Washington ; and 
although it was true that McClellan still had an ample force for his work, yet 
he had been fairly led to rely upon more, and should not have been dis- 
apx)ointed. 

The siege went on — to the infinite mortification of the President, who wrote, 
" the country will not fail to note, is noting now, that the present hesitation to 
move upon an intrenched enemy is but the story of Manassas repeated."* But 
the General's requisitions were all promptly filled ; an enormous siege-train 
comprising one and two hundred-pounder rifled guns, was gathered about the 
handful of Eebels under Magruder; rope mantlets were constructed in JSTew 
York for the batteries ; shells were forwarded, charged with Greek fire ; the 
whole army was delayed from the 4th of April to the 4th of May; and then — 
let poor General Barry, of the artillery, finish the story: "It will always be a 
source of great professional disappointment to me, that the enemy, by his pre- 
mature abandonment of his defensive line, deprived the artillery of the Army 
of the Potomac of the opportunity of exhibiting the superior power and efii- 
ciency of the unusually heavy metal used in this siege !"f That was all ! The 
enemy had waited till the siege-train was ready to open, and then had quietly 
retreated, leaving their empty works and the heavy guns (taken from the Nor- 
folk Navy -yard) which they had been unable to carry with them. 

Sumner's corps was at once pushed forward in pursuit. Eesistance might 
well be expected, for the existence of considerable defensive works at Williams- 
burg, twelve miles up the peninsula from Yorktown, was well known at head- 
quarters. | If the pursuit was of any use at all, it was likely to reach the trains 
near this point; and, with fortifications ready to his hand, the Eebel com- 
mander would be sure to make a stand till his trains wei'e saved. But, either 
these considerations did not occur to General McClellan, or the disappointment 
of the unexpected retreat had so destroyed his poise of mind that he was inca- 
pable of perceiving the import of such facts, or he did not consider that, a battle 
being imminent, his presence was necessary. 

In any event this was what he did : Eemaining at Yorktown to superin- 
tend the starting of Franklin's division, which he had decided to send up the 
York Eiver on transports, he permitted the eager troops to push forward, with- 
out reconnoissance, upon the batteries of Williamsburg. What followed may be 
easily inferred. The cavalry advance had warned General Johnston of the pur- 
suit, and he had hastily sent back Longstreet to man the deserted works. Be- 
fore our infantry arrived, night had fallen, a heavy rain came on, the troops 
bivouacked in confusion in the woods. Next morning Hooker found himself, 
with his division, confronting the Eebel intrenchments. He immediately 
cleared his fi'ont and opened fire with a couple of batteries. Longstreet 
responded by a series of efi'orts to turn his flank. Hooker was left completely' 

* McClellan's Eeport, Government edition, p. 84. 

t Engineer and Artillery Operations Army Potomac : Barry's Report, p. 134. 

t Ibid, Barnard's Eeport, p. 63, 



292 Ohio in the Wae. 

tmsupported, stiflfered heavily, and about four o'clock was running out of ammu- 
nition, when the opportune arrival of Kearney enabled him to re-form his linea 
and maintain his position. Meantime, about noon, Hancock's brigade, almost by 
accident, as it would seem, stumbled into the extreme flank of the enemy's 
works '(which had been neglected in the heat of the contest with Hooker), and 
thus held a position commanding his flank and rear. But, instead of being re- 
enfbrced, he was now ordered to fall back. Night came on again, the wet and 
hungry troops threw themselves on the ground, and the battle was over. IsText 
morning it was found that Longstreet, having secured the desired delay, had 
continued the retreat. Hooker had lost two thousand men in a needless conflict, 
which he was left to bear alone, while thirty thousand soldiers were within 
sound of his firing and almost within sight of his colors; and the General of the 
army was twelve miles in the rear, supervising the departure of transports. 

There was now oj)en to Greneral McClellan the route which he had pre- 
viously characterized as "promising the most brilliant results." The enemy 
had destroyed the Merrimac, on the evacuation of Yorktown, and there was no 
longer anything to prevent a combined land and naval advance up the James 
Eiver, which, in ten days, as it would now seem, might have planted the Na- 
tional flag on the Confederate capitol at Eichmond. But, whether through the 
same disturbance of mind that led to loading transports instead of supervising 
the advance of the army upon fortified positions, or whether the General's 
attention had become so morbidly fixed upon the possibility of still having 
McDowell's corps march overland to re-enforce him, that he could see nothing 
else, it is certain that no further#thought was given to the James, and the move- 
ment of troops up the York River went deliberately on. By the 16th of May, 
twelve days after the evacuation of Yorktown, the head of navigation on the 
Pamunkey Eiver (a continuation of the York) had been reached ; and in two 
weeks more the troops had crossed the intervening twent}" or thirty miles, and 
reached the Chickahominy. These movements were greatly hindered by the 
diflScult nature of the roads. But while admitting this as sufficient explanation 
of much of the delay, we can not omit to add. that General McClellan had him- 
self foreclosed the admission of such excuses in his behalf at as earl}'' a day as 
the 3d of February, when, in the course of a communication protesting against 
having to execute Mr. Lincoln's order to move against Manassas, and setting 
forth the superior advantages of his own plan, he had particularly urged that, 
on the Peninsula, "the roads are passable at all seasons of the year."* 

By this time, however, owing to the delays which had filled up the season 
from the 17th of March to the 30th of May in moving the avmy from Washing- 
ton to the Chickahominy, the enemy had been given ample time to concentrate 
his forces. So consummate a strategist as General Jos. E. Johnston was noti 
likely to leave unimproved so signal an advantage. The interval was employed! 
in gathering the whole army of Noi-thern Virginia, as well as that of the^ 
Peninsula, into the defenses of Richmond, with the passage and enforcement of 

* McClellan's Eeport, Government edition, p. 47. 



George B. McClellan. 293 

the conscription bill, and with the most vigorous and successful efforts to put 
the army in thoroyigh fighting trim. So now, when at last the army of the Poto- 
mac began really to confront the enemy it was to encounter, the mind of its com- 
mander was already weighed down again by the chronic fear of numerical inferi- 
orit}'. Even from Williamsburg, whence he had exultantly telegraphed that he 
"was pursuing hard, and should push the enemy to the wall," he had, within a 
day or two, written that, if not re-enfoi*ced, he would be "obliged to fight nearly 
doable his numbers, strongly intrenched." Four days later he assured the 
President that he would have to attack an intrenched foe, " much larger, per- 
haps double his numbers." He did not think "it would be at all possible" for 
him " to bring more than seventy thousand men upon the field of battle." Yet 
at this time his own reports show his strength to have been one hundred and 
twenty-six thousand three hundred and eighty-seven, of whom he had given 
eleven thousand leave of absence ; but, deducting all absentees, sick, deserters, 
and men under arrest, he had actually present for duty, one hundred and four 
thousand six hundred and ten. 

But so strenuous were his representations, and so continuous his calls for 
re-enforcements, that, on the afternoon of the 18th of May, twenty-four hours 
before the army reached the Chickahominy, the President ordered the portion 
of McDowell's corps, which had still been withheld, to march overland to join 
him. Six days later — that is to say, four days after McClellan's arrival at the 
Chickahominy — he was notified that McDowell must be again withheld, Stone- 
wall Jackson having broken loose in the Yalley. Thenceforward General 
McClellan understood that whatever he did at Eichmond he must do with the 
forces he had ; and he was further notified by the weary and alarmed President 
that " the time is near when you must either attack Richmond or give up the 
job and come to the defense of Washington." 

There is no need here to add anything to the disputes of which this dispo- 
sition of McDowell's corps has been the prolific theme. Two points, however, 
are worthy of notice. There was no wisdom in the President's use of McDow- 
ell ; in so far McClellan was right. The corps was sent on a fool's errand (a 
"stern-chase" after Stonewall Jackson), at a time and by a route that rendered 
success physically impossible. But McClellan was 7iot forced (as he claims in 
his report), by the promise of this corps, and by the subsequent uncertainty 
concerning it, to attack Eichmond from the north, instead of seeking the line 
of the James. Eight days before he learned that McDowell was ordered to him, 
at Eoper's Church, on the 11th of May, the decision was made not to move to the 
James, but to continue on the Williamsburg Eoad to Eichmond.* 

"Furthermore, in his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, he subse- 
quently stated that " the navy was not at that time in a condition to make the James River per- 
fectly sure for our supplies. I remember that the idea of moving on the James River was 
seriously discussed at that time. But the conclusion was arrived at that, under the circumstances 
then existing, the route actually followed was the best." So that General McClellan became en- 
tangled in the swamps of the Chickahominy, not because he expected re-enforcenicnts to reach him 
there from Fredericksburg, but because he had previously decided that, undei- tlie circumstances, 
that was the best route. 



294 Ohio in the Wak. 

Replying to the President's remarlv that he must soon attack Richmond or 
come to the defense of Washington, General McClellan telegraphed (25th 
May) that "the time is very near when I shall attack Richmond." The next 
day he "hoped soon to be within shelling distance." And later in the daj^ : 
"We are quietly closing in upon the enemy, preparatory to the last struggle." 

Yet all this time, and for five daj'^s longer, he allowed his army to lie along 
the Chickahominy, one-third on the Richmond side, the remainder on the 
northern side, with bridges only for the one wing, and with a march of near 
twenty miles to be made by the remainder of the army before, in case of attack, 
the bridges could be reached over which to re-enforce it. The jjosition was 
most unfortunate — necessary, possibly, for a day or two ; but all the more 
potent, therefore, as a reason for hastening such operations as should reunite the 
army, now perilously divided in the face of the "enemy of double its numbers." 

General Johnston perceived the exposure, and instantly gave orders to 
profit by it. A heavy storm the same night swelled the Chickahominy, flood- 
ing the lowlands; and, while it rendered the attack more difficult, it likewise 
increased the danger of the isolated wing and the difficulties in the way of re- 
enforcing it. By ten o'clock Johnston struck the front of Casey's division, and 
speedily crumbled it up. The troops were rallied at General Couch's position 
at Seven Pines. Presently this division was likewise repulsed and broken in 
two ; and Kearney, advancing on the left, was hurled back into the swamp. 
The whole corps seemed about to be annihilated, when the fortune of the day 
was changed by the entrance of a column from the north side of the Chicka- 
hominy. Sumner, with the soldierly instinct that led him toward the sound of 
a battle, had called out his troops as soon as the firing began ; and when he 
learned that re-enforcements were needed, not daring to delay by marching to 
the bridges in rear of the imperiled corps, adventured across the swollen 
stream on an imperfect bridge, which he had himself been building, that was 
all afloat, and swung taut against the ropes which tied it to stumps on the bank, 
and alone prevented it from floating off". By great good fortune it bore the corps 
across ; a few hours later it was impassable. 

This, then, was the column that saved the day. General Johnston Avas 
wounded; his forces retreated before Sumner's splendid charge; and, in the 
opinion of many of the best officers of the army, this defeat of Pair Oaks, thus 
suddenly converted into a victory, might have been followed by a successful 
advance of the army of the Potomac into Richmond.* But, only too well con- 

••■•William Henry Hurlbert, a partisan of McClellan's, then in Richmond, says of the effect 
of this defeat in the Rebel capital: "The roads into Richmond were literally crowded with 
stragglers, some throwing away their guns, some breaking them on the trees — all with the same 
story, that their regiments had been cut to pieces, that the Yankees were swarming on the Chick- 
ahominy like bees, and fighting like devils. In two days of the succeeding week the Provost- 
marshal's guard collected between four thousand and five thousand stragglers, and sent them into 
camp. What had become of the command no one knew." If to these five thousand stragglers be 
added the seven thousand Rebel loss in the battle, we have an aggregate of twelve thousand taken 
out of a force which at best did not yet exceed sixty -five thousand around Richmond. Under 
the circumstances would not McClellan's one hundred thousand have had a fair chance for van- 
quishing the remainder ? 



GrEOEGE B. McClellaN. 



295 




SOME OF THE ROUTES TO, AND BATTLE-FIELDS AROUND, RICHMOND. 



Geokge B. McClellan. 297 

tent at having so narrowly escaj)ed the destruction of one-third of his army, 
General McClellan recalled Sumner from the pursuit, when within four miles of 
Richmond, and sent his troops to resume their old positions. He was not on 
the field during the fighting, and his only share in bringing about the barren 
victory consisted in directing Sumner to cross, after that old hero had for hours 
been awaiting such orders. 

And now began a change, of ill-omen to the j^rocrastinating General on the 
Chickahominy, and to the brave army he was keeping out of action. General 
Johnston, who had hitherto controlled the Eebel movements around Richmond, 
had never been a favorite with their Government, and his representations of the 
necessity of concentration to opjjose McClellan's advance had fallen upon unwill- 
ing ears. At the very time when this latter officer was telegraphing, from day 
to day, that the enemy was double his numbers, that enemy was vainly striving 
to secure re-enforcements from the Valley of Yirginia and from the sea-coast, 
that should bring his numbers up to even two-thirds of those of his assailant. 
But it was now seen that General Johnston's wound was likely to keep him long 
out of the field, and Mr. Davis was nowise loth to improve the opportunity by 
filling his place with his own Chief-of-Staff and particular favorite, General 
Robert E. Lee. The change was fatal to McClellan. For, such was General 
Lee's influence with his Government, that the troops for which his predecessor 
had vainly applied, were freely given him, and the long-talked -of Rebel con- 
centration about Richmond really began. The army of Beaaregard was broken 
up and transferred to Lee ; trooj)s were brought in from other points on the 
sea-coast ; the conscription, now beginning to work effectively, was made to 
yield its best fruits to the Richmond army. Worst of all, General Lee took 
measures for the secret and sjieedy return of Stonewall Jackson's tried troops 
from the Valley. 

Thus the danger which McClellan had discounted, to borrow a figure from 
the stock-brokers, so long in advance, was now actually upon him. There was 
yet time to escajDe it ; but the crisis, which from the moment of his landing on 
the Peninsula, had demanded speedy and vigorous movements, now more than 
ever, and more imperatively, demanded them. But a strange stupor seemed to 
settle down \ipon his army. Its perilous position, astride the Chickahominy, 
with the boggy lowlands intervening to retard the movements of either wing to 
the support of the other, was continued, and the line was even extended ; while 
no effort was made to secure the base of supplies, which lay almost as accessible 
to Lee's army as to his own. And here, in this anomalous position, he contin- 
ued building bridges and constructing great lines of fortifications, as if, with the 
Rebel army daily swelling before him, he meant to enter upon another siege. 

And 3''et it would seem that he was fully sensible of the dangers of his 
position and the necessity of assuming the offensive. On the 2d of June, two 
days after the battle of Fair Oaks, he telegraphed that he hoped almost imme- 
diately "to cross the right," which still lay north of the Chickahominy, and 
thus reunite his army. On the 4th, as if expecting an immediate battle, he 



298 Ohio in the War. 

begged to know what re-enforcements he could receive "within the next threo- 
days." On the 7th: "I shall be in perfect readiness to move forward and take 
Richmond the moment McCall reaches here, and the ground will admit the pas- 
sage of artillery." On the 10th: "I shall attack as soon as the weather and 
ground will permit. * -'^ I wish to be distinctly understood, that whenever 
the weather permits I shall attack with whatever force I may have." On the 
12th General McCall arrived, and on the 14th McClellan telegraphed, "weather 
now very favorable." These were the conditions that were to place him in 
"perfect readiness to move forward and take Richmond," but now "the indica- 
tions are, from our balloon reconnoissances and from all other sources, that the 
enemy are intrenching, daily increasing in numbers, and determined to fight 
desperately." That was all ! No word of moving forward and taking Eich- 
naond, (although, on the 18th he did say "a general engagement may take place 
any hour"); but, six days later, on the 20th, this: " I would be glad to have 
permission to lay before your Excellency, by letter or telegraph, my views as 
to the present state of military affairs throughout the whole country. In the 
meantime I would be pleased to learn the disposition, as to numbers and posi- 
tion, of the troops not under my command, in Yirginia and elsewhere." This 
remai'kable proposition, that the General of an invading army, in a perilous posi- 
tion, with one wing isolated from the rest of the army, with a daily increasing 
enemy, and the necessity of doing something hourh" more and more urgent, 
should stop to furnish his government a volunteer essay on the general aspects 
of a war that covered half a continent ; meantime requesting, as preparatory^ 
thereto, a detailed statement of the positions and numbers of all the troops in 
the country, seemed, for a time, to exhaust his energies. It was not till five days 
later — eleven days after he was "in perfect readiness to take Eichmond" — that, 
on the 25th, " an advance of our picket-line of the left was ordered, j)rej)ara- 
tory to a general forward movement." Precisely three hours later, "several 
contrabands came in," giving such information that the General abandoning, it 
would seem, all thought of his "forward movement," telegraphed, "I shall have 
to contend against vastly superior odds ; but this army will do all in the power 
of men to — hold their position and repulse any attack!"* 

It is the strangest, and, were it not so tragic, it would be the most ludicrous 
chapter of the whole sad story. One day just about to advance and take Rich- 
mond; the next just ready to move ; the next likel}^ to have a battle an}' hour; 
the next desirous of furnishing the Government his views on the war at large ; 
the next heroically resolved to — hold his position and repulse any attack. The 
perpetually recurring mystery is how the Government persuaded itself to leave 
such Unreadiness and Uncertainty incarnate in command of its finest army. 

Even at this late day it was still possible to move successfully against Ricli- 
mond, or at least to deliver general battle in front of Richmond, with fair pros- 
pects of success, and with elaborate fortifications for refuge in case of defeat. 
Forty-eight hours afterward it was too late. 

McClellan's Report, Government edition, pages 113 to 121. 



* 



Geoege B. McClellan. 299 

For now General Lee had gathered his forces, had recalled Jackson, was 
ready for the onset. A preliminary cavalry raid had circled the Array of the 
Potomac, shown him how exposed was McClellan's base, and laid bare the 
danger of the isolated right wing, which still held the north bank of the 
Chickahominy. Leaving, therefore, Magruder with twenty-five thousand men 
to occupy the bulk of McClellan's army on the south side of the Chickahominy, 
facing Richmond, Lee massed the remainder of his forces,* and, moving away 
to the north-westward from Richmond, crossed the Chickahominy at Meadow 
Bridge with his advance, then, turning down the north side of the stream, 
confronted Fitz John Porter's isolated corps. A sharj? fight ensued, in which 
Porter held his ground and inflicted severe punishment upon the enemy. Jack- 
son had not yet arrived, but it was known that another day must bring him 
within co-operating distance of the rest of Lee's army. 

General McClellan was promjDtly advised of the appearance of the Rebel 
column that afternoon on his isolated right. Now, therefore, having, by a 
month's delay astride the Chickahominy, lost the initiative, it behooved him 
forthwith to decide where and how he would meet the attack which the enemy 
was about to deliver. He had on that day present for duty one hundred and 
fifteen thousand one hundred and two men.f His antagonist had an aggregate 
of about ninety-five thousand ; but General McClellan believed him to have one 
hundred and eighty thousand. Acting under this belief, it would seem that the 
moment he found himself about to be attacked he i-esolved to retreat. He had 
definitely rejected the idea of adopting the James River route two months 
before, at Roper's Church, and, indeed, even before that, at Williamsburg. 
Knowing for weeks that he had no longer a hope of being joined by McDowell's 
corps, marching overland, he was free, if he had now seen occasion to revise 
that previous judgment, to transfer his base to the James River. But, having 
adhered to his position on the Chickahominy, and continued his promises to 
take Richmond from that point, up to the hour of Lee's appearance on his right, 
he now, within a few hours, decided to abandon his base and accumulation of 
supplies and retreat to the James River. For, Porter's affair with the advanc- 
ing Rebels having first developed Lee's design on the afternoon of the 26th, 
before the morning of the 27th Porter's baggage and the great siege-train had 
been moved to the south side of the Chickahominy, orders had been sent to the 
"White House to move off' what supplies could be saved and to burn the rest, 
and the water transportation had been ordered around to the James. 

It can not be disguised that, under the circumstances, this decision was as 
unwise as it was hasty. If General McClellan had determined at last to adopt 
the James River route, he should have done so before the attack of the enemy 
converted his movement into a retreat. That attack, rightly considered, might 

* About seventy thousand men, including Jackson's corps, which joined him the next day, 
as appears from their ofl&cial reports. 

t The official records of the Adjutant-General's oflSice in the War Department show the fol- 
lowing figures for the Army of the Potomac on June 26, 1862: Present for duty, 115,102; on 
special duty, sick, etc., 12,225 ; absent, 29,511. Total aggregate McClellan's army, 156,838. 



300 Ohio in the Wae. 

have proved the very oj)portunity for decisive battle under favorable circum- 
stances, for which he had been seeking. Hastily withdrawing Porter on the 
night of the 26th, it was possible for him to have hurled his united army upon 
the fragment of the enemy's force that now alone intervened between him and 
the Eebel capital* This would have conformed to one of the elementary prin- 
ciples of war; it w^ould have been — the enemy having divided his force — to beat 
him in detail. Or, if he had believed that the main army still lay between him 
and Richmond, he could have manned the defensive works — the very emergency 
for which, as he often said, he had constructed them — and could then have 
massed the bulk of his army on the north side of the Chickahominy, at Porter's 
position, and there delivered decisive battle. Or, finally, if either of these 
operations seemed to him too daring, he might still have withdrawn Porter's 
corps, and at once started for the James River with his entire force, thus avoid- 
ing that evil fate by which, on the next day, he left this devoted body of twenty- 
seven thousand men to bear ujd against the attack of Lee's massed army. 

But General McClellan either really believed himself confronted by an 
army of one hundred and eighty thousand men, notwithstanding his certaintj^ 
of " taking Richmond" a week ago; or, under the alarm created by suddenly 
finding himself attacked instead of the attacker, he lost that well-poised bal- 
ance of mind essential to the decision of purely military questions. One way 
or the other it came about that, after all his intrenching, he now left a single 
corps without intrenchments to fight the bulk of the Rebel army on the north 
side of the Chickahominy before he began his retreat. He did, indeed, ask the 
Generals on the south side if they could spare any troops for Porter's relief; 
but, as is usual, (and following the example which McClellan himself, on a larger 
scale, had set them), each General magnified his own dangers and held on to 
his troops. For there was opposed to these Generals, on the south side of the 
Chickahominy, the same skillful braggart, who had succeeded with eleven 
thousand men in stopping the whole National army before his lines at York- 
town. Adopting the same tactics, marching his few regiments to and fro, keep- 
ing up a tremendous cannonade and dreadful pother, he convinced not only the 
Cor^DS Generals but even McClellan himself, that a mighty force was about to be 
hurled against their intrenched lines. With twenty-five thousand men he thus 
actually held seventy -five thousand National soldiers inside their works ; while 
across the river their brethren, only twenty-seven thousand strong, were fight- 
ing the decisive battle that had been so long expected, without intrenchments, 

* The Rebel commander subsequently said : " I considered the situation of our army as 
extremely critical and perilous. The larger part of it was on the opposite side of the Chicka- 
huiuiny, the bridges had been all destroyed, but one was rebuilt, and there were but twenty-five 
thousand men between McClellan's army of one hundred thousand and Richmond. Had McClel- 
lan massed his whole force in column, and advanced it against any point of our line of battle, as 
M'as done at Austerlitz, under similar circumstances, though the head of his column would have 
suffered greatly, its momentum would have insured him success and the occupation of our works 
about Richmond. His failure to do so is the best evidence that our wise commander fully under- 
stood the character of his opponent." — Magruder. Official Reports Army Northern Virginia. 
Eebel Government edition, vol. I, pp. 191, 192. 



I 



GrEOEGE B. McClELLAN. 301 

and against nearly treble their numbers. It is difficult to conceive of any theory 
of military science on which such generalship could be justified. 

The battle of Gaines's Mill, thus fought, was necessarily a defeat. Porter 
did his best, and sacrificed near ten thousand men ; but when night fell, his 
routed columns, having left their dead and wounded with much of their artil- 
lery on the field, were huddling about the bridge that led to the main army on 
the south side, and were only saved from total destruction, by the arrival of a 
coujDle of brigades from Sumner's corps, and by the friendly darkness, under 
whose cover they crossed the bridge and destroyed it behind them. 

It remained to seek the James Eiver. General Lee was still uncertain what 
course McClellan would pursue, and lost the next day moving on the late base 
of supplies. While he looked upon the smouldering piles of flour and meat, 
that told him of the abandonment, the trains and material of the army, were 
already swiftly moving among the silent woods, far on their way to the James. 

At this moment, with Porter's loss of ten thousand men, by a needless 
battle still staring him in the face, General McClellan brought himself to say to 
the Secretary of' War : "I have lost this battle because my force was too small. 
Had I ten thousand fresh troops to use to-morrow, I could take Eichmond. I 
know that a few thousand more men would have changed this battle from a 
defeat to a victory. If, at this instant, I could dispose of ten thousand fresh 
men, I could gain the victory to-morrow. If I save this army now, I tell you 
plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other jDersons in Washington. 
You have done your best to saci-ifice this army."* 

Of the tone of such language to his superior we say nothing. But what 
could present a stranger picture of a mind chaotic, revengeful, and without dis- 
tinct ideas? He believes th6 enemy to be one hundred and eighty thousand 
strong; yet, with ten thousand fresh men (?". e., if he stood now precisely where 
he stood twenty-four hours ago), he could take Eichmond ! With ten thousand 
fresh troops he could to-morrow win the victory — speaking as if fresh battles 
were still in his mind, when, in fact, his retreat was in jorogress ! 

Beginning his movement in such temper, it is not strange that we find him 
still, with persistent ill-luck, contriving, through the rest of the movement, to 
be in the last places a Commanding General would be expected to occup}- until 
one of his corps commanders was warranted in testifying before the Committee 
on the Conduct of the War : " We fought the troops according to our own ideas. 
We helped each other. If anybody asked for re-onforcements, I sent them. If 
I wanted re-enforcements I sent to others. * * * * * He (McClellan) was 
the most extraordinary man I ever saw. I do not see how any man could leave 
so much to others, and be so confident that everything would go just right."! 

* McClellan's Report, Government edition, p. 132. 

t General Heintzleman's Testimony, Eep. Com. Con. War, series of 1863, vol. I, pp. 358, 359. 
It should be added, in justice to General McClellan, that he had found grave fault with one por- 
tion of General Heintzleman's conduct during the retreat — a fact which may unconsciously have 
given a tinge to the above evidence. 



302 Ohio in the War 

Yet things did, after a fashion, " go right." The vast baggage-train coiled 
its wa}^ through the woods till it emerged upon the James in safety. Lee was 
delayed a day by his doubt as to where McClellan had gone, and by the skillful 
manner in which the old front on the south of the Chickahominy was kept up 
till the last moment. On the 29th he fell, with Magruder's corps, on Sumner, 
who guarded the rear at Savage's Station, but was held at bay till dark. By 
daylight the advanee of the army with the artillery was emerging uj)on the 
James, and Sumner was safe through the "White Oak Swamp. Of McClellan 
himself we catch but a passing glimpse. He gave careful and well-considered 
orders to Sumner, Heintzleman, and Franklin, for guarding the passage through 
the White Oak Swamp, and the road leading down from the Eichmond side 
upon the route of the army beyond the swamp, and then rode off to the front 
of the column to see to the trains and select other positions for defense. 

The intersection of these roads was the' key to the whole retreat. If the 
enemy secured it, he had planted himself upon the rear of one-half the retreat- 
ing army and isolated it from the rest. If he failed to secure it, the change of 
base was accomplished. McClellan's fortunate dispositions, and the splendid 
tenacitj^ of the troops held the ground, and made the battle 'of New Market 
Cross Eoads a success. Stonewall Jackson, pursuing through the swamp, was 
stopped at the bridge by General Franklin and held powerless. Longstreet 
swept down from the open country toward Eichmond, but, within a mile of the 
point where his junction with Jackson was to be effected, Sumner and Heintzle- 
man held Mm. The attack was furiously delivered, but every assault was 
repulsed till night again closed the scene. There were no orders to retreat; the 
rest of Lee's army was rapidly advancing ; by morning the whole of it would 
be upon them. McClellan was off at James Eiver ; before there could be time 
to communicate with him the opportunity would be lost. Thus reasoning, 
General Franklin abandoned his hold on the swamj? bridge, on Stonewall Jack- 
son's front, and, under cover of the darkness, rapidly retreated without orders. 
Discovering this, Sumner and Heintzleman hastily abandoned their liositions 
and likewise retreated. 

They thus saved the army. At daybreak Lee's whole army stood on the 
battle-field of the previous evening, but its opportunity of dividing or attacking 
in flank the retreating column was gone. Continuing the pursuit, however, 
General Lee, in a few hours, overtook his antagonist, only to find him securely 
posted on Malvern Hill. This point General McClellan had selected during the 
progress of the fight of the day before at New Market Cross Eoads; it com- 
manded the entire region along the James, and was admirably adapted to the 
most liberal use of artillery. Under any circumstances the National ai'my must 
have received attack here with advantage, but the superiority of the position 
was greatly enhanced by the confused, blundering, and isolated assaults made 
by Lee's successive corps as they arrived. The repulse was finally complete, 
and the pursuer recoiled with heavy loss from the last stand of the retreating 
army. The retreat was ended, and " this army saved." 

If, by an infirmity of purpose and a timidity of execution amounting to 



GrEOKGE B. McClellan. 3U3 

crimes, General McClelliin had frittered away his opportunities, from the time he 
had landed his invading army on the Peninsula up to the time when he was 
thus driven from his fortifications on the Chickahominy, it was now equally 
true that he had skillfully extricated this army from the thick-gathering dan- 
gers that did so beset it, and had foiled a victorious enemy, who already 
regarded his destruction as assured. He owed much of this to the nature 
of the country, which protected his flanks, concealed his movements, and 
delayed the pursuit; much he owed to the splendid tenacit}^ with which his 
corps commanders guarded his rear; and for the actual control of the fighting 
he can claim less credit than ever attached before to General commanding such 
an army in such a plight. But, if his absence in the rear, selecting lines of 
retreat and points for defense, was without precedent, it may be said that the 
work which he thus chose to do was admirably well-done; and if his Generals 
were forced to fight through the day on the orders of the morning alone, and 
thenceforward by hap-hazard and without unity of action, it so fell out that this 
plan of conducting battles under such circumstances proved successful; and in 
"War, Success is the absolute test. 

The movement by the Peninsula against Eichmond was palpably ended. 
General McClellan indeed clung to the idea that he might still be re-enforced 
and permitted to renew his attempt; and he had conceived the bold and saga- 
cious plan of crossing to the south side of the James and moving against 
Richmond by the way of Petersburg.* But there were no re-enforcements for 
him; his campaign was regarded as an utter failure; he had lost the confidence 
of thfe Government t and measurably of the country; there was a general shock 
at the sight of an invading army, of which such hopes had been entertained, 
fleeing for seven days before an enemy not even then believed to be his equal in 
numbers. Furthermore, General Lee, having as it seemed, efi'ectually disposed 
of the immediate danger to Eichmond, had already detached Jackson, with 
large re-enforcements, to renew his operations in the Valley; and the alarm 
which that brilliant officer speedily succeeded in renewing, added to the pre- 
vious considerations, decided .the Government to recall McClellan's army in 
all haste to be united with the forces in front of Washington. There was some- 
thing piteous in the tone of McClellan's remonstrances and petitions to remain; 
but, in the existing temper of the Government, thej^ only served to confirm the 
impression that he would be insubordinate, if he dared. 

Then followed a painful delay. The first order for the withdrawal was 
Bent on 30th July. It was not till 15th August that General McClellan was 
able to telegraph that his advance was started; and not until 24th August 
that, preceding the bulk of his command, he was able personally to report 

■•■• Precisely the plan to which General Grant found himself ultimately forced. 

t There is sufficient evidence for the assertion that, at this time, the Government suffered 
under the greatest apprehensions that McClellan might yet surrender his entire army! This may 
also help to explain the subsequent reluctance to explain plans to him, or even, when he was 
ordered to send back his sick, to disclose to him the real intention of withdrawing the army, 
which prompted that order. 



304 Ohio in the Wae. 

for orders at Aquia Creek. The interval had been occupied with blunders and 
delays about transportation, and with a telegraphic correspondence with Gen- 
eral Halleck (now made Greneral-in-Chief ) which, on the part of the latter, 
grew daily more and more curt and peremptory as the delays continued. It is 
doubtless true that the Quartermasters insisted upon their inability to move 
the army back faster than they did; but it is* equally true that, if McClellan's 
heart had been in the matter, he could have controlled Quartermasters and 
their transportation, and if he did not fully satisfy the unreasonable expecta- 
tions that were entertained, could at least have lessened the delay. 

As it was, so thoroughly was the patience of the Government exhausted that, 
on his arrival at Alexandria his troops were ta;ken from him, and his own jDeti- 
tions for active service, or at least for permission to be present with his men, 
could gain no audience. 

But affairs now reached a very critical posture. Lee had thrown his whole 
force to the support of Jackson ; Pope's army, confronting it, had come back in 
a jumble; the divisions of the Army of the Potomac began to re-enforce him 
only as he neared the fatal ground of Manassas. McClellan was accused — with 
questionable cause — of delaying these re-enforcements, through a malicious desire 
to "leave Pope to get out of his scrape," as he was unfortunate enough to ex- 
press himself in a dispatch to the President; and this only tended to increase the 
acerbity of his relations to the War Department and the General-in-Chief 

Presently, however. Pope's army came streaming back, broken up and 
demoralized by much fighting and some bad handling. The enemy was at the 
gates. In this crisis, whatever it thought of him as a General, the Administra- 
tion was glad to use McClellan as an organizer. Furthermore, it was believed 
that there was no other name that still had such magic for the rank and file 
of the Army of the Potomac. And so it proved. Taking up the demoralized 
fragments of two armies, as the}^ poured back from the second Bull Eun, Gen- 
eral McClellan inoved them across the Potomac and out on the Seventh Street 
and Tenallytown Eoads, a compact, orderly organization, ready for fresh con- 
flicts, and actually in better fighting trim than they had been for months. 

Still he moved slowly, less than six miles- a day ; primarily, doubtless, 
because of his inherently cautious and circumspect nature, but likewise, it must 
be remembered, under perpetual injunctions to caution from the General-in- 
Chief. Lee tiad crossed the Ui^per Potomac into Maryland. Covering Wash- 
ington and Baltimore, McClellan felt his way forward to meet him ; till on the 
13th of September, at Frederick City, by great good fortune, there fell into his 
nands an order issued by Lee on the 9th, fully detailing the movements then in 
execution. Thus informed of his adversary's designs, McClellan threw forward 
his army toward the passes of the South Mountain, threatening the isolated 
corps with which Lee was trying to reduce Harper's Ferry. A brilliant action 
here, handsomely managed by McClellan, carried the pass, but too late to succor 
the small force at the Ferry. Lee, with a master-hand, now began to gather 
together his scattered forces, and, flushed Avith the victory at Harper's Ferry, 
they opposed their fi'ont to the pursuing army along the bank of Antietam Creek. 



J 



George B. McOlellan. 305 

McCIellan came in sight of their ostentatiously displayed lines on the after- 
loon of the day following the action at South Mountain, and spent the remain- 
ng hours of daylight in reconnoissances. The next day was similarl}- occupied; 
I delay precious to Lee, for before its close his scattered divisions all arrived, 
^save the two at Harper's Ferry), and stood compact again to face their old antag- 
mist. Late in the afternoon Hooker was thrown across the creek to turn Lee's 
eft, but no decisive result followed, save the consequent premature revelation 
)f McCleilan's plan, for which Lee through the night quietly prepared. 

Next morning Hooker opened the battle, advancing against Lee's left. At 
irst successful, he was subsequently repulsed, as the inaction along the rest of 
.he line showed Lee that he could transfer fresh troops to the left with impunity. 
Sooker was wounded and carried off the field ; and as brave old Sumner came 
ip with his corps he " found that Hooker's corps had been dispersed and routed, 
md saw nothing of the corps at all."* Pushing forward he too became hotly 
engaged and soon had occasion to regret that "General McClellan should send 
■hese troops into action in driblets," and to find that "at the points of attack the 
;nemy was superior."f ^Yith. varying fortunes, however, he at last succeeded, 
vith heavy losses, in pushing back the Rebel left till he had almost reached 
iheir center. Re-enforcing again from the rest of the idle line, Lee was about 
;o throw fresh battalions upon Sumner's exhausted front when another "driblet" 
irrived, in the form of Franklin's corps. Sumner might then have advanced 
igain, but four out of the six corps of the army "wei'e now drawn into this 
leething vortex of the fight" on the enemy's left; and he, not unwisely, judged 
t inexpedient, three of them being already much shattered, to expose the whole 
ight of the army to destruction, by crippling the fourth, while still uncertain as 
;o the plans or possibilities on other parts of the field. He accordingly con- 
;ented himself with holding his ground. 

It was now one o'clock, and as yet nothing had been done elsewhere. 
McClellan indeed was not ignorant that, through this inaction, Lee was being 
mabled to mass his forces to resist the attack on his left; and as early as eight 
D'clock in the morning he had ordered Burnside to take the bridge over the 
A.ntietam Creek, on the enemy's extreme right, and advance against him. But 
Burnside, though directly under McCleilan's eye, was permitted to consume the 
time in frivolous skirmishing, till it was now one o'clock, and the whole action 
3n the enemy's left was over, before he carried the bridge. Two hours more 
ielay here ensued, when, advancing up the hill, he swept the enemy's right 
from its crest. At nine o'clock in the morning, when Sumner was charging the 
enemy's left, this success would have gained the daj^, but now at three, Sumner, 
with four corps under him, lay exhausted, and the two Rebel divisions from Har- 
per's Ferry were just arriving upon the field. This last re-enforcement settled 
the question. Burnside was driven back to the bridge by night-fall, and the 
action was over. McClellan had lost twelve thousand five hundred men. Lee's 
loss reached eight thousand. 

* General Sumner's evidence, Rep. Com. Con. War, series of 1863, Vol. I, p. 368. 
tibid. 
Vol. 1.-2*0. 



306 Ohio in the War. 

The next day General McClellan did not. feel able to renew the attack, but 
he proposed to do so, if his re-enforcements (to the number of fourteen thousand, 
then marching from Washington), should arrive on the day following. But by 
that time Lee, having kept up a bold front during the day on Antietam Creek, 
was safely across the Potomac and back into Yirginia again, with all his trains 
and material. 

This was the first and only battle of importance in which, during his whole 
career. General McClellan commanded in person. Viewing it in the light of 
facts now known it is easy to see its mistakes. It was on the 13th that, by the 
singular good fortune of capturing Lee's field order to his Corps Generals, 
General McClellan was put in possession of all his adversary's positions and 
plans. It was quite possible for him, acting with the dash which such knowl- 
edge warranted, and which Stonewall Jackson again and again exhibited, to 
have carried the South Mountain pass that evening, when it could have been 
done almost without resistance, and to have thrown himself upon the rear of 
McLaws's Eebel division then beleaguering Harper's Ferry. This would have 
enabled him to beat Lee's scattered troops in detail. But, passing this by, when 
the armies fairly met at Antietam he had double the numbers that his weak- 
ened antagonist was able to muster. We now know, from Eebel official reports, f 
that Lee's whole force barely reached forty thousand ; that of McClellan was 
ove;' eighty thousand. Yet, holding his force feebly, he delivered isolated 
attacks, from hour to hour, on different parts of the field, enabling the wary 
enemy so to muster his thin battalions, as at each point of attack to oppose to 
the onset a stronger force. The tactical management of the battle thus admits 
of no defense. ^ 

Of the failure to renew the attack on the next d&j more may be said. 
General Mcdlellan did not know how completely the enemy was exhausted by 
lack of supplies, straggling, and actual loss in battle. He only knew that in 
front of him still stood that indomitable line against which, the day before, he 
had vainly sacrificed twelve thousand men ; that his Corps Generals felt their 
commands unfit for immediate renewal of the attack; that a few hours would 
bring him fourteen thousand fresh men ; that he held in his hands the safety 
of the capital, and, under continual monitions of caution from the General-in- 
Chief, alone stood between the enemy and the defenseless North. He might 
indeed have reflected that this enemy must be exhausted ; that he lay in a dan- 
gerous position, with his back to a large river, and at an immense distance from 
his base of supplies. But, remembering what he did, and the difficulties that 
beset him, we may well conclude that if his conduct was not that of a great 
General, it was still in that safe line by which a prudent General seeks to guard 
the interests committed to his keeping. 

General McClellan, however, had largely contributed to such a state of feel- 
ing between himself and the Adminstration that he could expect no lenient 
judgment on mistakes or delays. He had claimed Antietam as a great victory. 
The Government, therefore, demanded that he should promptly follow it up, 



GrEORGE B. McClellan. 307 

Instead, it saw the beaten enemy quietly extricate himself from his perilous 
position, and, in the face of the victorious army, march unmolested away. 
Then it demanded prompt pursuit. Instead, General McClellan telegraphed for 
shoes and blankets. The Government thought the crisis demanded some sacri- 
fice, even to the extent of calling upon the troops for such hard service as the 
enemy was performing. If the shoeless Rebels could beat a great army and 
invade Marj^land, it was even willing that our troops should, shoeless, drive 
them back. Not so General McClellan. His methodical genius would permit 
QO such irregularities ; and strong in the recollection that, after trying to dis- 
place him, the Government had been forced to recall him, and, doubtless, de- 
termined as well to teach the Government something of his importance and 
power, he suffered the splendid fall weather to go by, while, for over a whole 
month, he lay on the Potomac, reorganizing and reclothing his army. 

At last he moved, but he had already presumed too far ; and, on the 5th of 
November, 1862, when his advance-guard was about reaching the new positions 
which General Lee had assumed, the outraged Government relieved him of his 
command, and thus put an end to his military career in its service. He contin- 
ued to hold his commission for two years longer, until after his defeat for the 
Presidency, but he was never put on duty, and, for the most part, he lived m 
retiracy with his family in New Jersey. 

Thus passes from the field a General in whose favor Fortune seemed at first 
to have exhausted her resources. He was still popular with his army, for whose 
comfort he sedulously exerted himself, and for whose good-will he skillfully 
strove. That he had disappointed public expectation was not wonderful, for, 
greatly through the folly of his own friends, public expectation had been raised 
to dizzy heights, which genius of the first order could scarcely have reached. 
In that he had disappointed the Government he was more blameworthy. If he 
had been willing to place himself at the outset on the footing of a trained the- 
orist, confessedly ignorant of the practice of war, many of his mistakes might 
have been forgiven. But it was precisely here that the complaint rested. Ig- 
noring all the national considerations which constrained action ; narrowing his 
vision till he saw for his whole duty the task of building up on the banks of 
the Potomac a colossal army, which should equal, in all the perfection of dis- 
cipline and equipment, the finest of those he had seen in Europe, he then arro- 
gated to himself the privileges of an acknowledged Expert in a recondite Sci- 
ence ; claimed the exclusive power of planning and deciding, while the sorely- 
beset Government must, in blind faith, await his own good time for defeating 
the enemy; and encouraged the talk of the brainless upstarts around him, who 
declaimed against the impertinent interference of mere civilians — the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, to-wit, and his constitutional advisers. When, after all this, 
it was found that his Generalship exhausted itself in preparations, that in the 
field he handled his great forces irresolutely, and, perpetually debating between 
brilliant alternatives, perpetually suffered each to escape him, the disappoint- 
ment was as great as the promises had been high. It was, perhaps, more his 



308 Ohio in the Wae. 



Tnisfortune than his fault that thenceforward (to repeat what we have already 
said at the outset of this sketch) he was forever judged, and severely judged, 
by the false standard which his friends had set up. 

Worse than all, when it happened that his military career was about to 
become one of the vexed points in a Presidential canvass, he ]»rought himself 
to disingenuous subterfuges and adroit after-thoughts, by which he sought to • 
shift the blame of his errors upon other shoulders.^-f^ 

Still these circumstances, which so powerfully affected the immediate judg- 
ment of his countrj^men, will not entirely control the place in history to which 
a calm review of his career must assign him. He never made good his claim 
to the character of "a great General. His conduct showed no flashes of genius, 
and never exhibited that inspiration of battle which, in the moment of action, 
lights up the minds of truly warlike men. He was singularly deficient in that 
species of executive capacity which controls the tactics of an army in the face , 
of an enemy, and he never gave evidence of his ability to handle skillfully even^j 
fifty thousand men in battle. But he thoroughly understood the theory of 
war, and especially the organization of armies. " Too military to be warlike,' 
there was much in his conduct to suggest a comparison to that Grand Duke 
Constantine, of Eussia, who had so perfected the drill and equij)ment of the] 
army that, in his love for its splendid appearance, he protested against war, 
because it would ruin his soldiers. In the field his professional and tech- 
nical knowledge overburdened him till he was incapable of skillfully using 
it; in the solitude of his head-quarters, and freed from his absorbing attention 
to personal considerations, it made him an excellent strategist. It was his 
misfortune that he overrated his own capacity, and set himself tasks to which 
he was unequal. But he was always able to oppose a front of opposition to the 
enemy, and to maintain the morale of his army. Twice he was fortunate enough 
to have a field for the display of his peculiar abilities; and on those occasions, 
once in the restoration of confidence after Bull Run and the organization of the 
army, and again in the reorganization of the demoralized fragments that drifted 
back in disorder from the second Bull Run, he so served the imperiled Country 
that his name must forever find a place in the list of those who have helped to 
save the Republic. 

From the date of General McClellan's first taking the field in "West Vir- 
ginia, he had been accompanied by a staff ofScer from Cincinnati, who was a 
sagacious politician, and quick to perceive those currents of popular favor along 
which politicians may guide their barks to oflScial harbors. The whirlwind of 
popular applause had no sooner set in around the " Young Napoleon " from West 
"Virginia than this astute ofiicerf recognized his opportunity. Thenceforward it 
was sedulously cared for that in whatever McClellan said or did, his sayings 
and actions should be so shaped as not to unfit him for the candidacy of the 

♦Throughout the labored self-vmdication, misnamed "Eeport." 

tWho has the credit of the revision of the most and the authorship of the most important of 
McClellan's proclamations and other papers having political bearings. 



Geokge B. McClellan. 309 

party with which he affiliated — the party opposed to the Administration whoso 
officer he was — in the next Presidential election. The policy was shrewdly 
planned and carried out. Had military success re-enforced it, its author might 
have seen it successful. 

But when the Democratic party assembled in convention at Chicago, they 
were compelled by the pressure of their peace wing to resolve that the War for 
the Union was a failure. Upon this platform, and that of his own military 
failure, they placed General McClellan. The combination defeated him in ad- 
vance. He still polled a respectable vote in each of the States, but he only 
carried three of them, Kentucky, New Jersey, and Delaware. 

The heat of the canvass, and his anomalous position as a Soldier on a Peace 
Platform, opposing the cause which the Country regarded as peculiarly the 
cause of his fellow-soldiers, led to his being assailed with unusual and often with 
unjust bitterness. Now that political passions have cooled, there are few who 
will not regret that the loyalty, and even the personal courage of General 
JMcClellan were once slanderously called in question. 

Resigning his commission as a Major-General in the regular army, after 
his popular defeat. General McClellan sailed for Europe, where he remained in 
retirement with his family till long after the close of the war. 

In person General McClellan is below the middle height, compact and 
muscular, with unusually large chest, and well-shaped head. His features are 
regular, and, in conversation, light up with a pleasing smile. His manners are 
singularl}" charming and gi-aceful; and the magnetism of his personal presence 
and his gracious ways is always sure to fill his private life with friends, as it 
bound to him the officers and soldiers of the army of the Potomac, with an 
affectionate regard which no subsequent commander was able to inspire. 



AVlLLTAM S. ROSECEANS. 31. 



MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS. 



TH E greatest of modern strategists never rose bej-ond the rank of a Briga- 
dier-General. Napoleon was once on the point of making him a Marshal 
of France ; he repeatedly rendered such services as, in the case of his 
compeers, were wont to command high praise and the largest promotion ; but, 
do what he would. General Jomini could never " get on." His hot temper and 
his open contempt for the blunders, or the foibles of his superiors, for ever 
barred his promotion and embittered his daily life, till at last, insulted in Gene- 
ral Orders, he revenged himself by going over to the enemy. 

When Ohio was called on for her men best fitted for the instant emergencies 
of a sudden war, two were at once presented. At a stroke of the pen, one was 
made a Major-General, the other a Brigadier in the Regular Army ; though the 
one, when he had retired to civil life, had been a simple Captain, and the other 
but a First Lieutenant. Yet the Armj vindicated the wisdom of both promo- 
tions. Both came to fill large space in the attention of the Nation, and the 
records of the war ; both wielded great armies and fought great battles ; but both 
passed from a brief season of the highest favor with the Government, and with 
those who controlled the business of the war, by steady progression, from cool- 
ness to open hostility, and both were stranded long before the peaceful port was 
reached. 

If we have found the one so far blinded by his resentments and his ambi- 
tion as to suffer himself to be affiliated (at least) with friends of the enemy, it 
will now be our pleasanter task to trace the career of that other, hot-tempered 
and indisci-eet as Jomini himself, who yet permitted no recollection of private 
wrongs to warp his discharge of public duty; who through many discourage- 
ments and buffets of fortune bore bravely up and made a good fight ; who was, 
throughout the war, as unwise for himself as he was wise in controlling the 
interests of the Country, committed to his care ; and of whom at last it must 
be said that for his Country's sake he made greater sacrifices than his haughty 
temper could brook to make for his own, and, faithful ever to his Comrades and 
the Cause, was ever his own worst enemy. 

William Starke Kosecrans-^ was born in Kingston Township, Delaware 
County, Ohio, 6th September, 1819. His parents were Crandall Eosecrans, 
whose ancestors came from Amsterdam, and Jemima Hopkins, of the family of 

* The name is Dutch, and signifies " a wreath of rose.s." 



312 Ohio in the War. 

that Timothy Hopkins, whose name has passed into history as one of the signers 
of the Dechiration of Independence. His father was a native of Wyoming Val- 
ley, Pennsylvania, who had emigrated to Ohio in 1808. His mother was reared 
in the same beautiful valley, and was a daughter of a soldier of the Eevolution. 

Young Eosecrans was a close student, and at fifteen was master of all that 
the schools of his native place could teach. He already evinced the strong 
religious tendency which has continued to characterize him through life, and 
was noted, among all the boys of his neighborhood, for his disposition to study 
the Bible, and to engage preachers and others on religious topics. Not less 
characteristic is another glimpse that we get of his boy life. His proficiency in 
such mathematical and scientific studies as he had been able to pursue, led him 
to look longingly upon the treasures of a "West Point education. Consulting no 
one, not even his father, he wrote directly to Hon. Joel E. Poinsett, Secretary of 
War under President Van Buren, asking for an appointment as Cadet. It was 
not strange that such an application failed to receive an instant response ; but 
young Eosecrans thought it was, and presently applied to his father for some 
plan to re-enforce his request. A petition for the cadetship was prepared 
and largely signed, and, as he was depositing the bulky document in the post- 
office, he received the letter informing him of his appointment. 

At West Point Cadet Eosecrans was known as a hard student, something 
of a recluse and a religious enthusiast. His class — that of 1842 — numbered 
fifty-six, and among them the reader of the histories of those times will not fail 
to recognise such names as James Longstreet, Earl Van Dorn, John Pope, Abner 
Doubleday, Lafayette McLaws, E. H. Anderson, Mansfield Lovell, G. W. Smith, 
John Newton, and George Eains. Among these men Cadet Eosecrans stood 
third in mathematics and fifth in general merit, while Pope was seventeenth, 
Doubleday twenty-fourth, and Longstreet fifty-fourth. 

Entering the elite of the Eegular Army, the Engineer Corps, as a Brevet 
Second Lieutenant, young Eosecrans was now, at the age of twenty -two, ordered 
to duty at Fortress Monroe, under Colonel De Russey. A year later he was 
returned to West Point as Assistant Professor of Engineering, and about this 
time was married to Miss Hegeman, only daughter of Adrian Hegeman, then a 
well-known lawyer of New York. 

From 1843 to 1847 Lieutenant Eosecrans was kept at West Point ; first, as 
we have seen, as Assistant Professor of Engineering, then as Assistant Professor 
of Natural and Experimental Philosoj^hy; then, again, in charge of the depart- 
ment of Practical Engineering, and finally as Post Quartermaster. In 1847 he 
was ordered to Newport, Ehode. Island, where he took charge of the fortifica- 
tions, and the reconstruction at Fort Adams of a large permanent whai'f. He 
was thus continued on engineering duty till, in 1852, we find him in charge of 
the survey of New Bedford and Providence harbors and Taunton river, under 
the Act of Congress requiring their improvement. In April, 1853, the Secretary 
of the Navy having asked for the services of a competent Engineer from the 
War Department, Lieutenant Rosecrans, now promoted to a First Lieutenancy, 
was ordered to report to him for duty, and was assigned to service, under the 



I 

William S. Roseceans. 313 

Bureau of Docks and Yards, as Constructing Engineer at the Washington Navy 
Yard. He continued on service here until November, 1853, when his health 
bi'oke down. 

Lieutenant Eosecrans was now thirty-four years of age; he was an ackowl- 
edged master in the profession of Engineering, and had given, in its practice, 
eleven of the best years of his life to the Government without yet having 
reached the dignity of a Captain's commission, or the meager emoluments of a 
Captain's salary. In the army, Avhere, "few dying and none resigning," jjro- 
motion in peaceful times seemed hopelessly remote, he could see nothing more 
brilliant in the future, and was alread}^ growing discouraged, when his illness 
now gave additional force to these considerations and determined him to tender 
his resignation. The Secretary of War, (Jefferson Davis), expressed his unwill- 
ingness to lose so valuable an officer from the service, and proposed, instead, to 
give him a year's leave of absence, Avith the understanding that if he should 
then insist upon it, he would be permitted to resign. In April, 1854, his resig- 
nation was accordingly accepted. General Totten, the Chief of Engineers, for- 
warding the acceptance accompanied with a complimentary letter, referring to 
the "services rendered the Government by Lieutenant Eosecrans," and his 
"regret that the country was about to lose so able and valuable an officer." 

The next seven years were to Lieutenant Eosecrans years of more varied 
than profitable activity. At first we find him in a modest office in Cincinnati, 
on the door of which appeared the inscription, "William S. Eosecrans, Consult- 
ing Engineer and Architect." Next, a little more than a year later, he figures as 
Superintendent, and then as President of the Cannel Coal Company, striving, by 
locks and dams, on the little Coal Eiver in West Yirginia, to secure slack -water 
navigation there, and thus make available the vast wealth that lay emboweled in 
the banks of that stream. From this position he passed to a somewhat similar 
one, that seemed to oflfer larger returns, in charge of the interests of the Cincinnati 
Coal Oil Company. 

In all these positions he displayed such ability as to command the confi- 
dence of capitalists ; yet, after all, his ventures ended in pecuniary failures. 
His restless mind was constantly bent on making improvements and substituting 
better methods; his ingenuity left everywhere its traces in new inventions, and. 
others have since largely profited by his researches and experiments; but it is 
possible that the stockholders in his Companies might have received better divi- 
dends if he had been content to plod steadily in the old paths. It is only the 
usual fate of inventors to hew out the new roads by which others and not them- 
selves may advance to fortune. 

And so, in the Spring of 1861, we find the future General, now in his forty- 
second year, not very much better situated than when, seven years before, he 
had resigned his First Lieutenancy; but matured, broadened, in the prime of 
vigorous manhood, become a man of affairs, and possessing, both by virtue 
of his professional abilities and of his religious affiliations, marked influence in 
the great city which he had made his home. For it is now the time to observe 



314 Ohio in the Wae. 

that Eosecrans was a devout Eoman Catholic, implicitly believing in the infal- 
libility of his Church, and reverently striving to conform his life to her pre- 
cepts. His brother was Bishop of the Diocese, and his own relations to the 
Church were such that his example was likely to have large weight with the 
great mass of voters in the city of Cincinnati, whom that Church held within 
her folds, and who might be said, by virtue of the balance of power which they 
often possessed, to control the attitude of the city toward the Grovernment and 
toward the war. In the first frenzy of the rush to arms after the attack on 
Fort Sumter, these considerations seem to have had no weight ; but we shall 
have occasion to see how signally, in more than one critical period, the}* enabled 
the Eoman Catholic General more effectively to serve the country to whose 
service he had again devoted himself. 

From the moment that the war had declared itself, Eosecrans gave thought 
and time to no other subject. The city, it was supposed, might be in some 
danger from a sudden rush over the border, and citizens hastened to enroll 
themselves as Home Guards, Eosecrans's military education at once came into 
play, and he gave himself up to the task of organizing and drilling these Home 
Guards, till, on the 19th of April, General McCiellan, just appointed Major- 
General of Ohio Militia, requested him to act as Engineer on his Staff, and to 
select a site for a camp of instruction for the volunteers now pouring in. He 
selected the little stretch of level land, walled in by surrounding hills, a few 
miles out of Cincinnati, which has since been known as Camp Dennison ;* and, 
for the next three weeks, he was here occupied by General McCiellan in encamp- 
ing and caring for the inchoate regiments as they arrived. 

Governor Dennison next claimed his services, sending him first to, Phila- 
delphia to look after arms, next to Washington to make such representations to 
the Government as would secure proper clothing and equipment for Ohio troops, 
and particularly for the extra regiments, mustered into the State service, but 
not coming into the quota of Ohio under the first call for troops. On these 
missions he was fully successful, and, by June 9th, he returned to Cincinnati to 
find himself commissioned Chief Engineer for the State, under a special law. 
A day or two later he was made Colonel of the Twenty-Third Ohio, and assigned 
to the comm.and of Camp Chase, at Columbus. Four days afterward the com- 
mission as Brigadier-General in the United States army, which had been issued 
to him on 16th of May,t (on the recommendation of General Scott, backed by 
such names as those of Secretary Chase and his old chief. General Totten, of the 
Engineers), reached him, and, almost immediately afterward. General McCiellan 
summoned him to active service in West Virginia. 

Of the mode in which the General entered upon his new duties we catch 

* This selection was made with reference to the fears, then prevalent, of a sudden descent 
upon Cincinnati. It was thought especially desirable, in view of the doubtful position of Ken- 
tucky, to keep whatever available troops the State might have within call. The name was 
chosen by General McCiellan, in compliment to Governor Dennison, by whom he had just been 
appointed. 

T Two davs after McClellan's appointment to a Major-Generalship of Kegulars. 



William S. Roseckans. 315 

many pleasant little pictures like this one, from the pen of an eye-witness at 
Parkersburg: "Our General is an incessant worker. He is in his saddle almost 
.constantly. He has not had a full night's sleep since he has been in Virginia, 
and he takes his meals as often on horseback as at his table. His geniality and 
affability endear him to all who come in contact with him ; and his soldiers 
recognize in him a competent commander." 

These soldiers were those of the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Ohio, and 
Eighth and Tenth Indiana — the first troops whom General Rosecrans ever com- 
manded in the field. Within two weeks after he assumed command, they had 
fought a battle under him and won the victory that decided the first cami^aign 
of the war. • 

Moving as the advance of McClellan's column, Eoseci*ans's brigade had 
been brought to a halt before the intrenched position on the western slope of 
Rich Mountain, held by Colonel Pegram as defense for th^ flank and rear of 
the main Eebel force under General Garnett, then lying at Laiirel Hill. Within 
an hour or two the restless General had gained an idea of the enemy's j)osition — 
" his right covered by an almost impenetrable laurel thicket, his left resting high 
up on the spur of the mountain, and his front defended by a log breastwork and 
abatis" — and had heard of a loyal guide who could tell how to turn it. He 
reported the facts to an officer of McClellan's staff, but no notice was taken of 
the communication, and the next day an extended reconnoissance was ordered 
which only developed the strength of the position more fully. General 
McClellan, as it appears, had now decided upon an assault on the front of the 
enemy's works, and had, in fact, assigned to Rosecrans's brigade the advance in 
the movement, when that officer, having found his loyal guide, took him to 
McClellan. "Now, General," said he,* "if you will allow me to take my 
brigade, I will, by a night-march, surprise the enemy at the gap, gain posses- 
sion of it, and thus hold his only line of retreat. You can then take him on 
the front. If he give way we shall have him ; if he fight obstinately, I will 
leave a portion of my force at the gap, and, with the remainder, fall ujDon his 
rear." General McClellan, " after an hour's deliberation, assented ;" it being 
finally agreed that Rosecrans should enter the forest at daylight, and report 
progress by couriers as he advanced, and that the sound of his firing should l^e 
the signal for McClellan's attack in front. 

A drenching rain-storm poured down ujDon the raw troops as they entered 
the forest, and it was found necessary to deflect the line of march, far to the 
right, to avoid discovery by the enemy. Marching with the awkwardness of 
perfectly raw troops, and under peculiarly dispiriting circumstances, it was one 
o'clock before the column reached the crest ; and, about half-past two, when, 
after another toilsome march through the woods and a hasty reconnoissance, 
the brigade came out upon the enemy's line. The last courier had been sent at 
eleven, with the message that the growing difficulty of communication would 
pi'event another dispatch until something decisive had occurred. 

■■ The details of this interview are given in Eosecrans's testimony before the Committee on 
the Conduct of the War, Eeport, series 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 2. 



316 Ohio in the War. 

Forming his line as hastily as the rawness of the troops and the repeated 
misconceptions of orders by some of the equally raw' Colonels would permit — 
the enemy meanwhile keeping up a sharp musketry fire and a fusilade from two 
pieces of artillery — General Eosecrans, comprehending that, with troops wlio 
had never before been under fire, instant action was the only safe course, ordered 
a charge, and, at the head of the Thirteenth Indiana, led it in person. The one 
or two volleys previously fired had shaken the Eebel line, and, as the attacking 
brigade now leaped the log breastworks with a ringing cheer, the enemy broke 
and fled, abandoning the two pieces of artillery. The excited troops rushed 
pell-mell after them through the Avoods, and the next two hours were consumed 
in getting our men together again. 

Meantime there had been no attack in the front. General McClellan had 
stated to General Eosecrans that the enemy was from five to six thousand 
strong.* The littlq brigade, thus left isolated and unsupported, lay between 
this force and one of unknown size at the town of Beverly, on the other slope 
of the mountain. The situation appeared critical, and the main column, still 
lying on the enemy's front, seemed to have abandoned them ; but they biv- 
ouacked in good order, turned out half a dozen times through the night on false 
alarms caused by indiscriminate picket firing, and in the morning marched 
down on the camp to find that part of the enemy had escaped to the mountains 
and the rest had hoisted the white flag. Those who escaped, finding themselves 
hemmed in on the mountains, soon sent in their surrender. Garnett, at Laurel 
Hill, perceiving his line of retreat imperilled, hastily retreated, and the cam- 
paign was ended. 

General Eosecrans's conduct in this aifair merited the praise which it 
instantly and everywhere received. The plan, as has been seen, was entirely 
his own ; and though it was his first action, as well as the first for the troops he 
commanded, his conduct showed a thorough comprehension of the true method 
of handling raw volunteers, not less than that disposition to "go wherever he 
asked his soldiers to go," which always made him a favorite with the men in the 
ranks. But he already exhibited symptoms of the personal imprudence which 
was to form so signal a feature in his character, by casual hints as to his dis- 
satisfaction with the conduct of his superior officer — a dissatisfaction which he 
afterward expressed officially, by complaining that "General McClellan, con- 
trary to agreement and military prudence, did not attack" the enemy in front.f 
We shall soon see how this began to affect his subsequent career. 

The affair of Eich Mountain — it scarcely deserves the name of a battle, for 
our loss was but twelve killed and forty-nine wounded, and the enemy left but 
twenty wounded on the field — raised Eosecrans from the head of a brigade to 
the command of the department. The force at his disposal, with w^hich to retain 
and secure the fruits of the Eich Mountain victory, was but eleven thousand 

* Rosecrans's testimony Rep. Com. Con. War, series 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 5. 
t MS. sketch of military career, furnished in obedience to War Department Circular, and 
on file in Adjutant-General's office. 



William S. Rosecrans. 317 

men ; for it was one of that peculiar combination of circumstances which tended 
to deepen the horror of the first Bull Eun, that. the disaster befell us just as the 
time of service of most of our trooj^s was expiring. The very train which bore 
General McClellan out of the Department, on his way to Washington, took out 
of it also the first of a long succession of three-months' regiments, embracing 
almost the entire army that had won the campaign just ended. Thanks how- 
ever, to the forecast of Governor Dennison, of Ohio, a few more regiments of 
raw troops were hastily forwarded to General Eosecrans. 

They were not sent a day too soon, for now it became known that, lying on 
the defensive in front of Washington, the enemy had resolved to wrest the west- 
ern portion of the State, that had become the battle-field of the war, from the 
hands of the invader; and that there had been delegated to this task the officer 
of largest reputation within the Confederate army. Presently General Eobert 
E. Lee appeared in front of the works which Eosecrans had already erected at 
Cheat Mountain pass, and proposed an exchange of prisoners. 

At the outset the " Dutch General," as the Eebel newspapers were con- 
temptuously naming him, seized the advantage which he did not once fail to the 
end to retain. " I can not exchange prisoners as you propose. You ask me for 
the men captured here, hardy mountaineers, familiar with every pass and bridle- 
path, who would at once go to re-enforce your army operating against me. You 
propose to give me, in return, men captured at Bull Eun, who know nothing of 
service here, and whom I should have, at any rate, to send East to their old 
commands. I can not consent. But if j'ou can remedy this inequality, I shall 
be very glad to make an exchange. "-i^ 

But the presence of the Virginia officer, who had stood so high in the esti- 
mation of General Scott, and had been popularly regarded as the ablest officer 
in the old army, created general alarm. The Unionists of West Virginia were 
ju'ofoundly disturbed ; the Secessionists exulted in the thought that they should 
speedily gain the control ; and friendly warnings from Washington began to 
admonish General Eosecrans of the widely-prevailing fear that he was about to 
be outgeneraled. "Don't you think Lee likely to prove a troublesome antag- 
onist?" asked one about this time at the General's head-quarters. "Not at all," 
was Eosecrans's reply ; " I know all about Lee. He will make a splendid plan 
of a campaign ; but I '11 fight the campaign before he gets through with plan- 
ning it."f 

The General's confidence was not unsustained by rapidly-following events. 
General Lee brought to bear upon his front at Cheat Mountain a force of six- 
teen thousand men, to meet which General Eej'nolds, the officer in immediate 
command, had less than half as large a number. Meantime General Cox. to 

* Report Com. Con. War, series of 1865, Vol. Ill, Rosecrans's testimony, page 13. 

1 1 was myself present at this conversation. It is a curious confirmation of this estimate to 
find the Rebel annalist Pollard (vol. I, p. 177) recording the failure of Lee's plan of campaign, 
and then adding : " General Lee's plan, finished drawings of which were sent to the War Depart- 
ment at Richmond, was said to have been one of the best laid plans that ever illustrated the 
consummation of the rules of strategy, or ever went awry on account of practical failures in ite 
execution." 



318 Ohio in the War. 

whom had been confided the task of holding the Kanawha Valley, found him- 
self about to be overwhelmed by the co-operation of the columns of Wise and 
Floyd, the former holding his front, the latter advancing so as to menace hia 
communications, and having already overwhelmed and scattered to the four 
svinds a considerable outjDOst, under Colonel Tyler, at Cross Lanes. 

General Eosecrans promptly met the emergency. Calling in outposts and 
detachments everywhere, he did what he could to strengthen General Eeynolds; 
and then, trusting to that officer's sagacity not less than to his admirably forti- 
fied position, he left him to cope with Lee's threatened attack, collected such 
raw regiments as were within his reach, and, at the head of a column of seven 
and a half regiments, three of which had just received their arms, marched 
southward from the line of the North-Western Virginia road toward the 
Kanawha, to the relief of General Cox. By the 10th September he had reached 
Somerville, a few miles from the Gauley,* where he was duly informed by the 
frightened citizens and scouts that Floyd lay a few miles ahead of him, 
intrenched near Cross Lanes, with a force of from fifteen to twenty thousand 
men. "We can not stop to count numbers," was his remark to the staff; "we 
must fight and whip him, or pass him to join Cox." The column pressed 
onward. By two o'clock, after a march of sixteen miles that day, the advance 
brigade engaged the enemy's outposts. Now it so happened that, in the scarcity 
of experienced officers, this brigade had been intrusted to a newly-made Brig- 
adier, recommended not only by the warm indorsement of General McClellan,t 
but by that lion's skin, so often used in the early days of the war to cover the 
ass's shoulders, " service in Mexico." The Brigadier had the misfortune of 
always seeing causes for staying out of reach of the enemy when he was sober, 
and of being too drunk to understand his surroundings whenever he was likely 
to have to fight. The Eebel outpost having retreated, this obfuscated officer 
conceived the idea that he had won a great victory, and plunged ahead pell-mell 
with his brigade through the woods, contrary to his explicit orders, and without 
even a line of skirmishers deployed to the front, till suddenly they found them- 
selves before a formidable earth-work which barred further progress, and in a 
moment were exposed to a withering fire from seven or eight jsieces of artillery 
and the musketry of Floyd's whole command, at a distance of scarcely more 
than fifty 3'ards. 

The General commanding had now either to order up re-enforcements for 
this attack upon a fortified position, concerning every detail of which he was in 
absolute ignorance, or withdraw the young troops, under the enemy's fire, at 
the imminent risk of creating a stampede. He ordered up the re-enforcements, 
hastened in person to form the line as well under cover of the woods as possible, 
and then sought, by various demonstrations, to discover a weak point in the 
enemy's position. The troops thus placed kept up a tremendous fusilade against 
the earth-works, which had no particular effect except to cause the enemy 
to lie close, although it did not prevent a tolerably rapid and skillful return-fire 

* One of the streams which, by their junction, form the Kanawha. 
t First official dispatch concerning affair at Carrick's Ford. 



William S. Rosecrans. 319 

from musketry and artillery. It was soon found that the Eebel iutrenchments 
stretched across a bend in the Gauley, with both flanks protected by the pre- 
cipitous banks of that stream, here rising to a perpendicular height of from four 
to five hundred feet, while at his rear was Carnifex Ferry, the only point at 
which, for a distance of twenty-five miles, a passage could be effected. Arrange- 
ments were therefore begun for an assault, but night fell upon the combatants 
before they were completed. Anticipating a sortie during the night, General 
Eosecrans drew his command back through the woods, from the ijnmediate 
front of the enemy's works, to some cleared fields, where they were bivouacked 
in line of battle, with skirmishers well to the front. In the confusion two of 
the raw regiments in the woods mistook each other for the enemy, and inter- 
changed several volleys before the sad mistake was discovered. Through the 
night the rumbling of artillery was heara, and by daylight it was discovered 
that the enemy was gone. He had crossed the ferry, and destroyed the boat 
behind him. 

This action, in which we lost about one hundred and twenty, killed and 
wounded, was neither so well judged nor so well delivered as the first in which 
General Rosecrans had commanded. The advance was intrusted to an incom- 
petent, of whom some little previous knowledge might have taught him to 
beware.* The subsequent movements were too vigorous for a reconnoissance and 
too feeble for an attack ; and at least one good opportunity for an assault, that 
on the enemy's right, was overcautiously delayed till darkness j^revented its 
execution. On the other hand, it must be remembered that the movement had 
been seriously imperiled by the blunders of the Brigadier commanding the 
advance, and that the troops were thus thrown into a confusion which, under the 
circumstances, it took long to rectify. But Floyd, who really had only seven- 
teen hundred and forty men,f was frightened into retreating ; the chance for 
cutting off Cox was prevented. Wise, thus left alone, speedily retreated from 
Cox's front; and so the substantial fruits of victory remained with General 
Rosecrans, although tactically the affair could not be called by so brilliant a 
name. 

Meantime the sagacity of his judgment concerning affairs at Cheat Mount- 
ain had been vindicated. Lee had made a partial attack and had been repulsed; 
his able strategic plan for a combined movement that was to maneuver the Na- 
tional commander out of his intrenchments had failed through want of cohe- 
sion in the different parts ; and, abandoning the effort, Lee had hastily mai'ched 
southward, apparently with a view of concenti"ating Floyd's and Wise's com- 
mands with his own, and overwhelming Rosecrans. He soon had Floyd's army, 
and, at the head of twenty thousand men, awaited Rosecrans's advance at 
Mount Sewell. 

Uniting with Cox, General Rosecrans was now able to muster only about 

*And whom he still failed to expose, till further blunders liad entailed greater losses. It 
is scarcely necessary to explain that the officer here referred to is Henry W. Benham, subse- 
quently dismissed from the volunteer service. 

t Pollard's vSouthern History of the War, Vol. I, p. 171. 



320 Ohio in the War 

ten thousand,* but he nevertheless pressed hard on the enemy's front, till a ter- 
rible storm intercepted his communications, and he judged it prudent to retire 
to the junction of the Gauley and New Eivers.f 

One more act closes the West Virginia campaign. General Lee now pro- 
posed to cut off Eosecrans's communications by throwing a column to his rear 
on the Kanawha, and then to attack him with superior forces, simultaneously 
in front and rear. Knowing the countiy better than Lee, General Eosecrans 
ari^ued tl^at such a column could only come out over Cotton Mountain, striking 
the river opposite the mouth of the Gauley, where his rear-guard was placed; 
and he forthwith took measures to surround instead of being surrounded. 

Stationing a small force, sufficient to delay the enemy at least twenty-four 
hours, at a gap through which Lee's main column must advance, he awaited the 
appearance of Floyd on Cotton Mountain with the column that was to cut his 
communications. He had so arranged it that General Benham, with one brig- 
ade, was to cross the Kanawha secretly, six miles below, and by a sudden 
march throw himself upon Floyd's rear; while General Schenck was to cross 
above, at a hastily improvised ferry, and General Cox, from the mouth of the 
Gauley, was to attack in front. A heavy rain desti'oyed the ferry above, but 
General Schenck crossed promptly at the mouth of the Gauley. All worked 
well till it was discovered that General Benham, passing from the extreme of 
rashness to the extreme of either negligence or timidity, wasted his time and 
opportunity in needless halts, till the enemy was gone. The obedience of his 
instructions by this incompetent could scarcely have failed to result in the cap- 
ture of Floyd's whole force. 

General Lee was now recalled and sent to the coast; the Eebel forces were 
all retired, and General Eosecrans was enabled to put his troops in winter- 
quarters, with scarcely a Eebel bayonet to be found in the Department of West 
Virginia. No further comment on the campaign is needed than that which the 
enemy himself supplied. The Eebel annalist. Pollard, says :t " The campaign, 
* * * after its plain failure, * * * was virtually abandoned by the Govern- 
ment. Eosecrans was esteemed at the South one of the best Generals the North 
had in the field. He was declared by military critics, who could not be accused 
of partiality, to have clearly outgeneraled Lee, who made it the entire object 
of his campaign to ' surround the Dutch General ; ' and his popular manners 
and amiable deportment toward our prisoners, on more than one occasion, pro- 
cured him the respect of his enemy." 

The Ohio Legislature, by unanimous vote, thanked General Eosecrans and his 
army for their achievements; and, so satisfactory was the General's civil admin- 
istration to the people of West Virginia, that the Legislature of that State, by 

*He himself places his force at eight thousand five hundred " effectives." Eep. Com. Con. 
War, series of 1865, Vol. Ill, Eosecrans's testimony, p. 10. 

tit subsequently appeared that he had not retired a day too soon. Lee had arranged for a 
combined movement on his front and rear, and it was actually to have been executed the night 
before Eosecrans fell back ; but some delay in the starting of the flai>king column led Lee to 
postpone the movement till the next night. The next night Eosecrans was gone. 

tVol. I, pp.175, 179. 



( William S. Rosecrans. 321 

unanimous vote, passed a similar resolution of thanks for his conduct of civil as 
well as of military affairs. He sought, during a visit to Washington, to procure 
leave to mass his troops and throw them suddenly upon Winchester ; but he 
already found that his free criticisms of the General-in-Chief had borne their 
natural fruits, and he was condemned to see the task which he sought commit- 
ted to his own troops under other leadership. In April, 1862, under the press- 
ure which demanded of Mr. Lincoln that John C. Fremont should not be 
banished the public service for declaring the principles of the Emancipation 
Proclamation earlier than himself, General Eosecrans was relieved to make 
room for Fremont, and ordered to Washington. Then followed some work in 
the immediate service of the Secretary of War — hunting up Blenker's division, 
which had incomprehensibly disappeared, consulting with General Banks as to 
the amazing blunders by which Stonewall Jackson was permitted to paralyze 
three armies in the Yalley, and at the same time threaten Washington, laying 
plans before the War Department, and the like. By the middle of May he was 
ordered to General Halleck, before Corinth. 

For a General who has commanded a department and planned his own 
campaigns, to be reduced not merely to the position of a subordinate, but to 
that of a subordinate's subordinate, as General Eosecrans now was by hia 
assignment to the command of some divisions in General Pope's column, consti- 
tuting the left wing of Halleck's army, is never a grateful change ; but the 
General bore it handsomely ; was alert enough to be among the very first in 
discovering the evacuation of Corinth and getting off troops in pursuit; kept 
his place in the advance till the enemy were found in new positions; held this 
front till ordered back to assume command of the Army of Mississippi on the 
departure of General Pope for the East. 

The departxire of General Halleck, a little earlier, to assume the position 
of General-in-Chief at Washington, left General Grant in chief command at 
the South-West, and thus, for the first time, brought General Eosecrans into 
relations with that officer, whose subsequent ill-will was to prove so baleful. 
Mr. Jefferson Davis, about the same time, in a fit of passion, displaced General 
Beauregard from the command of the opposing forces, to make room for his 
subordinate. General Braxton Bragg. The change was to prove an aufepi- 
cious one. 

Whether it was through his own engrossment with the civil cares of his 
great department, or through the chilling influence of General Halleck's excess 
of caution, General Grant suffered the Eebels quietly to recuperate from the 
demoralization into which they had been thrown by the retreat from Corinth, 
the fall of Memphis, 'New Orleans, and Natchez, and in their own good time to 
assume the offensive. 

On the 10th of September General Sterling Price, with a force of about 

twelve thousand, marching northward, took Jacinto, and moved upon luka, a 

point on the railroad between Tuscumbia and Memphis. Eosecrans, sending out a 

reconnoissance, under Colonel (since General) Mower, determined that luka was 

YoL. I.— 21. 



322 Ohio in the War. 

occupied in force, and so advised General Grant. Meantime it had been ascer- 
tained that Earl Yan Dorn, with another Eebel column, was rapidly advancing 
in the direction of Corinth. By rapid movements there was time to concentrate 
and overwhelm Price before Van Dorn's arrival, and on this course Grant at 
once resolved. On the recommendation of Eosecrans, he determined to attack 
Price at luka, with General Ord's command, moving eastward upon him from 
the direction of Memphis, while Eosecrans, coming up from his camps below 
Corinth, should seize his lines of retreat. Ord was able to muster about six 
thousand five hundred, Eosecrans nearly nine thousand. Price, with his twelve 
thousand, might be expected to defeat either of these forces alone ; the only 
salvation for either seemed to be in a nearly simultaneous attack. 

On the evening of the 18th Eosecrans's column was concentrated at Jacinto, 
nearly south of luka. Ord lay on the railroad to Memphis, seven and a half 
miles west of luka, and Grant was with him. Eosecrans dispatched a courier, 
informing Grant of his position, saying that he should move in the morning at 
three, and hoped to reach luka not later than four in the afternoon, and adding 
that he should send couriers from points every two or three miles along the 
route. But General Grant, resting, as it would seem, on the single idea that 
Eosecrans's troops had not all reached Jacinto till nine o'clock at night, ordered 
Ord next morning to delay his attack. Again, at four o'clock in the afternoon, 
the very hour fixed by Eosecrans for his arrival. Grant again cautioned Ord 
against attack, but directed him to move forward to within four miles of luka, 
and there await the sound of Eosecrans's guns from the opposite side. Now it 
so happened that the wind was blowing fresh in the face of Eosecrans's column 
It might have been remembered that this would prevent the guns from being 
heard, but it was not. Finally, at five, the advance of Ord's command reported 
a dense smoke seen rising from luka. Even this, coupled with Eosecrans's dis- 
patch announcing that he should be on hand at four, was not enough to arouse 
either Grant or Ord himself, and the column lay idly watching the smoke, and 
listening for the sounds that the wind was blowing away from them.^-i^ 

Meantime Eosecrans had kept his promise. Within ten minutes of the 
time he had fixed, his skirmishers were driving in the enemy's pickets ; and a 
few moments later Price opened upon him with grape and canister. He list- 
ened in vain for the guns from the opposite side, and soon had the mortification 
to see Eebel troops marching from that direction to co-operate in a charge upon 
his weak and exposed lines. Till dark the battle raged. At sunset a heavy 
assault on Eosecrans's right was made. It was repulsed, and a heavier one 
came. Half an hour's conflict ensued ; the Eebel line at last drifted back in 
disorder, and the soldiers discovered, in the moment of success, that they had 
fired their last cartridge. 

Bivouacking his men in line of battle, Eosecrans now sent a last message to 
General Grant, reciting the events of the afternoon, saying he was fighting 
superior forces unsupported, and begging that Ord might be hurried up. Then, 
making his dispositions to seize some adjacent heights at daybreak for his artil- 

* For all above statements concerning Grant's orders, see Ord's Official Keport. 



William S. Roseckans. 323 

leiy, and replenishing his ammunition, he had the men called at three o'clock, 
and at daylight was moving. But meantime Price had learned of the prox- 
imity of Ord's column, and had hastily evacuated. General Eosecrans pushed 
the pui'suit as far as was prudent ; then, under orders, hastened back to Corinth. 

The enemy's loss in this engagement was one thousand and seventy-eight, 
prisoners, dead, and wounded, left on the field, with three hundred and fifty 
more wounded estimated to have been carried away. Our loss was seven hun- 
dred and eighty -two killed, wounded, and missing. General Eosecrans's con- 
duct was energetic, courageous, and hopeful. General Grant said, in his official 
dispatch: "lean not speak too highly of the energy and skill displayed by 
General Eosecrans in the attack." General Grant's own course might be crit- 
icised as unduly cautious. Eosecrans's dispatch, naming his hour for attack, 
the smoke from his guns, and the adverse wind, plainly explaining the failure 
to hear the sound of firing, might have been sufficient warrant for moving Ord's 
column. But it is to be said that Ord's command was the weaker of the two, 
that it therefore behooved to take special care not to suff'er it to be overwhelmed 
by engaging too soon, and that Eosecrans's distance, the night before, from the 
field of battle — nineteen miles — might well be held a sufficient cause for Grant's 
doubt about his getting up in time for action that day. 

Of course, however, Eosecrans could not omit the opportunity to do him- 
self an injury, and so, even in his official report to General Grant, he curtly 
expressed his disappointment at Ord's failure, and elsewhere was even more 
explicit. 

But, at Washington, the McClellan opposition being neutralized by that 
officer's own failure, he was now rising rapidly in the favor of the War Depart- 
ment, and events in the near future were to give him still fui'ther advancement. 
The day after luka he received notice of his appointment as Major-General of 
Volunteers, and General Grant assigned him to the command of the District 
of Corinth. 

Twelve days after the battle of luka * Eosecrans became convinced that 
Van Dorn's column, moving northward, had been re-enforced by Price's defeated 
army, and by the commands of Lovell and Villepigue, and was likely either to 
attack or pass him within a day or two. He had already been vigorously 
engaged in fortifying an inner line, which he claims to have urged upon Gene- 
ral Grant all through the summer, and which he now pressed forward by organ- 
izing from the slaves of the neighborhood a strong force of negro engineers, the 
first used in the war. 

Meantime his cavalry had been everywhere. His hope was that Van Dorn 
and Price, dreading the fortifications of Corinth, would pass him to attack 
Jackson or Bolivar, in which case he would have an opportunity to fall upon 
their rear. But on the 2d September his vigilance in reconnoitering was 
rewarded with the conviction that they were about to attempt the recapture of 
Corinth, and his dispositions were accordingly made, so as to be ready to repel 

* That is, 2d September, 1862. 



324 Ohio in the War. 

an attack from any direction. His force was fifteen thousand seven hundred 
infantry and artillery, and two thousand five hundred cavalry. His estimate 
of the combined strength of the enemy was thirty-five thousand, in which he 
subsequently felt himself fully warranted by the fact that he had taken pris- 
o-ners from fifty-three regiments of Eebel infantry, eighteen of cavalry, and 
sixteen batteries. 

By nine o'clock on the morning of 3d September the enemy began to press 
his advance. His orders were to "hold positions pretty firmly to develop the 
enemy's force." General Davies, under these orders, held a slight hill on which 
he was posted with such tenacity as to concentrate the Eebel attack, induce him 
to send for re-enforcements, and to cause the contest here to develop almost into 
the proportions of a battle. But by one o'clock he had fallen back. The enemy 
now renewed the vigor of their attack. Eosecrans gradually withdrew his line 
till it rested on the intrenchments, and meantime swung Hamilton's division in 
across the Columbus Eailroad on the enemy's flank. This began sensibly to 
diminish the fierceness of the assault in front, and darkness now closed opera- 
tions for the day. 

Eosecrans spent the night re-forming the lines on his batteries, so as to bring 
the enemy's next attack within converging artillery fire, reassuring the men, 
and giving detailed instructions to his division commanders. It was three 
o'clock before his work was done. The feeling in Corinth, under the retreat of 
the army into the town, was a nervous one; but, as an eye-witness described it, 
"Eosecrans was in magnificent humor. He encouraged the lads by quoting 
Barkis, assuring them that 'things is workin'." Before daybreak the Ohio 
Brigade heard the enemy placing a battery in front, not over six hundred yards 
from Fort Eobinett. "Let 'em plant it," said Eosecrans.* The officers, and 
through them the men, were inspired with his confidence. Not all could see 
how well the preparations for resisting the attack promised; but those who saw 
no meaning in the massing of artillery for raking fires from right and left into 
charging columns, could interpret more readily the meaning of the glad smile 
on their General's face, better than re-enforcements to the beleaguered and bleed- 
ing but courageous garrison. 

Before daylight the Eebel battery planted so near Fort Eobinett opened ; 
but it was speedily silenced, and by seven o'clock all was quiet again. Eose- 
crans improved the lull to gallop along the lines, and encourage the men. But 
by nine the crackling of the skirmishers' fire gave warning of a hostile advance, 
and presently the Eebel columns, emerging from the woods, swept grandly up 
to the National lines. The batteries poured in their double charges; the crash- 
ing volleys of musketry told of sturdy resistance; but, "riddled and scattered, 

* From the graphic account of the battle furnished the Cincinnati Commercial by W. D. 
Bickham, Esq., Eebellion Kecord, Vol. I, Doc, p. 501. The account adds: "Captain Williams 
opened at daylight his thirty-pounder Parrotts in Fort Williams, on the battery which the enemy 
had so slyly posted in darkness, and in about three minutes it was silenced. This was why Gen- 
eral Eosecrans had said ' Let 'em plant it.' The enemy dragged off two pieces, but were unable 
to take the other. Part of the Sixty-Third Oliio and a squad of the First United States Artillery 
went out and brought the deserted gun within our lines." 



William S. Rosecrans. 325 

the ragged head of Price's storming columns advanced" — breaking the thin 
i^ational line, and pushing on to the center of the town. 

Of what followed Kosecrans himself, in his report, modestly says only this: 
that he had the personal mortification of witnessing the untoward and untimely 
stampede. But it lives in the memory of every soldier who fought that daj^, 
how his General plunged into the thickest of the conflict, fought like a private 
soldier, dealt sturdy blows with the flat of his sabre on runawaj-s, and ftiirly 
drove them to stand. Then came a quick rally which his magnificent bearing 
inspired, a storm of grape from the batteries tore its wa}' through the Eebel 
ranks, re-enforcements which Eosecrans sent flying up, gave impetus to the 
National advance, and the charging column was speedily swept back outside 
the intrenchments. Let us hear again from the contemporaneous description 
of this battle, the splendid story of the charge and the repulse. "A prodigious 
mass, with gleaming bayonets, suddenly- loomed out, dark and threatening, on 
the east of the railroad, moving sternly up the Bolivar road in column by divis- 
ions. Directly it opened out in the shape of a monstrous wedge, and drove 
forward impetuously toward the heart of Corinth. Hideous gaps were rent in 
it, but those massive lines were closed almost as soon as they were torn open. 
Our shells swept through the mass with awful effect, but the brave Eebels 
pressed onward inflexibly. Directly the wedge opened and spread out magnifi- 
cently, right and left, like great wings, seeming to swoop over the whole field 
before them. But there was a fearful march in front. A broad, turfy glacis, 
sloping upward at an angle of thirty degrees, to a crest fringed with determined, 
disciplined soldiers, and clad with terrible batteries, frowned upon them. There 
were a few obstructions — fallen timber — which disordered their lines a little. 
But every break was instantly welded. Our whole line opened fire; but the 
enemy bent their necks downward and marched steadily to death, with their 
faces averted, like men striving to protect themselves against a driving storm 
of hail. At last they reached the crest of the hill, and General Davies's division 
beo-an to fall back in disorder. General Eosecrans, who had been watching 
the conflict with eagle eye, and who is described as having expressed his delight 
at the trap into which Price was blindly plunging, discovered the break, and 
dashed to the front, inflamed with indignation. He rallied the rnen, by his 
splendid example, in the thickest of the fight. The men, brave when bravely 
led, fought again."* But before that wild charge was repelled. General Eose- 
crans's own head-quarters were captured! Seven corpses, wearing Eebel gray, 
were found lying in his door-yard when the line fell back. 

Meanwhile, not less violent had been the charge led by Van Dorn. It 
swept up in four columns, under storms of grape and canister, to within fifty 
yards of Port Eobinett, when the Ohio Brigade f delivered a murderous volley, 
before which it reeled and retreated. Again they advanced, steadier, swifter 
than before, till they were pouring over the edge of the very ditch around the 

♦Eebellion Record, Vol. I, Doc, p. 501. 

t Composed of the Twenty-Seventh, Thirty-Ninth, Forty-Third, and Sixty-Third Ohio, com- 
manded by Colonel Fuller, 



326 Ohio in the Wae. [ 

fort, when this deadly musketry fire of the Ohio Brigade broke their formation. 
A moment later, and, at the word, the Twenty-Seventh Ohio and Eleventh 
Missouri sprang over the intrenchments, charged the disordered foe, and drove 
them again to the woods. The battle was over. 

Fourteen hundred and twenty-three Eebel dead were left upon the field. 
They lay at Eosecrans's head-quarters — within the forts — on the parapets — in 
the ditches, in short, everywhere over the field. With these Yan Dorn and 
Price left twenty-two hundred and • sixty-eight prisoners, fourteen stand of 
colors, two pieces of artillery, thirty-three hundred stand of small arms, forty- 
five thousand rounds of ammunition. On the National side three hundred 
and fifteen were killed, eighteen hundred and twelve wounded, and two hundred 
and thirty-two prisoners and missing. Yet the contest was eighteen thousand 
against thirty-five thousand. It has been well said that such fighting was 
Homeric. To the losing side the magnitude of the defeat may be estimated 
from the words of the Eebel annalist, who describes it as "the great disaster 
which was to react on other theaters of the war, and cast the long shadow of 
misfortune upon the country of the West." * 

Knowing the exhausted condition of his troops and their inferior numbers, 
tue Greneral, as prudent amid the delirium of victory as he was heroic under 
the crush of disaster, cautiously felt the retiring foe with his skirmishers. Then, 
convinced that the defeat was assured, he ordered pursuit. Soldierly McPher- 
son arrived, in the nick of time, with five fresh regiments, and was given the 
advance. The enemy tried to delay pursuit by a flag of truce with a burial 
party. It was ordered to stand aside. Yan Dorn was informed that his old 
class-mate knew the rules of war well enough to bury the dead on the field he 
had won, and the column pressed onward in pursuit. Bridges were destroyed; 
the pursuers rebuilt them. The enemy had eighteen regiments of cavalry; the 
four National regiments everywhere drove them. Eations were hurried for- 
ward; for three days the troops that had fought through the preceding two 
pushed on, capturing deserters and stragglers, forcing the enemy's baggage- 
train to abandon half its loads, occasionally engaging the enemy's rear-guard, 
till, on midnight of 7th of October, Eosecrans proudly exclaimed that "Missis- 
sippi is in our hands." 

At this inauspicious moment he was notified by General Grant that no aid 
could be sent; that he did not regard the column strong enough for pursuit. 
Eosecrans, of course, remonstrated. His long dispatch closed : "I beseech you to 
bend everything to push them while they are broken, weary, hungry, and ill- 
supplied. Draw everything from Memphis to help move on Holly Springs. 
Let us concentrate >!i * * and we can make a triumph of our start." In 
reply, Grant ordered him to stop the pursuit and return to Corinth. Eosecrans 
pi'omptly obeyed, but, true to his argumentative and indiscreet nature, added 
that he most deeply dissented from the policy. 

And now began to be seen the first developments of a feeling that, growing 
with age, was to draw after it an expanding train of evil. There is some rea- 

* Pollard's Southern History, Vol. I, p. 516. 



William S. Rosecrans. 327 

son to believe that Grant had been nettled at the complaints, partly official from 
Eosecrans himself, far more unofficial from thoughtless staff-officers who "knew 
all their General knew,"* about the failure to support him at luka. The 
order to stop the pursuit renewed this indiscreet chatter, and whispering 
tongues were soon poisoning truth, by the reports they made at Grant's head- 
quarters. Grant congratulated the army on its victory in General Orders, but, 
passing by the brilliant battle at Corinth with a single clause, devoted the most 
of the order to extravagant praise of Hurlbut, for the brief onslaught he had 
made upon the enemy during their retreat, f There was subsequently an effort at 
explaining away misunderstandings; both Grant and Eosecrans professed them- 
selves satisfied, and they parted promising friendly intercourse in the future; J 
but it is doubtful if the scars were ever fully effaced from the memory of either, 
till later events came to brand them deeper and broader with both. 

But in the War Department, where Grant's hostility, even if existing and 
exerted, could as yet avail little, the star of Eosecrans was now rapidly rising 
to its zenith. Nine days after his return to Corinth he was ordered to Cincin- 
nati, where fresh orders instructed him to relieve General Buell and assume 
command of the great but demoralized army, which, retiring steadily through 
the early fall, to keep pace with Bragg's advance into Kentucky, had fallen 
from North Alabama to the Ohio Eiver. The Country and the Army, remem- 
bering his heroism and his victories, gave implicit confidence to the new Gen- 
eral commanding; and he entered upon the duty of pushing back the war 
from his native State, and holding the center of that great line which stretched 
from the Potomac to the Arkansas, under outward auspices the most cheering. 
But he found the troops dispirited, discipline lax, unsoldierly complaints gen- 
eral. Winter was approaching; the railroad lines were a wreck, and even if 
the army had been pushed forward through the country which Bragg had 
exhausted, it would have been impossible to supply it. 

In the midst of the first comprehension of these unexpected difficulties camo 
an order from the General-in-Chief at Washington, to undertake a march after 
Bragg, to East Tennessee, a distance of two hundred and forty miles, at a time 
when the army had transportation enough to supply it less than fifty miles from 
its depots, while the cavalry was utterly unable, over even so short a route, to 
protect the trains. Briefly replying that such a march was impossible, Eose- 
crans hastened the work of supply and reorganization, and at the earliest 
moment concentrated his troops at Nashville. Here speedily came Bragg with 
his army from the mountains, thus vindicating the judgment of Eosecrans in 
refusing to be drawn after him into an impracticable country. 

Yet, already irritated at the ignoring of his first order, and the subsequent 
vindication of such policy, Halleck soon found fresh cause of complaint. Before 
the first train could get through from Louisville to Nashville, over the destroyed 

* Bickham's Eosecrans's Campaign with the Army of the Cumberland, p. 145. 

t Grant and his Campaigns, p. 131. 

t Rep. Com. Con. War, series of 1865. Rosecrans's Testimony, p. 56. 



328 Ohio in the Wak, 

railroad, and before it had been possible to accumulate five daj's' supplies for 
the army at Nashville, the Greneral-in-Chief again urgently demanded a forward 
movement; and Eosecrans having again represented its impossibilit}-, as well as 
the needlessness of marching into a rough country to meet Bragg, when Bragg 
was already coming far away from his base of supplies to meet him, Greneral 
Halleck once more required the movement, "for urgent political reasons," and 
significantly added that " he had been requested by the President to designate 
a successor for General Eosecrans."* The reply to this was manly and testy, 
as might have been expected: "My appointment to the command having been 
made without any solicitation from me or my friends, if the President continues 
to have confidence in the propriety of the selection, he must permit me to use 
my judgment and be responsible for the results; but if he entertains doubts he 
ought at once to appoint a commander in whom he can confide, for the good of 
the service and of the country." f 

This seemed to be sufficient, and Eosecrans was molested no furthei. He 
bent every energy toward hurrj'ing forward supplies, kept his cavalry vigor- 
ously at work, handling them so skillfull}' that they were generallj' successful, 
and soon became animated with the prestige of victory; skirmished all along 
his line of outposts with the enemy. Bragg having persisted in robbing pris- 
oners of their overcoats and blankets, and having on one or two occasions 
taken unwarrantable advantage of flags of truce, Eosecrans, after energetic 
remonstrances, finally notified him that — "I shall not, therefore, be able to hold 
any further official intercourse with you. Indeed, you render it impracticable, 
because I can not trust your messengers, or the statements made by them of 
occurrences patent as the sun. No flag will, therefore, be received from you 
excepting one conveying reparation for your outrages." | 

Within less than a month after the re-opening of the railroad between Lou- 
isville and Nashville, a sufficient store of supplies had been accumulated at the 
latter place to warrant the undertaking of an oftensive campaign, with it as the 
immediate base. Meantime the enemy had been skillfully led to believe that 
the army would be able to accomplish nothing during the winter; and resting 
secure in this belief, he had sent away a large force to operate in Kentucky, and 
another of cavalry to harass Gi-ant in West Tennessee. Now, therefore, had 
come the fitting moment for the attack. It was two months, lacking one day, 
since Eosecrans had assumed command of the army. He had found it so weak- 
ened that, as shown b}^ the rolls in the office of the Adjutant-General, there 
were absent thirty-two thousand nine hundred and sixty-six men, whom the 
Government and the country supposed to be in the ranks. || Even now he was 
only able to muster an effective offensive force of forty-six thousand nine hun- 
dred and ten men of all arms. 

On the 26th December, 1862, the advance upon Murfreesboro', where Bragg 

*Ilep. Com. Con. War, series of 1865, Vol. III. Eosecrans's Testimony, p. 25. t Ibid. 
% Eosecrans's Campaign with the Army of the Cumberland, by W. D. Bickham, p. 105. 
II Of whom six thousand four Imndred and eighty-four were deserters, through the demorali- 
zation consequent upon Buell's retreat. 



I William S. Rosecrans. 329 

had thrown up slight intrench ments and gone into winter-quarters, began. 
Already men not unskilled in war, and not wishing defeat to the National army, 
wore predicting it. For Rosecrans, with the lamentable ignorance of human 
nature which we have before had occasion to notice, had confided the command 
of the two wings of his army to two soldiers scarcely equal to the command of 
divisions.^ Moving his troops in three columns, and handling them skillfully, 
the General was soon able to develop the Rebel positions. Hardee he found 
holding the enemy's left, in intrenchments west of Murfreesboro' and north of 
Stone River. Bi'agg himself was in the town with Polk, and the right was held 
by Breckinridge, who lay behind Stone River, and not far from the most avail- 
able fords. Their outposts contested the advance stubbornly, and on the 29th 
there was sharp skirmishing all along the line, but particularly on Hardee's 
front. That evening, however, found the line well up, and its left in sight of 
Murfreesboro'. 

At nine o'clock the corps commanders assembled, and the General explained 
to them his plan for the ensuing day. McCook, on his right, (opposite Hardee) 
was to hold the enemy; Thomas, in the center, was to push straight to the river; 
while Crittenden, on the left, crossing the river at the fords, was to take Breckin- 
ridge in flank and rear, when Thomas, now up to the river, was to assail him at 
the same time in front. With this preponderance of force there could be no 
doubt of Breckinridge's defeat. Then the left and center, (Crittenden and 
Thomas), sweeping through Murfreesboro', were to fall upon the rear of Hardee 
and whatever forces might be united with him against McCook. Manifestly this 
plan pivoted on one single point: Could McCook hold the right while center 
and left were thus hurled upon the enemy's rear? The General asked him: 
"You know the ground — you have fought over its difficulties. Can you hold 
your present position for three hours?" "Yes; I think I can." Thereupon he 
was admonished that his present formation of his line was faulty; that his 
extreme right was too much in the air, and therefore in imminent danger of 
being turned. Great fires were to be built along three or four times the extent 
of his line, to lead the enemy to the belief that he was massing troops there. 
And so the corps commanders rode back to their places, f 

Early next morning Crittenden began his movement against the enemy's 
flank and rear. But, away off to the right, the enemy had been quicker, and 
before Crittenden's men had moved to the fords, already the mass of the Rebel 
army was advancing in columns of assault upon McCook. That officer had 
failed to correct the faulty formation of his line — indeed, considered that "a 
better disposition of his troops, under the circumstances, could not be made."| 
The result was inevitable. 

* Excepting when under the eye of a superior officer, who could do their thinking for them. 

t Rosecrans's Official Report Stone River, Gov't. Edition. In opposition to all this, however, 
Shank's "Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals," (Harper & Bros., 1866, pp. 148, 
149), says: "The official reports tell very elaborately of a grand plan, but that plan was 
arranged after the battle was finished. The soldiers fought the battle on our part, not the Gen 
eral commanding." No evidence, however, is given for so grave a statement. 

JMcCook's Official Report of action of right wing in battle of Stone River 



330 Ohio in the Wae. \| 

Presently a tide of fugitives began to sweep back out of the cedars on the 
right. " McCook's corps was beaten ; " "Sill was killed;" "two batteries were 
captured;" "the Eebel cavalry "vvas charging the rear." Close upon their track 
came a staff-officer from McCook, confirming the evil news, but giving no par- 
ticulars. " Tell G-eneral McCook to contest every inch of the ground," exclaimed 
Eosecrans; "if he holds them it will all work right." But he did not hold 
them. The tide of disaster swept on ; it was soon seen that McCook's ooi'ps 
was coming back bodily ; that the battle was spreading to the center. And yet 
the attack had lasted less than an. hour; it was scarcely half an hour since 
Crittenden's advance had begun to cross the river for the movement in flank 
and rear. McCook was not checking the enemy " three hours," nor one, nor a 
moment. The instant of attack had been the instant Avhen his ill-formed line 
began to crumble. 

It was now, therefore, fallen upon the General commanding to decide at 
once whether to abandon the attack on the left, and narrow his efforts to a 
struggle for the safety of his own army, or whether he could still trust this 
routed corps, of which parts might retain their solidity, till he could attack the 
enemy's rear, according to the original plan. 

The last course was already perilous in the extreme ; half an hour later it 
was impossible. Yet it must have been with a pang that the General sent 
orders withdrawing Crittenden's advance, .and forwarding re-enforcements 
instead into the cedar brakes on the right. Thenceforward it was technically a 
defensive battle. 

"The history of the combat in those dark cedars will never be known. No 
man could see even the whole of his own regiment, and no one will ever be able 
to tell who they were that fought bravest, or they who proved recreant to their 
trust. It was left to Sheridan to stay the successful onset of the foe. Never 
did a man labor more faithfully than he to perform his task, and never was 
leader seconded by more gallant soldiers. His division formed a pivot on which 
the broken right wing turned in its flight, and its perilous condition can easily 
be imagined, when the flight of Davis's division left it without any protection 
from the triumphant enemy, who now swarmed upon its front and right flank ; 
but it fought until one-fourth its number lay upon the field, and till all its 
brigade commanders were gone."* 

As Sheridan came out of the cedars, with his riddled but still compact 
division, he rode up to Eosecrans, pointing to his men : "Here is all that is left 
of us, General. Our cartridge-boxes are empty, and so are our guns." 

Meantime Eosecrans had been busy re-forming the line, grouping batteries 
on the crest of the knoll near the turnpike, once or twice heading charges to 
repel advancing Eebel columns. "With the lines re-formed, the rest of the battle 
was simple. By eleven o'clock the rout of McCook's corps was over, the new 
formation was complete, and a lull had come. Then followed assault after 
assault, mainly upon the left. All were handsomely repulsed ; and in all the 

*From the admirable account of the battle furnished by Mr. W. S. Furay to the Cincinnati 
Gazette. 



William S. Roseceans. 



331 




William S. Roseckans. 333 

presence of Eosecrans himself was the inspiring feature. Garesche's head was 
blown from his body as he galloped by the side of the General* in one of thebu 
movements. Kichmond and Porter, of the staff, were shot. Kirby was shot. 
Two or three orderlies were shot; and nearly a dozen of the staff lost their 
horses. To every remonstrance about this personal exposure, the General only 
rej^lied : "This battle must be won." When Garesche fell, his most intimate 
and trusted friend, the General made no sign. But, a moment later, he thun- 
dered up to a regiment and ordered it to charge. 

So, with unretrieved disaster in the morning, and with handsome defense 
through the afternoon, the day ebbed out with the ebbing fire. Twenty-eight 
pieces of artillery had been lost ; seven thousand men lay dead and wounded on 
the field. The General galloped back and selected ground, a few miles in the 
rear, to which, in case of necessity, the retreat could be conducted ; then 
returned to his corps commanders, and, with few orders, simply said : " Gentle- 
men, we fight it out here." The rear was swarming with the enemy's cavalry , 
communication with Nashville was nearly or quite cut off; in front lay an armj 
that had already driven one wing in confusion, broken up the whole plan of 
battle, and thrown the" attacking column into an attitude purely defensive. 
But, " Gentlemen, we fight it out here." " Most men in that army were 
whipped," it was afterward well said, "excepting the General who com- 
manded it." 

The next day passed quietly, till, in the afternoon, the enemy made one or 
two partial demonstrations, which were easily repulsed. It began to be seen 
that, in spite of his seeming success, Bragg had been severely punished. The 
next forenoon likewise passed inactively; but in the afternoon the enemy con- 
centrated his strength for a final effort. Eosecrans, finding his position appar- 
ently secure, had extended his left across Stone Eiver, at the point where he 
had originally intended that his main attack on the enemy's flank and rear 
should begin. On this isolated force f the enemy now poured down, driving it 
in hot haste back across the river again, and crossing himself in pursuit. But 
here he came under- the fire of a great collection of batteries skillfully placed 
on the north bank. The slaughter was terrible ; and, as a couple of brigades 
advanced upon him, the enemy in turn fled in confusion. His loss in less than 
forty minutes was two thousand men. Excepting Malvern Hill, it was, per- 
haps, the handsomest artillery fight of the war. 

This was the last sullen effort of the enemy, and ended the battle of Stone 
Eiver. Next day, under cover of heavy rains, and a vigorous maintenance of 
skirmishing on the front, Bragg was in full retreat. No pursuit was attempted. 

The battle thus inauspiciously begun and happily ended, electrified the 
Nation. At the capital, men waited, day by day, during the continuance of the 
fighting, for dispatches from Eosecrans, as if he held in his hands the fate of 
the Government. General Halleck, lately so dissatisfied, and about, "at the 
President's request," to name General Eosecrans's successor, could scarcely say 

* To whom he was Chief of Stafi". t Van Cleve's division. 



334 Ohio in the War. 

too much. "The victory was well earned, and one of the most brilliant of the 
war. Tou and your brave army have won the gratitude of your country and 
the admiration of the world. The field of Murfi-eesboro' is made historical, and 
future generations will point out the place where so many heroes fell gloriously 
in defense of the Constitution and the Union. All honor to the Army of the 
Cumberland ! Thanks to the living, and tears for the lamented dead ! " Scarcely 
less enthusiastic was the President : " God bless you, and all with you ! Please 
tender to all, and accept for yourself, the Nation's gratitude for your and their 
skill, endurance, and dauntless courage." The Country re-echoed the words. 
, Admiring journals dwelt upon the details of the General's personal movements 
through the battle. Men compared him to that Marshal of France to whom, 
when IS'apoleon had said: "I give you sixty thousand soldiers," and he had 
replied: "Sire, Your Majesty mistakes ; I have but forty thousand," the great 
Master of War rejoined: "No, sir, I do not mistake; I count you for twenty 
thousand." 

Yet now, on a calm review of all the facts, it must be confessed that the 
battle is open to criticisms. It was a fatal mistake to intrust a forlorn hope 
(such as Rosecrans proposed to make the right while he pushed the left and 
center upon the enemy's flank and rear) to an oflScer like McCook. Most of all 
was it a mistake to do this in an army which then numbered among its Gen- 
erals, George H. Thomas and Philip H. Sheridan. The man that could do this 
was hopelessly ignorant of human nature ; hopelessly deficient in that foremost 
quality of a General which teaches how to select the right men for the right 
places. Had the original plan not been ruined at the outset by this blunder, 
it would have been exposed to similar danger further on, from its counterpart, 
for Crittenden, though abler than McCook, was still unfit for such responsible 
positions. Furthermore, in a case like this, where everything depended upon 
this right wing, while he was convinced that its position was faulty, and knew 
that the enemy was massed upon it, the General commanding was not absolved 
from responsibility by a simple statement that, as his corps General* "knew 
the ground best, he must leave it to his judgment." f 

But when the diaster had enveloped half the army, and from that time to 
the end, Eosecrans was magnificent. Eising superior to the disaster that, in a 
moment, had annihilated his carefully-prepared plans, he grasped in his single 
hands the fortunes of the day. He stemmed the tide of retreat, hurried brig- 
ades and divisions to the points of danger, massed the artillery, handled his 
troops as Morphy might his chess-men, infused into them his own dauntless 
spirit, and out of defeat itself fashioned the weapons of victory. As at Eich 
Mountain, luka, Corinth, it was his personal presence that magnetized his plans 
into success. 

* Throughout the above, the Generals of the center and wings have, for the sake of conve- 
nience been designated as corps Generals, though in reality they held no such rank. Rosecrans 
himself was, as yet, only a corps General, and his army was known at the War Department as 
the Fourteenth Corps. 

f Rosecrans's own explanation in his official report. 



William S. Roseckans. 33o 

Of his forty-six thousand men, Eosecraas lost fifteen hundred and thirty- 
three killed, and seven thousand two hundred and forty-five wounded, besides 
nearly three thousand prisoners. In other words, his killed and wounded alone 
constituted one-fifth of his entire command. He took prisoners from one hun- 
dred and thirty-two regiments of Eebel infantry. On this basis he estimated 
the strength of his antagonist at sixty -two thousand five hundred and twenty, 
which was unquestionably an exaggeration. Bragg, in his official report, said 
he had but thirty-five thousand men in the field when the battle commenced. 
Out of these he admits a loss of nine thousand killed and wounded and one 
thousand prisoners ; but he consoled himself and the Eebel Government by 
estimating Eosecrans's loss at twenty-four thousand killed and wounded. 

And now there followed the most unfortunate six months of Eosecrans's 
career. He kept up a series of skirmishes and aftairs of more or less import- 
ance with isolated bodies of the enemy ; sent General Carter on a raid into East 
Tennessee ; resisted raids upon his communications by Forrest and Morgan ; 
sent Jeff. 0. Davis and Sheridan on movements to the southward against small 
Eebel forces; engaged Morgan, Van Dorn, and others, at points near Murfrees- 
boro' ; dispatched Colonel Straight, with eighteen hundred cavalry to the rear 
of Bragg's army, to cut the Eebel railroad communications and destroy their 
depots of supplies. Most of these movements were successes ; the last, by 
unskillfulness, resulted in the capture of the entire command. 

But these were trifling matters. General Eosecrans had a great army, 
which had won a great victory. He was expected to improve it. The winter 
w^as given him to recruit and reorganize. With spring came an impatience for 
nis advance, which every delay intensified, till at last the dissatisfaction of the 
Government culminated in such orders as it never in any other case brought 
itself to address to a General to whose hands it dill intrusted an army. 

From 4th January to 23d June, 1863, the army lay at Murfreesboro'. In 
liis testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, General Eose- 
crans explains this delay by the weakness of his cavalrj' force, the scarcity of 
forage, the nature of the roads, and the policy of holding Bragg on his front 
rather than driving him out of Tennessee, only that he might unite with Jos. 
E. Johnston and fall upon Grant, who was still inetfectually struggling before 
Vicksburg. In his sketch of his military career, officially furnished to the War 
Department,* he says : " The detachment of General Burnside's troops to Ylcks- 
burg, the uncertainty of the issue of our operations there, and the necessity of 
'nursing' — so to speak — General Bragg on my front, to keep him from retiring 
behind the mountain and the Tennessee, whence he could and would have been 
obliged to send heavy re-enforcements to Johnston, delayed the advance of my 
army until the 23d of June, when, the circumstances at Yicksburg and the 
arrival of all our cavalry horses warranting it, we began the campaign." And 
in his correspondence with the General-in-Chief, he said that to fight in 

* Manuscript on file in rolls of Adjutant-General's office at Washington. 



336 Ohio in the War. 

Tennessee while Grant was about fighting at Yicksburg, would violate one oi 
the fundamental maxims of war, the proper application of which would " for- 
bid this J^ation from engaging all its forces in the great West at the same time, 
so -as to leave it without a single reserve to stem the current of possible 
disaster."* 

Some of these considerations are of undoubted weight ; but on the whole 
they will hardly seem now to have afforded sufficient cause for the delay. In 
point of fact, Bragg profited by it to detach a considerable portion of his troops 
to the Eebel lines of the South-West, the very result which Eosecrans imagined 
himself to be hindering. f There are no traces of complaint from Grant him- 
self on the subject, but his friends were not silent ; and thei-e is some reason to 
think that their importunity served still further to exasperate the already dis- 
satisfied feelings of the General-in-Chief 

Presently there sprang uj) an extraordinary state of affairs between that 
officer and General Eosecrans. The latter asked for cavalry. General Halleck 
replied as if he thought it a complaint. Eosecrans telegraphed the Secretary 
of War. In reply came fresh hints from Halleck about the tendency of his 
iubordinate to complain of his means instead of using them. Eosecrans begged 
for revolving rifles, adding almost piteously : "Don't be weary at my impor- 
tunity. No economy can compare with that of furnishing revolving arms ; no 
jaode of recruiting will so promptly and efiicaciously strengthen us. J" But the 
Prussian war not yet having been fought, the practical General-in-Chief con- 
sidered such applications the extravagant whims of a dreaming theorist. 

The dispatches for " cavalry," " cavalry," "cavalry," continued. On 20th 
March General Eosecrans said : " Duty compels me to recall the attention of the 
War Department to the necessity of more cavalry here. Let it be clearly under- 
stood that the enemy have five to our one, and can, therefore, command the 
resources of the country and the services of the inhabitants." On 29th March 
again : " General Eousseau would undertake to raise eight or ten thousand 
mounted infantry. I think the time very propitious." On 24th April, still the 
same : " Cavalry horses are indispensable to our success here. This has been 
stated and reiterated to the Department; but horses have not been obtained." 
Again ^ on 10th May, in reply to a letter of General Halleck, proving to him 
that ho had cavalry enough: "We have at no time been able to turn out more 
than five thousand for actual duty. I am not mistaken in saying that this great 
arm}'' would gain more from ten thousand effective cavalry than from twenty 
thousand infantry." On 26th July: "I have sent General Eousseau to Wash- 
ington, directed to lay before you his plan for obtaining from the disciplined 
ti-oops recently mustered out in the East, such a mounted force as would enable 
us to command the country south of us."]] This last application ended the list. 
General Eousseau returned, telling Eosecrans that he " was satisfied his official 
ddstruction was but a question of time and opportunity ; the will to accomplish 

* Rep. Com. Con. War, series 1865, Vol. Ill, Rosecrans's Campaigns, p. 41. 

t Pollard's Southern History, Vol. Ill, p. 114. 

t Rep. Com. Con. War, ubi supra, p. 38. || Ibid., pp. 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41. 



William S. Rosecrans. 337 

!t existed, and there was no use to hope for any assistance from the War De- 
partment." Tlie Secretary of War had "even gone so far as to say that he 
would be damned if he would give Rosecrans another man.''* 

For, meantime, the high spirit and utter lack of caution in personal m.at- 
ters which so distinguished General Rosecrans had led, to two other breaches 
with the Department. Either of them would have served to make his position 
as a successful General, vigorously prosecuting a triumphant campaign, suf- 
ficiently unpleasant. As a delaying General, furnishing excuses for not under- 
taking the campaign on which the Government, with all its power, was urging 
him, they were enough to work his ruin. Yet who can check a thrill of honest 
pride as he reads that an Ohio General, in such a jjlight, had still sturdy man- 
hood enough left to send a dispatch like this to the all-jjovverful General-in- 
Chief: 

" MuRFREESBORo', 6th March, 1863. 
" General: Yours of the 1st instant, announcing the offer of a vacant Major- 
Generalship in the regular army to the General in the field who first wins an 
important and decisive victory, is at hand. As an officer and a citizen I feel 
degraded at such an auctioneering of honors. Have we a General who would fight 
for his own personal benefit when he would not for honor and his country? He 
would come by his commission basely in that case, and deserve to be despised 
b}' men of honor. But are all the brave and honorable Generals on an equality 
as to chances ? If not, it is unjust to those who probably deserve most. 

" W. S. EosECRANs, Major-Genera] . 
" To Major-General H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chief." 

Under the merited sting of this incautious but unanswerable rebuke, Gen- 
eral Halleck renewed his complaints, found fiiult with Rosecrans's reports, and 
his failures to report, and even criticised the expenses of his telegraphing ! At 
last Rosecrans, chafing under one of these dispatches, with absolutely character- 
istic lack of prudence, was stung into saying : " That I am very careful to 
inform the Department of my successes, and of all captures from the enemy, is 
not true, as the records of our office will show ; that I have failed to inform the 
Government of my defeats and losses is equally untrue, both in letter and in 
spirit. I regard the statement of these two propositions of the War Department 
as a profound, grievous, cruel, and ungenerous official and personal wrong." 
Was it wonderful now — human nature being, after all, only human nature — 
that Rosecrans's " official destruction was but a question of time and ojspor- 
tunity?" 

At last,t thirteen days after every one of his corps and division Generals 
had in writing expressed his opposition to an effort to advance, General Rose- 
crans began his movement. Bragg lay heavily inti-enched at TuUahoma, with 
advance positions at Shelbyville and Wartrace. By a series of combined move- 
ments which even General Halleck was forced officially to pronounce "admira- 
ble," X Bragg's attention was completely taken up by Gordon Granger's dashing 

* Rep. Com. Con. War, ubi supra. T 24th June, 1863. 

I Halleck's Official Report. Report Sec War, First Sess. Thirty-Eighth Congress. 
YoL. I.— 22. 



338 Ohio in the War 

advance on Shelbyville. while the bulk of the army, hastily moving far to the 
enemy's right, seized the mountain gaps which covered his flank. Bragg per- 
ceived, too late, the extent of his loss, and made haste to expedite his retreat. 
Rosecrans pushed forward for a similar flanking movement on Tullahoma, but 
Bragg, foreseeing that Rosecrans's success would cut off his hope of retreat, 
made haste to get out of Tullahoma while he could, and precipitately retired 
behind the Tennessee Eiver. 

Success had again justified General Rosecrans; but, brilliant as were these 
operations, they lacked the element of bloodshed which goes so far toward fixing 
the popular standard of appreciation. The very day on which he had begun 
the campaign had unfortunately proved the beginning of an unprecedented 
rain-storm which lasted for seventeen successive days. Through this the cam- 
paign was carried on ; but for the delays which it compelled, Tullahoma would 
have been turned so speedily that Bragg would have found himself forced to 
battle on disadvantageous ground, and the history of the war in the South-West 
might have been changed. As it was, Rosecrans was fully warranted in his 
proud summing up: "Thus ended a nine days' campaign which drove the 
enemy from two fortified positions, and gave us possession of Middle Tennessee, 
conducted in one of the most extraordinary rains ever known in Tennessee at 
that period of the year, over a soil that became almost a quicksand. These 
results were far more successful than was anticipated, and could only have been 
obtained by a surprise as to the direction and force of our movements."* His 
total loss was five hundred and sixty. He took sixteen hundred and thirty-four 
prisoners, six pieces of artillery, and large quantities of stores. 

Greneral Rosecrans at once set about repairing the railroads in his rear, and 
hurrying forward supplies. By 25th of July the first supply train was pushed 
through to the Tennessee River. But already "the G-eneral-in-Chief began to 
manifest great impatience at the delay in the movement forward to Chatta- 
nooga." So Rosecrans mildly states it. The nature of these manifestations 
may be inferred from the correspondence. On 3d July General Halleck tele- 
graphed positive orders to advance at once, and report daily the movement of 
each corps until the Tennessee River was ci'ossed ! Rosecrans, in astonishment, 
replied that he was trying to prepare for ci'ossing, and inquired if this order 
was intended to take away his discretion as to the time and manner of moving 
his troops. Halleck's response was such as was never given under similar cir- 
cumstances to any other General during the war: "The orders for the advance 
of your army, and that its pi'Ogress be reported daily, are peremptory!" The 
War Department has not favored us with General Rosecrans's reply to this extra- 
ordinary order, but we are not without the means for determining its nature. 
He stated his plans,t showed the necessity of deceiving the enemy as to the 
intended point for crossing the Tennessee, insisted on not moving till he was 
ready, and requested that, in the event of the disapj^roval of these views, he 

•^ Rosecrans's Official Eeport Tullahoma Campaigu. 

t Rosecrans's MS. Sketch of his Military Career, furnislied under orders of War Depart- 
ment, in files of the Adjutant-General's office. 



William S. Roseceans. 339 

should be relieved from the command of the army! This seems to have freed 
him from further molestation; but it needed no prophetic sagacity now to see 
that only "time and opportunity" were waited for at the War Department. 

It was on 5th August that General Halleck telegraphed his peremptory 
orders to move, and received in reply the tender of the command. General 
Eosecrans quietly waited till the dispositions along his extended line were com- 
pleted, till stores were accumulated, and the corn had ripened so that his horses 
could be made to live off the country. On the 15th he was ready. 

The problem now before General Eosecrans was to cross the Tennessee 
Eiver and gain possession of Chattanooga, the key to the entire mountain ranges 
of Eastern Tennessee and Northern Georgia, in the face of an enemy of equal 
strength, whose business it was to oppose him. Two courses were open. Forc- 
ing a passage over the river above Chattanooga, he might have essayed a direct 
attack upon the town. If not repulsed in the dangerous preliminary move- 
ments, he would still have had upon his hands a siege not less formidable than 
that of Yicksburg, with difficulties incomparably greater in supplying his army. 
But, if this plan was not adopted, it then behooved him to convince the enemy 
that he had adopted it ; while, crossing below, he hastened southward over the 
ruggedest roads, to seize the mountain gaps whence he could debouch upon the 
enemy's line of supplies. More briefly, he could either attempt to fight the 
enemy out of Chattanooga, or to flank him out. He chose the latter. 

By the 28th the singular activity of the National forces along a front of a 
hundred and fifty miles had blinded and bewildered Bragg as to his antago- 
nist's actual intentions. Four brigades suddenly began demonstrating furiously 
against his lines above Chattanooga, and the plan was thought to be revealed! 
Eosecrans must be about attempting to force a passage there, and straightway 
began a concentration to oppose him. Meantime, bridges having been secretly 
prepared were hastily thrown across, thirty miles further down the river at 
different points, and before Bragg had finished preparing to resist a crossing 
above, Eosecrans, handling with rare skill his various corps and divisions, had 
securely planted his army south of the Tennessee, and, cutting completely loose 
from his base of supplies, was already pushing southward, his flank next the 
enemy being admirably protected by impassable mountains. 

For Bragg, but one thing was left. As he had been forced out of Shelby- 
ville, out of Wartrace, out of Tullahoma, precisely so had the same stress been 
placed upon him by the same hand in his still stronger position; and in all 
haste he evacuated Chattanooga, leaving it to the nearest corps of Eosecrans's 
array to march quietly in and take possession. The very ease of this occupa- 
tion was to prove its strongest element of danger. For men, seeing the objective 
point of the campaign in our hands, forgot the columns toiling through moun- 
tains away to the southward, w^hose presence there alone compelled the Eebel 
evacuation. But for them the isolated troops at Chattanooga would have been 
overwhelmed. Thenceforward there was need of still greater Generalship 
to reunite the scattered corps. They could not return by the way they had 
gone, for the moment they began such a movement Bragg, holding the shorter 



340 Ohio in the Wae. 

\me, and alx-eady re-enforced by Longstreet's veteran cor^DS of the Army of 
Northern Virginia, could sweep back over the route of his late retreat. Plainly 
they must pass through the gaps, and place themselves between Bragg and 
Chattanooga, before the stronghold — beyond a mere tentative possession — could 
be within our grasp. And so it came about that a battle — the bloody one of 
Chickamauga — was fought to enable our army to concentrate in the position 
which one of its corps had already occupied for days without firing a shot. 

Unfortunately the concentration was not speedy enough. Indeed, there are 
some plausible reasons for believing that Eosecrans Avas for a few days deceived 
by his easy success into a belief that Bragg was still in full retreat. Certainly 
the General-in-Chief and the "War Department did all they could to encourage 
such an idea; and even after Eosecrans, (every nerve tense with the struggle to 
concentrate his corps), was striving to prepare for the onset of the re-enforced 
Eebel army, G-eneral Halleck informed him of reports that Bragg's army was 
re-enforcing Lee, and pleasantly added that, after he had occupied Dalton it 
would be decided whether he should move still further southward! 

But now Bragg had gathered in every available re-enforcement; Longstreet 
from the East, Buckner from Knoxville, Walker from the army of Jos. E. John- 
ston, militia from Georgia,* and, waiting near Lafayette, hoped to receive the 
isolated corps of Eosecrans's army as they debouched through the gaps, and 
annihilate them in detail. For a day or two it looked as if he would be suc- 
cessful ; Eebel critics insist that he might have been, and he himself seems dis- 
posed to blame his subordinates. One way or another, however, he failed. 
Eosecrans gathered together hi^ army, repelling whatever assaults sought to 
hinder the concentration, yielding part of the line of the Chickamauga, and 
marching one of the corps all through the night before the battle. On 19th 
September Bragg made his onset — with certainly not less than seventy thou- 
sand men. Eosecrans had fifty-five thousand. 

Bragg's plan was to turn his antagonist's left, and thus clear the way into 
Chattanooga. But, most fortunately, the left was held by George H. Thomas. 
Shortly after the attack began, Eosecrans, divining the danger, strengthened 
Thomas's corps with one or two divisions. Disaster overtook us at first, artil- 
lery was lost, and ground yielded, but Thomas re-formed and advanced his 
lines, regained all that had been lost, sustained every shock of the enemy, and 
at night held his positions firmly. Meanwhile the contest on other parts of our 
line had been less severe, and had ended decidedly to our advantage. But it 
was seen that we were outnumbered, and as they came to think how every 
brigade in the whole army, two only excepted, had been drawn into the fight, 
the soldiers began to realize the dispiriting nature of the situation. 

Through the night the last of Longstreet's corps came up, led by himself and 
Bragg prepared for a more vigorous onset on the National left. Eosecrans trans- 
ferred another division (Negley's) to Thomas, and placed two more in reserve, 
.to be hurried to Thomas's aid if needed. At daybreakf he galloped along the 

* Raising Bragg's force, according to Rosecrans's estimate, to ninety-two thousand men. 
t 20th September, 1863. 



William S. Roseceans. 



341 




CHICKAMAUCA AND CHATTANOOGA. 



William S. Rosecrans. 343 

front, to find McCook's line, as usual, ill-formed, and also to learn that JSTegley had 
not yet been forwarded to Thomas. The errors were corrected as well as possible ; 
but long before Thomas's needed re-enforcements had come, the battle was raging 
on his front and flank. Profoundly conscious of the danger, Rosecrans sought 
to render still further aid, and ordered over Van Cleve's division from the right, 
directing the several division commanders and the corps General to close up the 
line on the left. In the heat of the battle, which by this time was broken out 
along the right also, one of these division commanders* misunderstood his orders; 
and, though he has subsequently stated that he knew the consequences of his 
action must be fatal, he chose to consider himself bound by the order to break 
the line of battle and march to the rear of another division. Longstreet per- 
ceived the gap and hurled Hood into it. The battle on the right was lost. The 
whole wing crumbled; the enemy poured forward, and all that was left of 
McCook's corps, a broken rabble, streamed back to Chattanooga. 

General Eosecrans himself was caught in this rout and borne along, vainly 
striving to stem its tide. Finally, conceiving that if the wing least pressed was 
thus destroj'ed, Thomas, upon whom he knew the main efforts of the enemy 
were concentrated, could not hoM out beyond nightfall, he hastened to Chatta- 
nooga to make dispositions for the retreat and defense, which he already regarded 
as inevitable. Meantime his chief of staff. General Garfield, was sent to Thomas 
to convey to him information of what had happened and of the plans for the future. 

This ended Eosecrans's connection with the battle of Chickamauga. The 
ti'oops under Thomas stood their ground superbly, and their defense saved the 
routed right from destruction. When they fell back, Eosecrans had perfected his 
dispositions at Chattanooga, and Bragg found that, beyond j)ossession of the battle- 
field, his victory had gained him nothing. He confessed to a loss of two-fifths of his 
army ! Eosecrans's loss in killed and wounded was ten thousand nine hundred 
and six, somewhat less than that of Bragg, though his loss in prisoners was greater. 

The battle of Chickamauga was the "opportunity" for which, according to 
Eousseau, the War Department had been waiting, and Eosecrans was removed 
from the command as soon thereafter as circumstances permitted. The Country 
seemed to acquiesce in this displacement of a popular favorite. Journals in the 
interest of the War Department circulated atrocious calumnies concerning him, 
which for a time found ready believers. He was a drunkard. He was a con- 
firmed opium-eater. He had been on the point of surrendering his army at 
Chattanooga. He was worse "stampeded" during the battle than the worst of 
his troops. He was not under fire, or near enough the battle to have any intel- 
ligible idea about it. Even the Secretary of War so far forgot himself, and out- 
raged all decency, as to speak of the hero of luka, Corinth, and Stone Eiver, as 
a coward! In short, 

" The painful warrior, famoused for fight, 
After a thousand victories, once foiled, 
Is from the books of honor razed quite, 
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled."t 

* Thomas J. Wood of Kentucky. t Shakspeare's Sonnets, XXV. 



344 Ohio in the War 

Impartial criticism can not indeed wholly acquit G-eneral Eosecrans of blame 
for Chickamauga. The idle clamor of the War Department about his fighting the 
battle at all, when he had possession of Chattanooga without it, may be jjassed 
by as the talk of those who know nothing of what they discuss. But it is not 
so clear that it was impossible to concentrate the army one or two days earlier 
in time to assume strong defensive positions. "With a competent commander for 
his right wing — and after Stone Eiver it was criminal to retain McCook — his 
orders for re-enforcing Thomas on the night of the 19th might have been executed 
before ten o'clock of the 20th, and the dangerous closing uj) on the left under fire, 
in the midst of which the disaster occurred, might have been avoided. The fatal 
order to Wood might have been more explicitly worded. It was curious wrong- 
headedness to misconstrue it, but there was left the possibility of misconstruction. 
And finally, the man who saved Stone Eiver might have done something to 
check the retreat of the broken right, and rally it on new positions for fresh 
defense, but for the error of judgment which led to the conclusion that all was 
lost because one wing was sacrificed. It is not always given to men to come up 
to their highest capacities. At Corinth and at Stone Eiver Eosecrans had risen 
superior to disasters, that, as it seemed, must overwhelm him. It must be 
regretfully set down that at Chickamauga he did not. Yet, what a good General 
in the midst of sore difiiculties might do, he did. He saved the army, gained the 
objective point of his campaign, and held the gates through which it was fated 
that other leaders should conduct the swelling hosts that were soon to debouch 
upon Georgia and the vitals of the Confederacy. 

When the order relieving him came, he never uttered a murmur. Turning 
over the command to his most trusted and loved General,* he dictated a touching 
and manly farewell; and, before his army knew that it was to lose him, he was 
on his way, under orders, to his home in Cincinnati. It was just a year since he 
had assumed command of the Department. 

For the next three months General Eosecrans remained quietly in Cincin- 
nati; serving as President of the great Sanitary Fair, and in every way striving 
to east his influence on the side of the soldiers and of the Government. The 
value of this influence, particularly among the Eoman Catholic voters of Cincin- 
nati, was incalculable. The people of his native State had never sympathized 
in the hue and cry raised against him, because after so many victories he had 
lost a battle; and the public journals continued to demand his restoration to 
command, with such persistency that he was finallyf ordered to relieve General 
Schofield in command of the Department of Missouri. 

He found that State harassed by the worst evils of civil war. The militia 
in the north-western counties, though nominally raised to preserve order in the 
community, was more than suspected of active sympathy with the rebellion. 
Murders and robberies were of constant occurrence; no man knew whether to 

* George H. Thomas, between whom and Rosecrans the relations were always of the most 
cordial and confidential nature, 
t 28th January, 1864. 



William S. Roseceans. 345 

trust his neighbor, and the whole country was in confusion ; while, to add to the 
general alarm, the secessionists were all confident that Price would speedily 
invade the State. His attention being attracted to the large shipments of arms 
into North-Western Missouri, General Eosecrans began, through his secret ser- 
vice, to explore the machinations of the secessionists, and was speedily convinced 
that they were well organized in a secret "Order of American Knights," which 
promised to be dangerous. The matter was thoroughly investigated, a large 
mass of testimony was taken, going to show a design to invade Missouri, Ohio, 
and Pennsylvania simultaneously, and efforts were made to warn and arouse the 
Government. 

But Eosecrans was in no better favor at Washington; and Grant, with 
whom the old affairs at luka and Corinth were scarcely forgotten, was now 
Lieutenant-General. When Eosecrans sent a staff-officer to Washington to rep- 
resent his need for more troops, the officer was arrested. When he sent the 
President word of his discoveries concerning the secret society, and asked 
leave to send on an officer to explain them, he was told to write out and send by 
mail whatever he might have to communicate. General Grant caused an officer 
to make an inspection of affairs in the department, who reported that Eosecrans 
already had far more troops than he needed. And so matters drifted on till, with 
the State stripped of nearly all troops save her own uncertain militia, the long- 
expected invasion came. 

Price entered South-Eastern Missouri, and the guerrillas, Eebel-sympa- 
thizing militia, and secession outlaws over the whole State suddenly broke out 
into more daring outrages. Securing A. J. Smith's cominand, which happened 
to be passing Cairo at the time, prevailing upon some Illinois hundred-days' 
men to come over to St. Louis and help defend the city, although their time of 
service had expired, and concentrating his troops on his main depots. General 
Eosecrans strove to preserve the points of importance while he developed the 
strength and intentions of the enemy. 

Then followed a curious medley of isolated engagements, attacks, pursuits, 
retreats, marches, and counter-marches. Price, with a mounted command, 
came within striking distance of St. Louis ; then beginning to comprehend the 
nature of the combinations against him, speedily retired. By this time Mower 
and Pleasanton had come to Eosecrans's relief There was some marching at 
cross-purposes in attempting to come up with Price, and one or two oppor- 
tunities to strike him were lost, but he was severely punished at the Big Blue, 
at the Marais-des-Cygnes, the Little Osage, and Newtonia, and so driven, shat- 
tered, reduced one-half in numbers, and with the loss of nearly all his materiel, 
into Arkansas again. 

General Eosecrans estimates Price's force in this campaign at from fifteen 
to twenty-six thousand. He took from him ten guns, two thousand prisoners, 
many small arms, and most of his baggage-train. He remained himself in St. 
Louis, at one time the point of greatest danger, and the place from which, as it 
seemed, he could best overlook the confused and desultory struggle.* The cam- 

* General Grant, in his official report, censured Eosecrans's conduct of this campaign very 



346 Ohio in the Wae. 

paign over, General Eosecrans hastened to forward such of his troops as were 
no longer needed, to re-enforce General Sherman at Atlanta. 

In the preservation of order at the State election which now .ensued, and 
in his general management of the political interests of his department, Eose- 
crans so acted as to receive the general, though qualified, approval of the "Ead- 
icals," and to confirm the reputation he had early acquired in "West Virginia 
for sagacity and fair-mindedness in civil affairs. 

He had been appointed to the command in Missouri in opposition to the 
personal hostility of the General-in-Chief, and of most of those who conducted 
the business of the war — a hostility largely incurred, as we have sought to 
show in the preceding pages, by indiscretions and hot-tempered sayings of his 
own. A political necessity had dictated his restoration ; the necessity was 
thouofht to be over ; the number of his enemies at the head of affairs was 
increased by the promotion of General Grant. He was relieved of his com- 
mand, without explanation or warning, on 9th December, 1864, and so took his 
final leave of active service. He made no public complaints, and was more 
than ever scrupulous that his influence among the Eoman Catholics should bind 
them more firmly to the cause .of the Government. 

At the close of the war, having been left b}" General Grant without assign- 
ment to duty, he applied for a year's leave of absence, during which he visited 
the silver mines of Nevada, and made scientific observations as to the richness 
of the mineral deposits in that and our other Western Territories. At the end 
of his leave he tendered the resignation of his high rank in the regular army, 
which was promptly accepted, and he was thus left, at the age of forty-eight, 
to begin the world anew, and almost at the bottom of the ladder again. 

The ofiicer thus ungraciously suffered to retire from the service he adorned, 
must forever stand one of the central figures in the history of the War for the 
Union. He can not be placed in that small category of commanders who were 
always successful ; but who of our Generals can ? Few of his battles or cam- 
paigns are entirely free from criticism, for "whoever has committed no faults 
has not made war." But as a strategist he stands among the foremost, if not 
himself the foremost, of all our Generals. In West Virginia he outmaneuvered 
Lee. At Corinth he beguiled Van Dorn and Price to destruction. In his Tul- 
lahoma and Chattanooga campaigns his skillfully -combined movements devel- 
oped the highest strategic ability, and set the model, which was afterward 
followed with varying success, in the famed advance on Atlanta. But responsi- 
bilit}^ weighed upon him and made him sometimes hesitating. For, as a great 
writer has said, "war is so anxious and complex a business that against every 
vigorous movement heaps of reasons can forever be found ; and if a man is so 
cold a lover of battle as to have no stronger guide than the poor balance of the 

severely, saying it showed "to how little purpose a superior force might be used," and that 
" there was no reason why he should not have concentrated his forces and beaten Price before 
the latter reached Pilot Knob." He forgot that this concentration Avould, even if possible, have 
left the other portions of the State exposed to the risings to which the oath-bound Kebels of the 
secret societies stood pledged. 



William S. Rosecrans. 347 

irguments and counter-arguments, his mind will oscillate or even revolve, 
iiaking no movement straightforward." Eosecrans's mind did not revolve, 
3ut more than once it oscillated painfully back and forth, when he should have 
jeen on the verge of action. When he did move his tactical abilitj^ shone as 
conspicuously as his strategy. He handled troops with rare facility and judg- 
nent under the stress of battle. More than all, there came upon him in the 
lOur of conflict the inspiration of war, so that men were magnetized by his 
jresence into heroes. Stone River under Rosecrans, and Cedar Creek under 
Sheridan, are the sole examples in the war of defeats converted into victories 
)y the re-enforcement of a single man. He was singularly nervous, but in 
)attle this quality was generally developed in a nervous exaltation which 
leemed to clear his faculties and intensify his vigor. Once, perhaps,* it led to 
m opposite result.f 

* At Chickamauga. 

t Some personal characteristics of General Rosecrans are happily described by Mr. Bickham 
n the following extracts from the " Campaign with the Fourteenth Army Corps :" 

" Industry was one of the most valuable qualities of General Rosecrans. Labor was a con- 
titutional necessity with him. And he enjoyed a fine faculty for the disposition of military 
lusiness — a faculty which rapidly improved with experience. Ke neither spared himself nor 
lis subordinates. He insisted upon being surrounded by active rapid workers. He liked ' sandy 
ellows,' because they were so ' quick and sharp.' He rarely found staff-officers who could 
ndure with him. Ambition prompted all of them to remain steadfastly with him until nature 
rould sustain no more. Often they confessed, with some exhibition of selfish reluctance, that 
te was endowed with extraordinary vital force, and a persistency which defied fatigue. Those 
rho served upon his staff in Western Virginia or Mississippi predicted a severe future. They 
^ere not deceived. He was habitually prepared for labor in quarters at ten o'clock in the morn- 
ng. On Sundays and Wednesdays he rose early and attended mass. He never retired before 
wo o'clock in the morning, very often not until four, and sometimes not until broad daylight. 
le often mounted in the afternoons and rode out to inspect or review the troops. It was not 
xtraordinary that his Aids sometimes dropped asleep in their chairs, while he was writing 
ehemently or glancing eagerly over his maps, which he studied almost incessantly. Sometimes 
le glanced at his ' youngsters ' compassionately, and pinching their ears or rubbing their heads 
taternally until he roused them, would send them to bed. * "■■ * '•■• 

" During the few days he remained at Bowling Green, he reviewed most of the divisions 
7hich had reached that vicinity. Night labors compensated for hours thus stolen from his 
ttaps, reports, and schemes for the improvement of the army. At the reviews the satisfaction 
if the troops with the change of commanders was manifested by their enthusiastic reception of 
lim. The manner of his inspections at once engendered a cordiality toward him which prom- 
sed happy results. The soldiers were satisfied that their commander took an interest in their 
relfare — a moralizing agency which no capable General of volunteers can safely neglect. He 
xamined the equipments of the men with exacting scrutiny. No trifling minutiae escaped him. 
Everything to which the soldier was entitled was important. A private without his canteen 
nstantly evoked a volley of searching inquiries. 'Where is your canteen?' 'How did you 
oseit? — when? — where?' 'Why don't you get another?' To others, 'You need shoes, and 
'■ou a knapsack.' Soldiers thus addressed were apt to reply frankly, sometimes a whole com- 
)any laughing at the novelty of such keen inquisition. 'Can't get shoes,' said one; 'required a 
ianteen and couldn't get it,' rejoined another. 'Why?' quoth the General. 'Go to your Cap- 
ain and demand what you need ! Go to him every day till you get it. Bore him for it ! Bore 
um in his quarters ! Bore him at meal-time ! Bore him in bed ! Bore him ; bore him ; bore 
lim I Do n't let him rest ! ' And to Captains, ' You bore your Colonels ; let Colonels bore their 
Brigadiers ; Brigadiers bore their division Generals ; division commanders bore their corps com- 
nanders, and let them bore me. I'll see, then, if you don't get what you want. Bore, bore, 
lore ! until you get everything you are entitled to ; ' and so on through an entire division. 



348 Ohio in the Wae. 

His fatal defect as a General was his luck of knowledge of human nature. 
Whatever he himself did was well done. When he came to intrust work to 
others he had no faculty of seeing, as by intuition, whom to trust and whom to 
avoid. And sometimes, w4ien repeated failures had taught him the worthless- 
ness of trusted subordinates, his kindness of heart withheld him from the action 
which duty demanded. It may well be believed that thus there came upon him 
that excessive devotion of his own time to minute details, Avhich was sometimes 
instrumental in causing delay. Added to this was that uncontrollable spirit 
which, ready to sacrifice everything for the Cause, would yet refuse to brook a 
single slight from a superior. With his inferiors he was uniformly kind and 

" ' That's the talk, boys,' quoth a brawny fellow. ' He'll do,' said another ; and the soldiers 
returned to their camp-fires and talked about ' Kosy,' just as those who knew him best in Missis- 
sippi had talked. 

" The confidence which such deportment inspired was pregnant with future good. And it 
was soon observed that he was careful to acknowledge a private's salute — a trifling act of good 
breeding and military etiquette, costing nothing, but too frequently neglected by officers who 
have much rank and little generous sympathy with soldiers who win them glory. This is a 
wise ' regulation,' but it reaches far deeper than mere discipline. 

" Shortly after head-quarters were established at Bowling Green Major-General George H. 
Thomas reported himself. The military family of the commanding General quickly recognized 
the real Chief of Staff. It had been observed that General Kosecrans did not ' consult ' habit- 
ually upon the principles and policy of the campaign with other commanding officei-s. The 
keen eyes of those familiar with his customs, however, discovered an unusual degree of respect 
and confidence exhibited toward General Thomas. Confidential interviews with him were fre- 
quent and protracted. It soon got to be understood in the camps that ' Pap ' Thomas was chief 
counsellor at head-quarters, and confidence in ' Rosy ' grew apace. 

" Riding along the highway, he was careful to observe the configuration of the country and 
its military characteristics, requiring the inscription upon the note-book of his topographical 
engineer of intersecting roads, as often as such roads rambled off into the forests along the line 
of march. Habitually cheerful in a remarkable degree, on such expeditions the mercury of his 
spirits rises into playfulness, which develops itself in merry familiar quips and jests with his 
subordinates, and none laugh more pleasantly than he. Fine scenery excites'his poetic tempera- 
ment, and he dwells eloquently upon the picturesqueness of nature, exhibiting at once the keenest 
appreciation of the 'kind mother of us all,' and the niceties of landscape art. But the grandeur 
of nature more frequently carries his mind into the realms of religion, when he is wont to burst 
into adoration of his Maker, or launch into vehement and impatient rebuke of scoffers. All of 
nature to him is admonition of God. Such is his abhorrence of infidelity that he would banish 
his best-loved officers from his military household should any presume to intrude it ui^on him. 
He is wont to say he has no security for the morality of any man who refuses to recognize the 
Supreme Being. Religion is his favorite theme, and Roman Catholicism to him is infallible. 
In his general discussions of religion he betrays surprising acquaintance with the multifarious 
theologies which have vexed the world, and condemns them all as corruptions of the true doc- 
trines of the Mother Church. His social conversations of this character are seldom indulged 
with his cherished guest, Rev. Father Tracey, with whom he is always en rapport, but he is ever 
ready to wage controversy with any other disputant. But argument with him on his faith had as 
well be ended with the beginning, save for the interest with Avhicli he invests his subject, and the 
ingenious skill Avith which he supports it. Ambling along the highway in a day's journey, 
unless some single theme of business absorbs him, he will range through science, art, and litera- 
ture with happy freedom and ability. You do not listen long before you are persuaded that you 
hear one who aspires ambitiously beyond the mere soldier. The originality and shrewdness of 
his criticisms, the comprehensiveness of his generalizations, and his erudition, assures you that 
von talk with no ordinary man." 



William S. Roseceans. 349 

)n8iclerate ; to those above him he was always punctilious, often testy, and at 
mes deplorably indisci-eet. No such correspondence as his with General Hai- 
ck, which in the preceding pages we have sought to trace, can be elsewhere 
lund throughout the history of the war. While he was in command at St. 
ouis he arrested a Consul,* and when ordered by Secretary Stanton to release 
im, peremptorily refused. He afterward said that he would have been relieved 
ither than obey that order. This sturdy honesty, which led him to take upon 
iraself the weightiest responsibilities, and incur the gravest displeasure rather 
lan do that which, in his conviction, would prove injurious to the Cause, was 
t once one of the most striking features of his character, and one of the potent 
masons for his constant embarrassments. 

The enemies whom he thus made dealt him their fatal blow at the unkind- 
5t moment. Eosecrans had never been more active, more enterprising, more 
willful than after Chickamauga. His plans for an advance were matured, the 
reliminary steps were all taken, the troops for which he had so long begged 
ad nearly reached him. In a few days more the glory of Lookout Mountain 
nd Mission Eidge might have been his. But the fields he had sown it was left 
)r others to reap ; from the coigne of vantage he had won it was left for others, 
ith larger armies and the unquestioning support of the Government, to swoop 
own on Georgia and march to the Sea. In his enforced retirement it may be 
is proudest boast that no word or action of his — however deepl}' he writhed 
eneath his treatment — tended to injure the cause of the country ; so that now, 
1 spite of all the exceptions we have made, he must forever shine in our history 
g a brave, able, and devoted Soldier of the Eepublic. 

General Eosecrans is nearly six feet high, compact, with little waste flesh, 
ervous and active in all his movements, from the dictation of a disjiutch to 
le tearing and chewing of his inseparable companion, his cigar. His brow is 
niple ; the eyes are penetrating and restless; the face is masked with well- 
•immed beard; but the mouth, with its curious smile, half of pleasure, half of 
Dme exquisite nervous feeling, which might be intense pain, is the feature 
^hich will linger longest in the mind of a casual visitor. He is easy of access, 
tterly destitute of pretense, and thoroughly democratic in his ways. With 
is staff his manner was familiar and almost paternal; with private soldiers 
Iways kindly. In the field he was capable of immense labor; he seemed never 
3 grow weary, and never to need sleep. Few officers have been more popular 
rith their commands, or have inspired more confidence in the rank and file. 

*For being concerned in the Order of American Knights. 

Note.— The account of the fatal order at Chickamauga, in the preceding sketch, follows 
leneral Kosecrans's own statements. The subject has been much disputed, and General Thomas 
. Wood, the division commander in question, has been permitted by the War department to file 
reply to Kosecrans's official report. Since the preceding pages were stereotyped, some of Gen- 
ral Wood's friends have complained that they do him injustice. After a careful review of the 
abject, I can not convince myself that the words in the text require any modification. General 
Vood certainly did misunderstand .the order. Its language was: "The General commanding 
irects that you close up on Reynolds as fast as possible and support him." Now, it happened 



350 Ohio in the War 



4 



that Brannan's division lay between Wood's and Eeynolds's — though Kosecrans had just been 
formed that it did not, and on that information wrote. To execute the order literally was impos- 
sible. General "Wood might "support" Eeynolds, but he could not "close up upon" him 
without crowding Brannan out of line. When the letter of an order, therefore, was impossible, 
would not any fair mode of interpretation require that its spirit should be looked at? And, to a 
division commander in that wing — knowing the peril in which Thomas was placed, and the ten-i 
dencv of all the morning's effort to withdraw troops for his support and steadily close up the 
remaining troops on the left toward him — ought there to have been one moment's question as to 
the real meaning of an order to close up on somebody on the left? 

Here the case might rest ; but the indiscretion of General Wood's friends in their discussion 
of a matter for which they ought to seek a speedy forgetfulness, warrants a further step. 

Even if liberal execution of the order had been possible, obedience to it approached crimi- 
nality. It is a well-settled principle of military law that a subordinate has the right to disobey 
an order manifestly given under a misapprehension of facts, and sure to be disastrous in its con- 
sequences. To do so involves a grave responsibility, and (should an error of judgment be made 
in the matter) a grave personal risk. But there is another and graver responsibility — the ruin 
of an army, the loss of a cause. Between these responsibilities, on that fateful morning, Gen- 
eral Wood made his choice. Whatever may be his present feelings about it, he may be sure that 
his children, thirty years hence, will not point with pride to the fact that, in such a case, their 
father chose the risk for the army rather than the risk for himself. 

I append extracts giving the pith of the various official statements of the case. General 
Halleck's annual report, in reciting the facts, says: 

. . . "when, according to General Rosecrans's order, General Wood, overlooking the order to close up oni 
Beynolds, supposed he was to support him by withdrawing from the front and passing in the rear of General Brannan." 

General Eosecrans's report says : 

" A message from General Thomas soon followed that he was heavily pressed. Captain Kellogg, A. D. C, the 
bearer, informing me at the same time that General Brannan was out of line, and General Reynolds's right was . 
exposed. Orders were dispatched to General Wood to close up on Reynolds, and word was sent to General Thomas tliat l 
he should be supported, even if it should take the whole corps of Crittenden and McCook. . . . General Wood, over- ■ 
looking the direction to ' close up' on General Reynolds, supposed he was to support him by withdrawing from the 
line and passing to the rear of General Brannan, who, it appears, was not out of line, but was in echelon, and slightlr 
in rear of Reynolds's right. By this unfortunate mistake a gap was opened in the line of battle, of which the enemy 
took Instant advantage." '' 

General Wood's " note," filed with Eosecrans's official report, says : 

"A few minutes, perhaps five, before eleven o'clock, A. M., on the 20th, I received the following order: 

" ' Head-Quaetees, D. C, September 30— 10;45. 
" 'Beiqadiee-Geneeal Wood, Commanding Division, etc.: 

" ' The General commanding directs that you close up on Reynolds as fast as possible, and support him. 

" ' Respectfully, etc., FRANK. J. BOND, Major and A. D. C 

" This order was addressed as follows : 

" ' 10:45 A. M. Gallop. Brigadier-General WOOD, Commanding Division." 

" At the time it was received there was a division (Brannan's) in line between my division and General Reynolds's. 
I was immediately in rear of the center of my division at the time. I immediately dispatched my staff officers to the 
brigade commanders, directing them to move by the left, crossing in the rear of General Brannan's division to close up 
and support General Reynolds ; and as the order was peremptory, I directed the movement to be made on the double- 
quick. It was commenced immediately. 

" As there was a division between General Eeynolds's and mine, it was absolutely physically impossible for me to 
obey the order by any other movement than the one I made." 

To this it may be added that General Eosecrans afterward said substantially that he had 
once found General Wood giving a liberal interpretation to an order, when literal obedience 
would have been better ; and now a strained literal obedience, when he must have seen that it 
would be disastrous. The order in question was the only one from head-quarters through the 
battle not written by General Garfield, the Chief of Staff. 

I have preferred, also, to let the figures stand as given in the text, setting forth the numbers 
of the opposing armies at Cliickamauga. In justice to Eosecrans, however, I should add that hi^ 
Chief of Staff says there were not over forty-two thousand five hundred men on our side in the 
fight. And finally, minute verbal criticism may object to the sentence which speaks of the whole 
right wing as crumbling, inasmuch as one division did splendidly maintain its coherence. Never- 
theless, the statement is correct as to the Wing, and besides, that division was thenceforward 
able to exert no influence on the fortunes of the day. Its course is described elsewhere, in the 
sketch of its distinguished commander, General Sheridan. 




ExLg ^VAEmtclne. 



Ulysses S. Grant. 351 



GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



THAT the son of a Tannei', poor, unpretending, without influential 
friends until his performance had won them, ill-used to the world and 
its ways, should rise — not suddenly, in that first blind worship of helpless 
ignorance which made any one who understood regimental tactics illustrious in 
advance for what he was going to do, not at all for what he had done — but 
slowly, grade by grade, through all the vicissitudes of constant service and 
mingled blunders and success ; till, at the end of a four years' war, he stood at 
the head of our armies, crowned by popular acclaim our greatest Soldier, is a 
satisfactory answer to criticism and a sufficient vindication of greatness. Suc- 
cess succeeds. 

We may reason on the man's career. We may prove that at few stages has 
he shown personal evidences of marked ability. We may demonstrate his mis- 
takes. We may swell the praises of his subordinates. But after all, the career 
stands — wonderful, unique, worthy of the study we now invite to it, so long as 
the Nation honors her benefactors, or the State cherishes the good fame of the 
sons who have contributed most to do her honor. 

Hiram Ulysses G-rant, since called, Ulysses Simpson G-rant, was born on the 
27th of April, 1822, in a little, one-story house on the banks of the Ohio, at the 
village of Point Pleasant, in Clermont County. His parents were poor, respect- 
able young laborers, who had been married only ten months before. His father 
when a boy, had been brought with the family from Pennsylvania to Colum- 
biana County, near the Western Eeserve. Five years later, then an orphan of 
eleven, he was apprenticed to a tanner. During the war of 1812 he went with 
his mother to Maysville, Kentucky. At its close, in his 21st year, he returned 
to the Eeserve and established a tannery of his own at Eavenna. After five 
years' experiment he went back, still poor, to the Ohio Eiver. Here he met 
with and married Miss Hannah Simpson. The mother of the future Greneral 
belonged to the same walks of life with the father. She was a native of Mont- 
gomery County, Pennsylvania, and had come West with her father's family 
only three years before.* 

"■•■Those curious in such matters have traced back the lineage of General Grant, on the fath- 
er's side, to Matthew Grant, one of the Scotch emigrants, by the "Mary and John," to Dorches- 
ter, Massachusetts, in 1630. Among the collateral branches they have also found connections of 
Hon. Columbus Delano and General Don Carlos Buell, the one related by blood to General 



352 Ohio in the War. 

A year after the birth of their first son the young couple removed to the 
next county eastward, and settled at Georgetown. They continued poor — so 
poor that all thought of education for their boy, beyond the "quarter in winter- 
time" at the village school, was out of the question. The lad showed sjjirit and 
good sense, but this seems to have suggested nothing more to the struggling 
pair than what an excellent tanner he would make. "Ulysses was industrious 
in his studies," so writes his father,* "but at that time I had little means and 
needed his assistance; so that, except the three winter months, he had but little 
chance for school after he was about eleven." 

Before this, indeed, the boy had begun to show the pluck a;nd obstinacy 
there were in him. "I had left a three years' old colt in the stable," — it is again 
his father who tells usf — "and was to be gone all day. I had had the colt but 
a few days and it had never been worked. Ulysses, then not quite seven years 
old, got him out, geai'ed, and hitched him to a sled, led and drove him to the 
woods, loaded up his sled with bark, chips, and such wood as he could put on, 
mounted tlie load and, with a single line, drove home." The passion for horses, 
which no cares or honors have been able to eradicate, seems, in fact, to have 
been the most prominent feature of the boy's life; for his father, striving to re- 
call his memories of those young days, immediately afterward;]: gives us another 
anecdote of the same nature: "I wanted Ulysses to go about three miles and 
back on an errand for me one day, before I could start on a trip which was to 
take the whole day. He wanted to ride a i^acing horse I had, but as I was going 
to ride this myself on his return, I told him he must take the colt. 'Well,' said 
he, 'if I do 1 will break him to pace.' In about an hour back he came, and he 
really had the young horse in a beautiful pace." 

Alreadj', with an old head on his young shoulders, the lad assumed responsi- 
bilities as naturally as a man. His schoolmates tell us that, though never 
obtrusive, he insensibly came to be the leader in their games, and to direct their 
schoolboy exploits. So, too, when one of these schoolmates tries to remember 
what he can recall as the most striking thing about Grant's boyhood, he gives 
us this: II "At the age of twelve he aspired to the management of his father's 
draught team, and was intrusted with it for the purpose of hauling some heavy 
hewed logs. Several men Avith handspikes were to load them up for him. He 
came with his tea*m and found the logs but not the men. Observing a fallen 
tree with a gradual iipward slope he unhitched his horses, attached them to one 
of the hewed logs, drew it horizontally to the tree, and then drew one end of 
it up the inclined trunk higher than the wagon-truck, and so as to project a few 

Grant's great-grandmother, the other to his grandfether's first wife. The following they give as 
General Grant's direct line of de.scent from the Matthew Grant of the '''Mary and John:" 

I. Matthew and Priscilla Grant. 2. Samuel and Mary Grant; born Porter. 3. Samuel and 
Grace Grant; born Miner. 4. Noah and Martlia Grant; born Huntingdon. 5. Noah and 
Susannah Grant; born Delano. 6. Noah and Rachel Grant; born Kellery. 7. Jesse Root and 
Hannah Grant; born Simpson. 8. Ulysses S. Grant, 

* Private letters from Jesse R. Grant, furnishing details for this sketch. 
, tibid. tibid. 

II Letter of Hon. J. N. Morrig to the National Intelligencer, March 22, 1864. 



' Ulysses S. Grant. 353 

feet pver it. So lie continued to do until he had brought several to this position. 
Next he backed the wagon under the projecting ends; and finally, one by one, 
liitched and drew the logs lengthwise across the fallen trunk on to his wagon, 
hitched up again, and returned with his load to his astonished father."* 

Such glimjDses we get of the sturdy, active, self-reliant boy who was now 
last growing up to the life of a tanner; with some knowledge of reading and 
writing, a little arithmetic, and not much else in the way of education, save that 
uh'ich came from the great school in which his most valuable lessons have been 
learned, the school of self-supporting experience. His parents were still in very 
limited circumstances; children came as they come to poor families generally; 
there were five more mouths to feed and bodies to clothe. The eldest had now 
spent six years laboring with his father; he was almost arrived at man's estate. 
We may well believe that his good mother, a grave, matronly, judicious woman, 
whose character seems in man}- ways impressed upon her distinguished son, did 
not fail to encourage the boy's desire for something better. But what should he 
do? Colleges were out of the question ; high-schools could scarcely be thought of. 
It was an era of bankruptcy and general financial distress. The future seemed to 
offer no encouragement. Something of a politician and a worker, it was natural 
that Jesse Grant should think of political relief. He wrote to Senator Morris 
concerning "West Point. The Senator replied that he had no appointment, but 
that Hon. Thomas L. Hamer (the representative of the district, a leading Dera- 
crat and a noted stump orator of those days) had. Curiously enough it 
happened that Mr. Hamer had appointed a young man named Bailey, who 
failed to pass the examination for admittance. f The failure of Cadet Bailey 
made the vacancy for Ulysses Grant; and he was appointed. | 

In his eighteenth year, then, on the 1st of Jul}', 1839, we find Grant fairly 
embarked at West Point He had a hundred classmates at the outset — not one, 
it is said, with preparation as deficient as his for the academic course. But be- 
fore the four yeai's were ended only thirty-nine were left out of the hundred to 
graduate ; and Grant had worked his way well up toward the middle of this 
smaller number in the grade of his attainments. Among these men were Wm. 
B. Franklin, who bore off the honors of the class ; Eosewell S. Eipley, late of 
the Eebel army; John J. Peck, Jos. J. Eeynolds, and C. C. Augur, three well- 

*The following story we find in a popular Boy's Biography of Grant. His father has given 
U8 a confirmation of it: 

" The absence of fear was always a characteristic of Ulysses. When two years of age, 
while Mr. Grant was carrying Ulysses in his arms on a public occasion through the village, a 
young man wished to try the effect of a pistol report on the child. Mr. Grant consented, saying, 
'The child has never seen a pistol or gun in his life.' The baby hand was put on the lock and 
pressed quietly there till it snapped, and off went the charge with a loud report. Ulysses scarcely 
stirred; but in a moment pushed away the pistol, saying, 'Fick it again/ fick it again P A by- 
Btander remarked: 'That boy will make a general; for he neither winked nor dodged.'" 

TThe examination which Bailey could not pass, and which seems to have been regarded with 
some apprehension by Grant, included simply reading, spelling, writing, and arithmetic to deci- 
mal fractions. 

X Letter of J. N. Morris to National Intelligencer. 
Vol. L— 23. 



354 Ohio in the Wak. 

known Union Major-Generals; Fi-anklin Gardner, who surrendered Port Ilud- 
8on; Frederick Steele, and Eufus Ingalls. Among the thirty-nine Grant was 
graded the twenty-first. No one dreamed of his ever being a General. He had 
good sense, was quiet, industi-ious, rather popular with those who knew him, 
and withal a little old-fashioned and peculiar, as was natural to a boy of his 
antecedents. A schoolmate* says of him: "I remember him as a plain, common- 
sense, straightforward youth; quiet, rather of the old-head-on-the-young-shoul- 
der order; shunning notoriety; quite contented while others were grumbling; 
taking to his military duties in a very business-like manner; not a prominent 
man in the corps, but respected by all and very popular with his friends. His 
soubriquet of 'Uncle Sam'f Avas given him there, where every good fellow has 
a nickname, from these very qualities; indeed, he was a very uncle-like sort of 
youth. He was then and always an excellent horseman; and his picture rises 
before me as I write, in the old torn coat, obsolescent leather gig-top, loose rid- 
ing pantaloons with spurs buckled over them, going with his clanging saber to 
the drill-hall. He exhibited but little enthusiasm in anything; his best stand- 
ing was in the mathematical branches and their application to tactics and mili- 
tary engineering." 

So the uncle-like j^outh got on ; in quiet, jog-trot fashion, making no show, 
certainly indulging no sentiment, but plodding on in his own matter-of-fact way. 
And, in reality, he did plod to some purpose ; for that a boy who had lived to 
his eighteenth year in a tannery, with no education beyond "reading, writ- 
ing, and arithmetic in decimal fractions," should learn enough in four years to 
stand even twenty-first in a class that had traversed the West Point course, was 
in itself much. 

His standing was of coarse too low for anything but the Infantry, and so he 
was assigned as brevet Second Lieutenant to the Fourth, then stationed at Jef- 
ferson Barracks, St. Louis. His residence here lasted a year, in the usual 
dull routine of army life, but with one episode that was to have its influ- 
ence on his future career. Among his classmates had been one Frederick T. 
Dent,| of St. Louis, like him not standing very high in the class, and like him 
assigned to the Fourth Infantry. It was natural that Dent should take him to 
visit his family; not ver}^ natural, one would say, that Grant should fall in 
love. But he did. Five years later, on his return from Mexico, he married Miss 
Dent — the gentle woman who has since been at his side through good and 
through evil repute. 

But service in the regular army makes small allowance for the exigencies 

* Professor Coppee — Grant and his Campaigns, page 22. 

t There seems to have been some curious blundering about a name that was, one day, to rate 
so high. As his father exphains it, he was originally named Hiram Ulysses, the last name being 
a favorite with his grandmother. His Cadet warrant, however, was made out for Ulysses Sidney. 
He quietly took the name and bore it through West Point. Then, in honor of his mother, he 
finally changed Sidney to Simpson. 

i Still in the Fourth Infantry where he has risen to Major; also Brevet Brigadier and serv- 
ing on Grant's staff. 



Ulysses S. Grant. 355 

of courtships. Within a year Grant was sent away from St. Louis, with his 
regiment, to Natchitoches, Louisiana; thence, a year later, to the Mexican 
fVontier; then, as the war broke out, across the Rio Grande with Zachary Tay- 
lor's famous army of occupation. Meantime, after two years' waiting, he had 
become a Second-Lieutenant and, by special permission, had been allowed to 
remain in the Fourth Infantry with his brother-in-law that was to be, instead 
of being transferred to the Seventh, for which his aj^pointment was originally 
made out. 

With his regiment he participated in the opening contests at Palo Alto and 
Eesaca de la Palma — his first sight of real war; and some months later he 
passed through the bloodier engagement of Monterey. The regiment was now 
withdrawn to General Scott's column before Vera Cruz ; and presently Grant 
was made the regimental quartermaster. Apparently there was no thought 
that the man had better material in him than was needed for managing 
wagon-ti'ains. But he had no idea of devoting himself to the trains when a 
battle was going on ; and so we find that at every engagement he joined his 
regiment and shared its exposure. At Molino del Eey he won praise and a brevet. 
At Chapultepec "he behaved with distinguished gallantry," as the ofiicial 
report of the commanding officer of his regiment testified; while the brigade 
commander added, "I must not omit to call attention to Lieutenant Grant, 
Fourth Infantry, who acquitted himself most nobly upon several occasions 
under my own observation;" and General Worth himself felt warranted in 
expressing his obligations to " Lieutenants Lendrum and Grant, Fourth Infantry, 
■especially." 

So much of the future General-in-Chief can be seen through the nebulous 
atmosphere of official reports during the Mexican war — no more. Doubtless 
he behaved as hundreds of others did — no bettei" — no worse. But he had still 
made no impression on the men who concerned themselves with the rising 
officers of the army; no one thought of a brilliant future for him; and he con- 
tinued to be the quartermaster of his regiment — first in New York, then on the 
Northern frontier. At last he rose to the command of his company, and about 
the same time he was married. His command was kept for a season at Detroit; 
then at Sackett's Harbor. Thus, in quiet garrison-duty, three years of married 
life went by. Then he was ordered to Oregon, where he saw a little Indian 
fighting. Two years passed on the Pacific coast. The idleness of army life, 
absence from his family, and the swarming temptations of the early times in 
California and Oregon, began to tell upon our sober-sided, uncle-like youth. 
His passion for horses did not, in the least, diminish. Billiards were always fasci- 
nating. Presently less desirable sources of exhilaration began to exert their 
power. 

The sudden reception of an order assigning him to a command far in tho 
interior of Oregon, broke the current on which our Captain was embarked. It 
seemed to indicate indefinite separation from his family ; it promised no distinc- 
tion, and certainly no pleasure. He wisely decided that it was time to rejoin 



356 Ohio in the War. 

his wife; resigned his commission just eleven years and one montli after enter- 
ing the service;* and went home to try his fortune in civil life.f 

He first established himself near the home of his wife's relatives in St. 
Louis County, Missouri, as a farm'er. In this he failed. He tried to sell wood, 
and failed again. In his matter-of fact Avay he went to work with his own 
hands to earn bread for his family. An old comrade at West Point says : "I vis- 
ited St. Louis at this time, and remember with pleasure that Grant, in his farmer 
rig, whip in hand, came to see me at the hotel where were also Joseph J. Eey- 
nolds, Don Carlos Buell, and Major Chapman of the cavalry."J And it is pleas- 
ant to find him adding: "If Grant had ever used spirits, as is not unlikely, 
I distinctly remember that, upon the proposal being made to drink, Grant said : 
'I will go in and look at you for I never drink anything;' and the other officers, 
who saw him frequently, afterward told me that he drank nothing but water." 

But proper conduct alone will not eai-n bread. Farming and wood- 
selling having proved failures he moved into the city. But in all that great, 
bustling center of activity whither, as to the coming metropolis of the continent, 
adventurous young men were thronging from every quarter of the over-crowded 
East to seek their fortunes, there seemed nothing at which Captain Grant could 
succeed. He tried auctioneering. He applied to the city authorities for a posi- 
tion as engineer, which they "respectfully declined." He attempted something 
in the real-estate agency way. He tried that most unpleasant of callings, 
collecting money for creditors who had no time to j^ursue their small debtors 
with personal duns. All this time he lived almost from hand to mouth. He 
was too poor to rent an office ; but he found a fat, good-natured young lawyer, 
named Hillyer, whose office was not overcrowded with clients, and who will- 
ingly gave him desk room. And so he worried through till 1859. 

Meantime the canny Scot nature had shown itself in his industrious father. 
The old gentleman had prospered bravely in tanning, and had become the 
owner of a harness and leather store, with means to enlarge his business if he 
chose. He was beginning a branch of his establishment at Galena, Illinois, in 
which a younger son was to be a partner. Ulysses had shown so little capacity 
for "getting on," and withal seemed so deprived of the energy that had been 
noticed in him during his boj^ish days by the idleness of army life, that it 
became necessaiy to do something for him. Mr. Grant thought the boy ought 
to know something about the leather trade, if he knew anything at all in a 
business way, and so he had him remove to Galena to act as a sort of assistant 

« On July 31, 1854. 

1 1 have preferred, in the foregoing paragraph, to follow the account sanctioned by Grant's 
family and friends of the way in which he came to leave the service. But I am reminded of 
that wise maxim of Lessing's: "It is a duty, if one undertake to teach the truth, to teach the 
whole of it or none at all." It would be dishonest in one professing to trace the development of 
Grant's character and the events of his life, to suppress allusion to the dissipated habits into 
which, at this stage in his career, he had unfortunately fallen. The belief has been current 
through the West (and there are some reasons for crediting it) that his resignation was prompted 
by the significant warning which the Department, because of these habits, now felt bound to 
give him. 

t Professor Coppee — Grant and his Campaigns, page 26. 



Ulysses S. Gkant. 357 

manager in the house of Grant & Son. Citizens knew little of the elder 
brother at the new leather store. But the few that came to be intimate with 
him, in the two years that intervened before the outbreak of the war, while una- 
ble, as all hud been before, to discern any signs of coming greatness beneath 
his almost stolid exterior, had not foiled to observe the good judgment and 
strong common sense, which commended him as an eminently safe man. Who- 
ever knew him well, liked him. Not many thought him much of a business man ; 
but it Avas a strong point that he was not above his business. He put on no airs ; 
assumed nothing in consequence of his connection with that aristocratic affair, 
the regular army; was not disposed to boast over his exploits in Mexico. He 
lived modestly, and seemed to be at last getting his head above water. 

Such was the retired army Captain on the 12th of April, 1861. After a 
hard struggle he seemed to have gained a footing ; there stretched before him a 
quiet, unostentatious life— rising to a partnership, selling good leather for good 
prices, and gaining in the end a modest competence, which, in Galena, would be 
ample for a respected and comfortable old age. The next day all was changed. 
With the firing on Sumter his Destiny came to him. 

Tp to this time Grant had been a decided Democrat. He disliked the 
Eepublican movement, sympathized with the South in its recital of grievances, 
detested the Abolitionists. But he had the soldierly instinct which was wanting 
to so many of his old comrades. When the flag he had sworn to maintain was 
assailed he knew no question of politics. "He laid down the paper containing 
the account of the bombardment" — so writes an admiring intimate in the family— 
^'walked around the counter and drew on his coat, saying, 'I am for the war to 
put down this wicked Eebellion. The Government educated me for the army 
iind, though I served faithfully through one war, I feel still a little in debt for my 
education, and am ready to discharge the obligation.'"* 

He threw himself at once into the recruiting work which swept over the 
North ; drilled the company first raised in Galena, and went with them to the 
State capital. In that hour of sudden need men that knew how to drill com- 
panies, and understood the organization of a regiment, were god-sends to the 
officials who had so long helped the popular prejudice against musters and the 
" cornstalk militia." It was no sooner discovered, at SjDringfield, that Captain 
Grant had actually been at West Point, and had besides seen real fighting in Mex- 
ico, than the Governor determined to secure so valuable an aid. Forthwith he 
was made Adjutant-General for the State, and was set to work at mustering in 
troops. The confusion was intolerable ; at first the rather slow Adjutant-General 
made little more headway in it than had the civilians. Perhaps, after all, he was 
not highly fitted for office work. Once or twice it was hinted that he might take 
a regiment, if he chose, and go into the field. But the plan of electing officers dis- 
gusted him. He would not command, as soldiers, men who were his constitu- 
ents. In June he was absent for a short time on a visit to his father at Cincin- 

* A lady friend of the Grants, in the Portage County Democrat, March 30, 1864. 



358 Ohio in the Wak. 

nati. By this time regimental elections were abandoned, and, during his ab- 
sence. Governor Yates appointed Gi-ant Colonel of the Twenty-First. 

The regiment was to serve only three months. Pleased at having an 
educated soldier for Colonel the men re-enlisted for three years, and speedily 
became noted for their drill and discipline. Presently there was an alarm about 
Quincy, and Colonel Grant marched his regiment thither, a distance of one 
hundred and twenty miles. Then came orders to defend railroad lines in 
Northern Missouri, which brought him into the vicinity of other regiments. 
The civilian Colonels who outranked him shrank from giving orders to a 
veritable West Pointer, and so he became commander of the brigade.* 

* A "Staff Officer" gives currency to a story of these early campaigning days. It was while 
Grant was leading a small column after Jeff. Thompson : 

" Lieutenant Wickfield, of an Indiana cavalry regiment, commanded the advance guard,, 
consisting of eighty mounted men. About noon he came up to a small farm-house, from the out- 
ward appearance of which he judged that there might be something fit to eat inside. He halted 
his company, dismounted, and with two Second-Lieutenants entered the dwelling. He knew that 
Grant's incipient fame had already gone out through all that country, and it occurred to him 
that by representing himself to be the General he might obtain the best the house afforded. So^ 
assuming a very imperative demeanor, he accosted the inmates of the house, and told them 
he must have something for himself and staff to eat. They desired to know who he was, and he 
told them that he was Brigadier-General Grant. At the sound of that name they flew around with 
alarming alacrity and served up about all they had in the house, taking great pains all the while 
to make loud professions of loyalty. The Lieutenants ate as much as they could of the not over- 
sumptuous meal, but which was, nevertheless, good for that country, and demanded what was to 
pay. 'Nothing.' And they went on their way rejoicing. 

" In the meantime General Grant, who had halted his army a few miles further back for a 
brief resting .spell, came in sight of, and was rather favorably impressed with, the appearance of 
this same house. Riding up to the fence in front of the door, he desired to know if they would 
cook him a meal. 

"'No,' said a female in a gruff voice; 'General Grant and his staff have just been here and 
eaten everything in the house except one pumpkin pie.' 

"'Humph,' murmured Grant; 'what is your name?' 

"'Selvidge,' replied the woman. 

"Casting a half dollar in at the door he asked if she would keep that pie till he sent an 
officer for it; to which she replied that she would. 

"That evening, after the camping-ground had been selected, the various regiments were noti- 
fied that there would be a grand parade at half-past six for orders. Officers would see that their 
men all turned out, etc. In five minutes the camp was in a perfect uproar and filled with all 
sorts of rumors. Some thought the enemy were upon them, it being so unusual to have parades 
when on a march. At half past six the parade was formed, ten columns deep, and nearly a quar- 
ter of a mile in length. After the usual routine of ceremonies the acting assistant Adjutant-Gen- 
eral read the following order: 

"'Head-quarters Army in the Field. 
" 'Special Order No. — . 

" ' Lieutenant Wickfield of the Indiana Cavalry, liaving on this day eaten everything in 

Mrs. Selvidge's house, at the crossing of tlie Ironton and Pocnhontas and Black Eiver and Cape 
Girardeau Roads, except one pumpkin pie, Lieutenant Wickfield is hereby ordered to return with 
an escort of one liundred cavalry and eat that pie also. 

" 'U. S. Grant, Brigadier-General Commanding.' 

"Grant's orders were law, and no soldier ever attempted to evade them. At seven o'clock 
the Lieutenant filed out of camp with his liundred men, amid the cheers of the entire army. 
The escort concurred in stating that he devoured the whole of the pie, and seemed to relish it." 



Ul^YSSES S. GrRANT. 359 

Generals were needed and, since Grant was doing Avell as acting Briga- 
tlier, his appointment to tlio grade was naturall}^ suggested. On the 9th of 
August the commission was issued, though it was made to bear date from the 
17th of May. True to his old middle-ground he held about the middle place 
in the list of thirty-four appointments to General rank that day made. Neither 
to General Scott, however, nor to any of the others who were searching the 
ranks of the old army for promising young men with whom to fill its higher 
places, did his name once occur. McClellan was thought of; Eosecrans, Fre- 
mont, McDowell, Halleck were all thought of; but no one ever suggested that 
Grant was worthy of more than a j)lace among the politicians who were carry- 
ing off the Brigadier-Generalships of Volunteers. In fact some of his old com- 
rades were even surprised at his attaining that measure of success. But his 
time was coming. 

The new General was ordered down to Cairo, and given command of the 
small district around the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, then known as 
the District of South-Eastern Missouri. Troops were pouring down the Illinois 
Central Eailroad from all parts of the State, and the General soon found himself 
with an ample command. Those wei'e the days of the McClellan and Buckner 
neutralit3^* While the Kentuckians were amusing McClellan, their friends 
were seizing Hickman, Columbus, and BoAvling Green. They were just about to 
plant themselves at Paducah (on the Ohio River at the mouth of the Tennessee), 
a strongly secession town, the possession of which would have enabled them to 
command the navigation of the Tennessee and the lower Ohio. General Grant 
comprehended the position and acted promptlj'. The people of Paducah were 
hourly expecting the arrival of a Rebel force when, on the morning of the 6th 
of September, they awoke to find the town in possession of a brigade of Grant's 
troops under Chas. F. Smith. Soon after he seized Smithland, ten miles further 
up, at the entrance of the Cumberland, and thus held the mouths of the streams 
which led to the center of the extended line the Rebels were forming. In these 
operations Grant showed promptness and good sense; but he gave also the first 
display of another quality, little suspected as j'ct, Avhich was to prove one of the 
most important elements of his future success. He selected the right man for 
the work. Chas. F. Smith was the beau ideal of a soldier, and men of the old 
army held him its ablest and most accomplished officer. It was an army tradition 
that he had incurred the hot displeasure of General Scott, who never forgot nor 
forgave. But for this, many thought, he might have had the place to which 
young McClellan was so unexpectedly raised. With Smith at Paducah the 
Tennessee was safe. But the waj's of the rigid old discij^linarian were not the 
w^ays of the fresh volunteers, and soon a clamerous storm against him began to 
blow about head-quarters. The newspapers scolded; their columns teemed with 
communications from indignant soldiers; politicians took hold of it, and the 
sins of Paducah Smith were canvassed at the Capitol. But Grant knew his 
man, and never faltered in his support. By-and-by came Fort Donelson; and 

••■ See ante — Life of McClellan. 



360 



Ohio in the War. 



the vision of the white-haired old hero, bare-headed, leading the wild charge 
over the outer intrenchments, shamed into silence the grumblers and the slan- 
derers. 

Price was advancing into Missouri. Jeff. Thompson was already roaming, 
apparently at will, through the State. The Eebel garrison at Columbus was 
believed to be re-e«forcing Price, and it seemed probable, at any rate, that it 
would interfere with a small column sent out by Grant in pursuit of Thompson. 
Fremont, now in command of the department, accordingly ordered Grant to 
make a demonstration against Columbus. Grant at once sent word to Smith, at 
Paducah, of his intentions, and requested that a co-operating movement from 
that point be made against the rear of Columbus. At the same time he ordered 
some changes in the movement of the forces in pursuit of Jeff. Thompson, that 
might tend to confuse the enemy as to the real nature of the operations in hand. 
Then, embarking a force of three thousand men* on steamboats, he proceeded 
down the Mississippi to a point nine miles below Cairo (not quite half way to Co- 
lumbus), where he rounded to, and tied up for the night on the Kentuck}' shore. 
Up to this point it would seem that General Grant had formed no decided 
plan for a demonstration against the enemy. News received here after midnight, 

he tells U8,t determined him to attack — 
not Columbus — but the out-lying post 
at Belmont, directly across the river 
from Columbus, and under its guns. The 
news which decided this unexpected 
movement was brought by a "reliable 
Union man " to his small force at 
Charleston, and thence forwarded to him 
by special messenger. It was to the 
effect that the garrison at Columbus had 
been crossing troops into Missouri at 
Belmont, for the purpose of pursuing and 
falling upon the rear of the column 
which Grant had sent after Jeff. Thomp- 
son. It does not appear that he had 
any expectation of pursuing the pur- 
suers. He onl}^ decided to attack vigor- 
ousl}' whatever forces he might find at 
Belmont, "knowing that in case of re- 
pulse we could re-embai"k without diffi- 
culty.!" 

It is easy enough now to see that such a movement could have but one ter- 
mination. The troops landed on the Mississippi shore, just as near Belmont as 
the steamboats dare approach— for fear of the Columbus batteries. They 

■••■ The exact number was three thousand one hundred and fourteen — Grant's Official Eeport, 
Belmont. 

tibid. tibid. 




BATTLE OF BELMONT. 



Ulysses S. G-rant. 361 

marched by the flank, with skirmishers well in advance, about a mile down the 
liver, and then formed in line of battle; whei-e, presently, they encountered the 
enemy advanced a mile or mox-e above his camp. The troops, to nearly all of 
whom it was their first battle, behaved handsomely. They were opposed by 
three Eebel regiments, nearly or quite equal in numbers to their own force; but 
they steadily advanced their line, drove the Eebels into the tangled timber 
abattis in front of their camp, through which they finally charged, sweeping 
everything before them, and driving the Eebels (now augmented by Pillow's 
recently arrived re-enforcements) over the bank down to their transports. 

Grant, meanwhile, had freely exposed himself to all the dangers of the con- 
flict, his horse had been shot under him, and the soldiers, seeing him ever in 
advance, were inspired with confidence. But, though it was the first battle in 
which he had ever held a command (for he did not even have charge of his 
own company in any of his engagements in Mexico), he remained cool enough 
in the midst of the enthusiasm, to comprehend the necessity of instant retreat. 
Already the heavy Rebel artillery, from the opposite bank, was trained upon 
them. Pillow had brought over three fresh regiments only in time to be caught in 
the impetuous charge of the lUinoisians and lowans, but now they were re-form- 
ing under the bank, and General Polk himself was crossing with two regiments 
more. It was not evident that General Grant yet knew that three more regiments 
were crossing above to intercept his return to his transports; but enough was 
seen to convince him that not a moment must be lost in getting out of his cap- 
tured camp. Everything was hastily fired, the Rebel artillery was dragged off, 
and the column started up the river for its boats. 

And now there suddenly rose in their path the apparition of a fresh foe. 
The Rebel column designed to cut them off from their transports had gained its 
position. Four pieces of the captured artilleiy were abandoned ; and with the 
others the line charged again, successfully cutting its way throuj^-h till it 
reached the steamers. One regiment, however was missing. It had gone too 
far from the river bank on the return, had missed the intercepting Rebels, and 
was now groping its way at random down to the river. Meantime the Rebels 
had formed again on the bank, and opened fire on the crowded jam of National 
soldiers on the transports. The gunboats came to their relief, and presently 
their shells began to fall not only among the Rebels, but into the ranks of the 
missing regiment. It hastened down to the river, coming out through a little 
depression, below where the Rebels were engaged, and embarking there under 
cover of the gunboats, as soon as a transport could be dropped down to take 
them off. In such guise — with Rebel shot still whistling through their helpless 
mass, with the wounded crowded confusedly among the throng, with their dead 
and a hundred and twenty-five wounded left in the hands of the exultant 
Rebels, as well as with the loss of a hundred more taken prisoners — did Grant 
and his men steam slowly up the river to the point from which they started. 

General Grant frankly told the story of the day in his oflScial report, but 
claimed that he had prevented the Columbus garrison from re-enforcing Price, 
or sending out an expedition to cut off the column moving against Jeff. Thomp- 



362 Ohio in the Wae. 

son An impartial judgment can not confirm these claims. Three hours 
after the battle of Belmont the Columbus garrison was as free to re-enforce 
Price as it had been three days before. What the Eebels knew was that a 
small force, making a sudden descent upon an out-lying camp, had been able to 
burn the tents and blankets, and carry off a couple of guns before being 
driven back to its boats, and forced, in its haste, to leave its dead, wounded, 
and prisoners behind it. Such performance was not likely to so terrify them 
that, under the possibility of a similar attack, they would fail to re-enforce Price 
if thej' chose. 

Whether any more important results could have been obtained from the 
"demonstration against Columbus," which Fremont had ordei-ed, may be ques- 
tioned. But it is clear that the same results could have been secured by an 
operation (especially in conjunction with Smith's Paducah column) against the 
rear of Columbus, without the necessity of an enforced retreat under fire; with- 
out leaving dead and wounded in the enemj^'s hands; and without definitely as- 
suring the eneni}^, in advance, that nothing more than a sudden, inconsequential 
dash was intended, by delivering the attack on a spot that was, by no possi- 
bility, tenable for the attacking party.* 

Yet the action at Belmont, unfortunate as it seemed, and depressing as were 
its immediate effects upon the public mind, did good. It showed the raw soldiers 
what war was; it gave them unbounded confidence in their capacity to take 
care of themselves against anything like even numbers ; and it taught them that 
their General was ready to go wherever he asked them to go. To the General 
himself it revealed the mettle of the blade he was privileged to wield, as well as 
the nature of his work, thus far known only in theory. More than all, it re- 
vealed to those conti'olling the business of this war a General, cool and brave in 
action, and skillful enough if he led his troops into tight places to get them out 
again without serious loss.f Furthermore it showed to the country one General, 
in the midst of the prevailing inaction, who believed that war meant fighting — 
not everlasting preparations and proclamations. So that, while with the un- 
thinking, Belmont was set down as a failure and its General as little better, and 
while the General himself, and the staff that surrounded him, grew restive and 

* " The same results could have been .secured." That is to say, the enemy could have been 
kept busy for a little while, and made to believe that there was danger of serious attack. 
Keeping him busy to whatever extent it might be carried, to that extent diminished the danger 
to the column pursuing .Jeff. Thompson, or the probability of re-enforcements being sent to 
Price — the professed objects of the movement. And just so far as the movement looked like a 
serious one did it answer the purposes of the demonstration Fremont desired. But no Rebel 
General thereabouts was fool enough to suppose that the descent upon a palpably untenable 
position like Belmont, could be anything more than a frivolous demonstration — a sudden dash — • 
having no element of a serious movement against Columbus about it. They were simply warned 
to draw in their troops to the fortifications, and run no risks of such attacks again — that was all. 

TFor, notwithstanding the unfavorable circumstances. Grant had the pleasure of knowing 
that the enemy's loss was heavier than his own. They took ninety-nine able-bodied prisoners; he 
carried off one hundred and seventy-five; their entire loss — killed, wounded, and missing — was 
six hundred and thirty-two (according to Pollard); his was four liundred and eighty-five. They 
lost their tents, blankets, and two pieces of artillery; he none. 



Ulysses S. G-kant. 363 

6i:)ur^.'d with the lack of popular appreciation of their work, they had made 
firm friends they litle dreamed of, whose friendship was to j)rove potential. 

Through the whole summer, and fall, and winter of 1861, our military 
leaders, stupefied by Bull Eun, lay idle or consumed their resources in frivolous 
reconnoissances and expeditions that came to nothing. Meanwhile the Eebels 
had made the best use of their opportunities. By the 1st of January, 1862, their 
laboriously-strengtened line stretched from Columbus, on the Mississippi, west- 
ward through Missouri to the plains; eastward through strong posts on the Ten- 
nessee and Cumberland Eivers to Bowling Green in Kentucky, thence to Cum- 
berland Gap; and so connected with the head and front of their force in Virginia. 
Their garrisons at the important points were considerable, their advantage ot 
rapid communication by railroads on interior lines was well used, and their 
fortifications were represented to be scientific and formidable. The true vital 
points were tersely indicated by General Buell: "I think it is not extravagant 
to say that the great power of the Eebellion in the West is arranged on a front, 
the flanks of which are Columbus and Bowling Green, and the center about 
where the railroad between those points crosses the Tennessee and Cumberland 
Eivers."* Unfortunately the system of parceling out the country by State 
lines, to find places for as many independent Generals as possible, still j^i'evailed. 
One-half this formidable line was confronted by the left of General Halleck's 
forces; the rest of it by General Buell. With a single commander it might easily 
have been broken almost before it was formed; with the two it was the 1st of 
Februaiy, 1862, before any practical etfort to break it was commenced. 

General Buell had proposed to General Hiilleck an advance up the Ten- 
nessee and Cumberland Eivers by a combined land and naval force, with co- 
operative, simultaneous movements threatening Bowling Green and Columbus. f 
General Halleck regretted that his important operations in Southern Missouri 
would prevent him from giving any assistance to such a plan. But shortly 
afterward he gave orders, in the most inclement season of the year, for a gen- 
eral reconnoissance (as it would seem) through and around South-Western Ken- 
tucky. The roads were very muddy, and the whole alluvial bottom-land 
through which the columns moved was sticky mire. General Grant sent one 
column down the river, from Cairo, toward Columbus, Avhich wandered about 
through the mud, bivouacked in the mud, and returned to fill the hospitals; 
having at no time gone nearer than to the distance of a mile from the defenses of 
Columbus. General C. F. Smith, meanwhile, with his force from Paducah, per- 
formed a somewhat similar task a few miles further east. At its close, however, 
he undertook a reconnoissance on his own account, the results of which were 
far-reaching. Encountering one of the new gunboats on the Tennessee, he went 
on board and ran up Lvward Fort Henry. He approached near enough to draw 
the fire of the fort, and to get a rough idea of its defensive capacity. He hast- 
ened to present his report to General Gi'ant, in which he urged that a sudden 

* General Buell to General Halleck — Official di.spatch, January 3, 1862. tibid. 



364 Ohio in the Wak. 

movement upon the fort could hardly fail to result in its surrender. Grant 
forwarded the report to Halleck as early as the 2'ith of January. Halleck 
made no reply. Four days later Grant and Admiral Foote, commanding the 
gunboat flotilla, urged it upon his attention. The next day Grant renewed his 
importunities, and oil the afternoon of the next he received permission to trj^. 
So much had Genei-al Halleck to do with the grand conception of breaking the 
enemy's center, on which his fame has subsequently rested. Don Cai-los Buell 
Avas the first to make official suggestion of the plan ;* Chas. F. Smith was the 
first to show how practical it w^as; and Grant richly deserves the honor of 
having at once comprehended the opportunity, and persisted in applications till 
he finally secured leave to embrace it. 

On the morning of February 2d, Admiral Foote started with his gunboats, 
General Grant following with the divisions of McClernand and Chas. F. Smith, 
about fifteen thousand strong, on steam transports. Next morning the gunboats 
were only a few miles below the fort. Here, however, they suffered three days 
to pass, partly waiting for the troops, partly fishing up torpedoes. At last on 
the 6th, ever^^thing being ready, General Grant was to invest the fort on the 
land side, while Admiral Foote was to oj^en the attack. 

Meanwhile General Tilghman, the Eebel commander, had gained a thorough 
knowledge of the situation. The fort was indifferently planned and worse situ- 
ated; high lands on the oi^jjosite side, on which Grant was moving a couple of 
brigades, completely commanded it; the high water uplifted the gunboats so 
that they could pour their fire almost horizontally into its midst. He had two 
thousand six hundred and ten men of all arms;f he knew that he was threat- 
ened by a large land force (which he only estimated at three thousand too many) 
as well as by the gunboats; and he considered successful defense impractica- 
ble. He determined, thei-efore, early in the morning to order a retreat of the 
main body of his troops, across the narrow neck of land between the two 
rivers, to Fort Donelson, retaining only the artillerists to work the heavy guns 
in the fort, and so to keep up a show of resistance while the retreat was being 
made good. And to aid this movement, in case of discovery, he ordered a small 
portion of the Donelson garrison to move half-way across and await events. 

In the light of these facts it is very easy to see that Grant should have has- 
tened up his overwhelmingly superior numbers in time to cut off escape. But 
the woods were miry and the country was unknown, while ignorance of the 
enemy's force or intentions counseled the greatest caution. Admiral Foote 
steamed uj), opened the fight half an hour after the time agreed upon with 
Grant, knocked the fort to pieces, and received the surrender of the General 
and his little band of artillerists in an hour and a half. An hour later Grant 
got up, but the escajjed garrison was already far on its way to Fort Donelson. 

Preparations for attacking Fort Donelson were at once begun. Six days 
after the surrender of Fort Henry, Chas. F. Smith and McClernand were on the 

* Unless, indeed, the prior claim of Fremont be admitted. 

t General Tilghman's Official Eeport, Spec. Com. Eep. on Eecent Military Disasters at 
Forts Henry and Donelson, published by authority, Conf. Congress, page 184. 



Ulysses S. Grant. 365 

march across. Our forces bad, meantime, been ordered up the Cumber- 
land river from Cairo, to be landed as near Donelson as circumstances would 
permit, and to unite with Smith and McClernand. The gunboats hastened 
down the Tennessee, made such slight repairs of damages as were possible, and 
steamed up the Cumberland to within a few miles of Donelson. But Grant, 
conscious of having lost time before Fort Henry, and now determined not to 
give the navy another opportunity to snatch a victory from his grasp, began 
operations without waiting for the gunboats, or for the re-enfoi'cements that 
were to accompany them. 

The fort now to be assailed was the last defense to the "center of the line" 
which Buell had proposed to break. It alone stood between the gunboats and 
Nashville. Its fall would inevitably drag down Bowling Green with it; while 
it would also remove the last serious obstacle to a movement for the taking of 
Memphis in the rear. So much Avas known to Grant; but beyond this it does 
not appear that, at head-quarters, ideas concerning the nature and importance 
of the work to be undertaken prevailed, more definite than the utterly vague 
notions which were floating through the country. The whole region was an 
unknown land since the Eebel occupation. The chatterers who labored at 
the voluntary task of finding excuses for all delays, had found a fresh Manassas 
at every earthwork between the mountains and the plain; while no words but 
Gibraltars of the West could serve to describe the tremendously-fortified posi- 
tions of Bowling Green and Columbus. The reaction from this folly may pos- 
sibly have carried the Generals, as it did the people, a little toward the other 
extreme. But we now know that, in the language of Albert Sidney Johnston, 
"We (the Eebels) decided that we must fight for Nashville at Fort Donelson." 
The Bowling Green garrison was accordingly weakened to re-enforce Donelson, 
while General Buell's magnificent army in Kentucky was being held back by a 
paltry force of ten thousand men.* Meanwhile, at Fort Donelson, had been 
accumulated a garrison which General Johnston supposed to number sixteen 
thousand; which Chief -Engineer Gilmer — apparently the only man making 
any report about the surrender who seemed willing to tell the simple 
truth — fixed at "fifteen thousand effectives;" which General Pillow pronounces 
to have been less than thirteen thousand, and which General Floyd seems in- 
clined to rate still lower.f This garrison received no very large re-enforcements 
in the persons of its Generals. On learning of Tilghman^s surrender at Fort 
Henry, the Eebels hastily sent General Pillow to take command. Three days 
later General Buckner reported to General Pillow. A few hours afterward Gen- 
eral John B. Floyd arrived and assumed command. 

General Pillow, not a high authority on fortifications since the date of his en- 
gineering exploits in Mexico, considered the works strong and defensible. Nobody 
else, before or since, has been known to entertain so high an opinion of them. 
Up to the night before the appearance of Grant's troops the outer line was unfin- 

* Sidney Johnston's letter to Jefferson Davis, March 17, 1862. " Published by Conf. Gov't, in 
Rep. Com. on Surrender of Forts Henry and Donelson. 
t Official Keport Surrender Fort Donelson. 



366 Ohio in the Wak. 

ished. It rail, zig-zag, through the medley of knolls and ravines, covered with a 
dense forest, that lay back of the river, and followed, at great length, the line of 
the hills. Heights farther to the rear, however, commanded it, and the works 
themselves were slight. But the water battery was strong and well-finished, 
and it had a splendid range down the river. 

The two divisions with which Grant was advancing to the attack, could not 
have numbered over fifteen thousand. With their advantage of fortifica- 
tions and knowledge of the country, the enemy ought to have routed him in 
confusion (and might even have aspired to the recapture of Fort Henry) before 
the gunboats and re-enforcements could have arrived. But the panic-stricken 
infantry that had run away from Fort Henry without firing a gun, had infused 
their own terror into the rest of the garrison. General Pillow, indeed, tells us 
that on his arrival (three days before the attack) he "found deep gloom hang- 
ing over the command, and the troops greatly depressed and demoralized by the 
surrender of Fort Henry."* 

On Wednesday morningf Grant marched from Fort Henry. By twelve 
o'clock his column had crossed the strip of land intervening between the two 
rivers, and was driving in the Eebel pickets. With astounding lack of enter- 
prise the gai-rison quietly allowed itself to be invested by an assailant no 
stronger than itself. Nothing but light skirmishing interfered with the progress 
of the investment, and the little force bivouacked in line of battle around the 
fort. Thursday morning the Eebels opened with artillery. General Grant, it 
would seem, had intended no attack, owing to the absence of the gunboats and 
infantry reinforcements,! but under the sting of this fire, he waa drawn into 
something more than the "extension of the investment on the flanks of the 
enemy" of which he speaks in his report. An advance upon the enemy's left 
(up the river) developed into an action, which the Eebels dignify by the name 
of the "Battle of the Trenches," in which they claim to have repulsed their 
assailants, and won a clear advantage. Grant's troops were really compelled to 
fall back from one or two positions they had taken, in some disorder, and with 
considerable loss. Meantime the weather changed from the balmy breezes ot 
spring to sleet, cold rain, and finally to snow ; the troops were without blankets, 
without rations, and without shelter. Furthermore, they began to comprehend 
that they were fronting intrenchments manned by a force as strong as their 
own ; and the arrival of the gunboats came to be a matter of much anxiety. 
In such plight they passed the weary watches of Thursday night. 

By Friday morning Grant considered the situation really critical, and 
hastily dispatched a messenger to General Lew. Wallace to bring up the garri- 
son he had left at Fort Henry. A little later, however, the gunboats came in 
sight. Even then Grant did not feel himself equal to the assault, and the army 
lay still, awaiting the result of the gunboat attack. Admiral Foote steamed 
gallantly up, and speedily silenced several of the enemy's guns. But his vessels 
had been shattered at Fort Henry, and the Eebel artillery practice soon began 

» General Pillow's Official Report. 1 12th February, 1862. 

J Grant's Official Report. 



Ulysses S. Grant. 367 

to tsll ujjon them. In ten minutes more he would have been able to pass the 
lort and take it in reverse, when a shot cut the rudder-chains of one of his 
bouts, his flag-ship had her pilot's wheel shot away, and he himself was wounded. 
The other two iron-clads were, moreover, seriously damaged, and thus, with two 
vessels helplessly drifting, and the others injured, he was forced to give the order 
ibr retiring. 

To the watching young General on the bank, this came with the weight of 
a disaster that enforced a change of all his plans. He at once decided* to make 
no further direct attempts upon the fort, but to complete his investment, fortify 
his line, get more men to hold it,f and await the return of the gunboats. 

Meantime, in the Rebel councils reigned strange confusion. They believed 
themselves surrounded by "an immense force" — not a regiment less than fifty- 
two would General Pillow admit — and visions of batteries above the fort on the 
river that should cut off their communication with Nashville and their supplies 
began to float before them. Floj'd dwelt upon the immense resources against 
which they were battling; beside the gunboats there was "a land force drawn 
from an army of two hundred thousand men, all so stationed as to be easily con- 
centrated on the banks of the Cumberland in a week I " " With a less force than 
fifty thousand men Fort Donelson was untenable," and even that gai-rison "must 
be sustained by twenty thousand at Clarksville and twenty-five thousand at 

Nashville! "t 

And thus, while Grant was abandoning the idea of attack, and men- 
tally tracing lines of fortification that should protect him till relief had come, 
Floyd and Pillow, taking numbers from their imaginations, and counsels from 
some quality that looks strikingly like cowardice, were devising means of 
escape from a struggle they had given up in advance. It was to Buckner, it 
would seem, that they owed the plan finally adopted. A sortie was to be made 
on the portion of the National line farthest up the river toward Nashville, and if 
possible it was to be rolled back upon the center, where Buckner was then to 
strike it. If they should succeed in shattering the National column, well; if 
not, they might hope, at least, so to break the lines as to make their escape. So 
they have since explained their plans. A more probable explanation aj^pears to 
be that, after their first emotion of unmanly terror, they were shamed by Buck- 
ner into the opposite extreme, and came to think that they might really break 
the National lines and drive Grant off. Stimulated by such hopes, they moved 
out, under Pillow, early on Saturday morning — while Grant was off on a gun- 
boat consulting with Foote — and commenced an attack. Catching our pickets 
napping, they pushed vigorously forward, drove two of McClernand's brigades 
in confusion, and started a panic, that came near sjjreading to the whole 
division. Finally new lines were formed, and the attack M^as temporarily 
checked. Meanwhile, Buckner had found it impossible to do anything with his 

* Grant's Official Report. 

t Although the large re-enforcements that followed the gunboats up the river had now 
reached him. 

+ Floyd's and Pillow's Official Reports. 



368 Ohio in the Wae. 



1 



timid troops; the first heavy fix-e they encountered drove them to cover, tind 
their General was forced to employ "persuasions" instead of commands, in his 
efforts to bring them once more to the work. At last they advanced, just as 
Pillow was again forcing back McClernand's line; the two Eebel columns met; 
the National forces were hurled clear back from their positions on the right ; a 
mounted officer galloped among the troops scattei^ed to the rear, shouting, " We 
are cut to pieces ! " In fact, the panic seemed on the point of sweeping away I 
the army, when General L. Wallace's division, not yet heavily engaged, came up 
in fine order and checked the retreat. 

What followed was curiously confused. Pillow returned to the fort, and tel- 
egraphed to Nashville, "on the honor of a soldier," that he had won a brilliant 
victory. Part of his troops seem to have been retired; the rest took no advant- 
age of the disorder into which their success had thrown the ranks of their 
antagonists. At this critical moment the inspiration of Grant's imperturbable 
coolness came upon him. His right was in disorder, amounting almost to rout, 
but Charles F. Smith's division, on his left, was unharmed. The enemy had 
palpably withdrawn their forces from that part of their line to aid in Pillow's 
attack. ''Then charge it!"^ Leaving the soldierly Smith to his work, he rode 
over to the shattered right, and ordered General Lew. Wallace to advance. By 
five o'clock that officer had handsomely regained all that McClernand had lost. 
Meantime, down the river on the left, the old soldier to whom had been com- 
mitted the crowning trust, was marshaling his column. His skillful dispositions, 
heroic bearing, superb presence, all inflamed the enthusiasm of his command, 
which, as soon as the word was given, rushed up the hill with bayonets set and 
the wildest cheering. In front is the color-bearer of the advance brigade; by 
his side rides the General. The Eebel artillery riddles the advance, and it 
wavers. Smith urges it on, and leads the way; the line straightens, charges, 
pours over the abattis, climbs the embankments, rushes into the outerwork; and 
almost before its defenders are out of the way, the batteries are whirled up and 
are opening upon the lower interior fortifications. Darkness ends the struggle, 
but white-haired old Charles F. Smith has insured the fall of Fort Donelson. 

Within the fort the position is comprehended clearly enough. General 
jbuckner tells his superiors that, with Smith inside his intrenchments, an attack 
is sure to be made, and that he can not hold out half an hour. Pillow talks of 
his having at least, by his own brilliant victory, cut open a way out of the fort, 
and the command is actually mustered to retreat, when, to his amazement, he 
learns that the National troops are in the way, pressing even more closely than • 
before his victorious battle was fought. Scouts are sent out to see if they can 
march by the river bank, directly up along the brink of the river. They report 
the route open, but waist deep in mire and water. Boats are sought for, on which 

* " I remember an anecdote which General Grant told me about Donelson — that at a certain 
period of the battle he saw that either side was ready to give way, if the other showed a bold 
front, and he determined to do that very thing, to advance on the enemy, when, as he prognosti- 
cated, the enemy surrendered ' Sherman's Letter to the United Service Magazine on Pittsburg 
Landing. 



Ulysses S, Grant. 369 

to cross to the other bank of the river and so escape ; but these have been sent to 
Nashville and are not yet returned. So passes the night with Floyd, Pillow, 
and Euckner. The two ranking officers dread the Yankees to such extent 
that they declare they must be permitted, personally, to escape. Bucknei 
reminds them that a General has no right to desert his men. But they have 
made up their minds that in no event will they fall into the hands of the 
Yankees — if they can help it. And so Buckner assumes the command, and 
sends a flag of truce. Floyd seizes on the steamboats, when they return about 
daylight, and makes off, with such of his own brigade as he can hurriedl}'- 
embark. Long before this the redoubtable Pillow has made his way across 
the river, "in a small hand-flat" — let us be true to history, for has not 
Pillow himself recorded it for our benefit — "in a small hand-flat, about four 
feet wide by twelve long. Myself and staff then made our way to Clarksville 
by land."=i= 

General Buckner solicited an armistice, and the appointment of commis- 
sioners to agree upon terms of capitulation. General Grant's reply struck 
the key-note of popular feeling, and has become historic : " No terras, other 
than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to 
move immediately uf)on your works." Buckner had been at West Point with 
Grant. He was there a showy, chivalrous Kentuckian. Grant was the son of a 
tanner, poor and not graceful. That this poor schoolmate of his would be 
flattered by his offer of "capitulation" he did not doubt. His amazement at 
the matter-of-fact response stung him into boyish folly. "Notwithstanding the 
brilliant success of the Confederate arms on yesterday," he was "compelled 
to accept the ungenerous and unchivalrous terms." And so Grant's army 
marched in.f 

Up to this time Grant had secured little popular recognition. The battle 
at Belmont had been counted a disaster. Fort Henry had been taken without 
him; and he had even failed to get up in time to intercept the runaway garri- 
son. But Fort Donelson was the first great, decisive success of the war. Its 
results were the capture of Nashville and the speedily following fall of Mem- 
phis. Moreover, the army of prisoners was something hitherto unknown in 
wars on the Continent. The General who had accomplished these things at 

* Pillow's Answ.er to Interrogatories of Conf. Sec. War. 

t General Grant reported a capture of twelve to fifteen thousand prisoners. This number 
was exaggerated ; but the Rebels went to the other extreme. Pollard sets down the exact number 
of prisoners taken as five thousand and seventy-nine. He omits, however, in his list all the 
wounded left on the field, and at least two regiments — known to number a thousand men. On 
the other hand Floyd carried oflf between fifteen hundred and two thousand, including the strag- 
glers who subsequently joined him. Wounded, to the number of eleven hundred and thirty-four, 
had been sent to Nashville, and the dead must have swelled this to nearly two thousand. Deduct 
these and the two thousand carried away by Floyd from the fifteen thousand originally present, 
and we have about eleven thousand well and wounded left for Grant. No accurate lists are 
known to have been made out. 

Some forty pieces of artillery were captured, with large store of muskets, horses, mules, etc. 
General Grant's estimate of his own losses was twelve hundred killed, wounded, and missing, 
which subsequently proved to be far below the real number, 
YoL. I.— 24. 



370 Ohio in the Wae. 

once became the popular idol. A Major-Generalship was bestowed upon him, 
and his command was extended. People dwelt admiringly on his curt answer 
to Buckner. His accidental initials were turned to new use, and our uncle-like 
youth, whom his schoolmates had called Uncle Sam, was now denominated 
Unconditional Surrender G-rant. The newspapers gave the new Secretary of 
War some credit for the victory, whereupon he announced* that ''We owe our 
recent victories to the Spirit of the Lord, that moved our soldiers to dash into 
battle, and filled the hearts of our enemies with terror and dismay. What, 
under the blessing of Providence, I conceive to be the true organization of vic- 
tory and military combination to end this war, was declared in few words by 
General Grant's message to General Buckner, 'I propose to move immediately 
on your works.' " Furthermore, with these popular approvals, and this evidence 
of the admiration of his official chief. Grant obtained another advantage. He 
acquired the firm, admiring friendship of the strong-willed and influential mem- 
ber of Congress from Galena, which was henceforth, in more than one emer- 
gency, to prove his protection. 

It was General Grant's high, good fortune to be thus at the head of a 
movement, whose material and moral results were alike inspiring to the Nation. 
He did his duty in it simply, courageously, and well. But if we look for signal 
displays of special military ability in the operations, we shall have to read the 
story over agaiji under the spell of the enthusiasm it first aroused. There was 
praiseworthy energy in the prompt movement from Fort Henry; there was high 
courage in undertaking the investment with only fifteen thousand men ; but, yet, 
these were qualities which many undistinguished men are constantly exhibiting. 
One striking circumstance brings into bold relief one of Grant's strongest men- 
tal points. He secured Fort Donelson when, after the rout of his right wing, he 
ordered Chas. P. Smith, with the left, to charge the enemy's works. He selected 
the right man, and in the midst of disaster he chose the right moment. 

Then followed an interval of civil administration. While Grant was be- 
coming the popular hero, he suddenly fell into disgrace at head-quarters. After 
Donelson, he went up to Nashville with a division; taking troops out of his own 
district without cause, and intruding upon the independent department of Gen- 
eral Buell, whom, by his recent promotion, he outranked. The last was a breach 
of military etiquette, the other something more. General Halleck further com- 
plained of Grant's failure to make satisfactory reports of the sta.te of his com- 
mand, and of a prevailing disposition, as he construed it, to act independently. 
The result was, that after Grant had issued some orders to the people of Tennes- 
see, forbidding the Eebel officers to exercise any official functions, and directing 
the conduct of his troops in enforcing martial law over West Tennessee, he 
found himself— just when the expedition up the Tennessee Eiver came to be 
organized— suddenly ordered to head-quarters at Fort Henry, and forbidden to 
take the field. The hero of Fort Donelson, Chas. F. Smith, a subordinate of 
Grant's from the outset, was assigned to the command of the troops, and Grant 

* Secretary Stanton's Letter to New York Tribune, February, 1862. 



Ulysses S. Grant. 371 

became little better than an Adjutant-General. Stung to the quick, he sent an 
indignant letter to Halleck, pi'otesting against the injustice, complaining bitterly 
of anonymous letters attacking him^ and finally asking to be relieved of com- 
maud! Explanations however ensued, and ten days after the issue of the order 
to quit the field he was again ordered into it. 

The interval however was not unfruitful. The Tennessee Eiver Expedition 
had been organized; great fleets of steamboats had swept up the stream, crowded 
with the troops of six divisions and sixty i*egiments. Sherman had been sent 
to cut one of the railroads leading into Corinth, and had failed. Lew. Wallace 
eent to cut another, had succeeded, but in a few days the damages were rej)aired. 
Then the army had been debarked, by an almost fiital error of judgment, at 
Pittsburg Landing, on the South side of the river, and within easy striking dis- 
tance of the enemy's concentration of forces at Corinth. * 

On Grant's arrival he found the army scattered through the woods about 
the Landing, like a huge militia encampment, preparatory to the annual mus- 
ter-day; or like a great Maying party, camping out for a pic-nic. Troops es- 
tablished themselves here and there, it would seem, almost as the spots happened 
to strike the fancy of the Colonels; there was no definite front; no relation of 
one part of the army to another, such as would go to make up a satisfactory 
defensive line. The several brigades of a division were not even encamped 
together. One of General Sherman's own brigades lay more than two miles from 

■■■Subsequent events (even if abstract military principles were not sufficient) having seemed 
to most men to condemn the location of the army on that side the river, while awaiting Buell's 
arrival, General W. T. Sherman has volunteered a defense of General Grant in the premises. 
Having first justified the landing on the south side and consequent exposure to an enemy believed 
to be largely superior, with a swollen river in the rear between the army and the one that was 
to re-enforce it, on the absurd ground that " it was not then a question of military skill and strat- 
egy, but of courage and pluck ; that it was necessary that a combat, fierce and bitter, to test the 
manhood of the two armies should come off, and that was as good a place as any ; " he continues, 
after the pattern of the famous cracked kettle defense : First, the kettle was not returned to the 
lender cracked. Second, it was cracked when it was borrowed. First, General Grant was not 
wrong in locating the troops on the enemy's side of the river. Second, he didn't locate them there 
at all. "The battle-field was chosen by that veteran soldier, Major-General Chas. F. Smith. If 
there were any error in putting tliat army on that side the Tennessee, exposed to the superior 
force of the enemy also assembling at Corinth, the mistake was not General Grant's." These 
-Statements of fact have been questioned by officers of equal rank and ability. General Grant has 
himself added nothing to the controversy, nor is he likely to do so. He has long ago outlived, 
(if indeed he were ever subject to) the foolish vanity of thinking it necessary to prove that he 
never made a mistake, in order to vindicate his title to greatness 

Of the general issue thus raised, however, one thing ought to be said. It is ungenerous, and 
likely to be unfair, after public odium has attached to a transaction, to shift it to a dead man's 
shoulders. Chas. F. Smith can not appear to tell us under what stress of orders he was acting, 
and the General of the schools, who from his head-quarters in St. Louis was then controlling the 
campaign, is not the man to tell for him. Furthermore, Smith, prostrated by disease incuiTcd at 
Fort Donelson, was capable of giving active direction to affairs for but a few days subsequent to 
the arrival at Pittsburg Landing, and soon after he was stretched on his death-bed. Moreover, 
Grant himself, restored to command, was on the spot weeks before the battle. If he had regarded 
the position faulty, he was bound to rectify it. If, absorbed in the duties of the head-quarters 
-six miles below, he intrusted such duties in the field to the responsible General th^re, that Gen- 
eral has now no right to shield himself from criticism, just or unjust, behind a hero's corpse. 



372 Ohio in the Wae. 

the rest of his troops, with two other independeut divisions thrust in between 
The ground was well adapted for defensive works, yet not a rifle-pit was dug^ 
nor even the simplest breastwork of rails and earth thrown together. Slash- 
ings of timbei-s could have been made before ever}" camp; yet not a hatchet was 
raised to prepare an abattis. Three miles in advance ran a stream which might 
well have been used as a defensive line ; yet even its crossings were not watched, 
And still the enemy was known to be but a little more than a dozen miles distant, 
and was believed to be in superior force. However the dispute ought to be 
decided as to the responsibility for such errors at the outset, there can bo no 
question as to the responsibilitj" for their continuance. To his honor, be it said, 
General Grant has never sought to evade it. Let us gratefully add, that in alj 
his varied career he has never repeated such blunders. 

The army thus confronting the enemy had been originally expected to ac- 
complish more. General Halleck's first instructions were to occupy Florence, and 
destroy the railroad connections between Johnston's army, retreating from Nash- 
ville, and that of Beauregard, so soon to retreat from Memphis. Corinth, Jackson, 
and Humboldt were the railroad points he hoped to strike.* We have seen that 
the first movements in this direction under Sherman and Wallace were abortive. 
Then came the surjDrise of finding Corinth occupied and fortified, "with twenty 
thousand men under Beauregard," telegraphed General HaJieck; and "Smith not 
strong enough to attack." Next came a determination to "land at Savannah 
and establish a depot. "f Then, as Johnston fell back from Murfreesboro, Hal- 
leck, estopi^ed before Corinth, and finding it impossible to prevent the junction 
of Johnston and Beauregard, arranged with Buell to gain the co-operation of the 
Army of the Ohio. While preparing to move in accordance with this ai'range- 
ment, Buell signified his approval of Halleck's dispositions, thus: "The estab- 
lishment of your force on this side of the river, as high up as possible, is evi- 
dently judicious. "J But what must his astonishment have been on learning, a 
week later, that the column he was alread}" toiling overland to join, was planted 
on the opposite side of a swollen river, and almost under the fortifications of the 
concentrating foe! He refused to believe it, and telegraphed to Gen. Halleck for 
information. What we have now to add would seem incredible, were not the 
official dispatches on file. Whether General Halleck himself knew that his army 
was thus scattered on the south bank, with the river in its rear and the foe in its 
front, does not certainly appear; but it does appear that if he did know, he did 
not, in reply to this dispatch, notify General Buell of it.|| That officer moved on 

* "Available force gone up the Tennessee to destroy connections at Corinth, Jackson and 
Humboldt. ... It is of vital importance to separate them (Beauregard's troops) from John- 
ston's army. Come over to Savannah or Florence and we can do it." Halleck'.s dispatch to Buell, 
4th March, 1862. 

t" Florence was the point originally designated, but on account of enemy's forces at Corinth 
and Humboldt, it is deemed best to land at Savannah and establish a depot." Halleck to Buell, 
10th March, 1862. 

J Buell to Halleck, 10th March, 1862; reply to dispatch just quoted. 

II Buell's. dispatch, 18th March, 1862, said, "I understand that General Grant is on tlie east 
(north) side of the river ; is it not so ? " Halleck's reply " did not inform him to the contrary." 



Ulysses S. Grant. 373 

us rapidly as the roads and bridgeless streams would permit, but in no special 
haste, ignorant of any cause for special haste; actually requested by General 
llalleck to halt at Waynesboro, thirty miles short of the junction with Grant 
till he (Halleck) could get ready to run up fi'oni St. Louis ; not even notified bj 
Grant of the true condition of affairs ; and finally — strangest of all — he waa 
informed by Grant, as late as the Saturday night before the direful Sunday of 
Pittsburg Landing, that it was unnecessary to hasten his march ! * So absolute 
was the surprise of that fateful attack. 

Meantime the golden opportunity had been lost. When the army under 
Chas. F. Smith began moving up the Tennessee, Corinth (next to Florence — if 
not before it — the great objective point) could have been seized by a handful oi 
ti-oops. When the army was blindly striking at railroads, right and left, Corinth 
was still feebly garrisoned. Beauregard admits that it was only on the 2d of 
March that he began the effort to concentrate there. As late as March 6th, Gen- 
eral Halleck himself, repeating the news sent "down the Tennessee," placed 
the force at Corinth at only twenty thousand; whereas the army he had sent 
ae-ainst it could even then muster almost double that number. But the chances 
were flitting fast. As early as 25th of Februarj- General Sidney Johnston had 
declared, in a private letter to Mr. Davis, his determination to abandon Middle 
Tennessee, and* move toward Corinth, to co-operate or unite with Beauregard. 
Buell moved from Nashville on the 15th of March, to form a junction with Hal- 
leck's forces (under Grant) ; but, three days afterward, Sidney Johnston was able 
to write Mr. Davis again, "the passage is almost completed, and the head of my 
€olumn is already with General Bragg at Corinth." He adds, with a satisfac- 
tion warranted by the apparent success of his grand strategy, "the movement 
was deemed too hazardous, by the most experienced members of my staff, but the 
object warranted the risk. The difficulty of effecting a junction is not wholly 
overcome, but it approaches completion. Day after to-morrow, unless the enemy 
intercepts me, my force will be with Bragg." f Tht " enemy " did not "intercept 
him." The junction was completed ; fresh re-enforcements arrived from Louisiana 
and other States; the rest of Beauregard's spare forces had been called in — alto- 
gether not less than forty thousand effective troops were mustered within less than 
a days march of our scattered, undefended, unguarded camps on the Tennessee. 

Moreover there was an end to the management of Floyds and Pillows and 
Tilghmans in the Pvebel array. The ablest soldier then, or ever espousing their 
cause, had assumed the command in the field. He had patiently borne the pop- 
ular clamor that followed his abandonment of Bowling Green; had made no 

* Buell to Editor U. S. Service Magazine, January 19th, 1865. Halleck proposed to leave 
St. Louis, April 7th. The battle began on the 6th. Buell's words about Grant's comnaunication 
are : " The day before his arrival at Savannah, General Nelson, who commanded my leading 
division, advised General Grant, by courier, of his approach, and was informed in reply, that it was 
unnecessary to hasten his march, as he could not, at any rate, cross the river before the following 
Tuesday." It will be seen hereafter in these pages (Life of General Ammen) that another officer 
of Buell's army received from Grant more striking statements to the same eflfect. 

t Sidney Johnston to Jeff. Davis, March 18, 1862. (Private letter communicated to Confed- 
erate Congress.) 



374 Ohio in the Wak. 

answer to the storm that beat upon him when his subordinates sacrificed Fort 
Donelson. Now, at last, bis army was in hand; the unsuspecting antagonist lay- 
before him inviting the blow; and on the third of April he announced to the 
"Soldiers of the Army of the Mississippi," that he "had put them in motion to 
offer battle to the invaders of their country," and to "fight for all worth living 
or dying for." 

One more opportunity was left for that torpid antagonist. The hand of God 
interfered to work delay. Johnston moved from Corinth by noon of April 3d; but 
the heavens opened and deluged the swampy country over which he had to pass. 
Less than seventeen miles of marching would bring him upon our camps; he did 
not accomplish the distance till the afternoon of the 5th. One whole day was spent 
with an army of forty thousand men, floundering through woods within the line 
our pickets should have occupied. Even yet it was not too late. There, through 
that long afternoon and evening, lay the Eebei army, almost within gunshot of 
the camps it was to attack. If the camps were without pickets, and the army 
without Generals, it would seem, at least, that the men could scarcely be with- 
out ears. And yet day darkened into night without alarm; the commanding 
General quietly returned to his head-quarters in Savannah; the army sank into 
slumber; the enemy in silent bivouac on its front actually listened to its drums, 
and was guided by its "taps" and "reveille." "The total absence of cavalry 
pickets from General Grant's army," writes an officer of Beauregard's staff,* 
" was a matter of perfect amazement. There were absolutely none on Grant's 
left, where Breckinridge's division was meeting him, so that we were able to 
come up within hearing of their drums entirely unperceived. The Southern 
Generals always kept cavalry pickets out for miles, even when no enemy was 
supposed to be within a day's march of them. The infantry pickets of Grant's 
forces were not above three-fourths of a mile from his advance camps, and they 
were too few to make any resistance." 

And yet thei-e had been Enough to alarm any but the blindl}^ self-confident. 
On Friday a reconnoissance, a few miles out from camp, had developed a Eebel 
battery in position, and had led to a sharp skirmish. On Saturday there had been 
more or less picket firing; more than one Colonel had felt it incumbent upon 
him to give emphatic warning of the signs of the enemy's presence in force, 
which he could perceive on his front. They were treated as alarmists, whose 
freshness from civil life and ignorance of the noble art of war must excuse their 
nervous apprehensions ! Saturday evening, as he passed down to his head-quar- 
ters at Savannah, General Grant stopped at Crump's Landing to see General 
Lew. Wallace. There were some indications of possible attack, he thought; 
but if it were really intended, it would probably fall thei-e, and not at Pittsburg 
Landing. And so we drifted into the assault. 

Next morning it came. By daylight the Eebel divisions were in motion. 
The shots of our pickets had scarcely been noticed, till such of them as were 
not captured rushed into camp. Almost simultaneously crashed the first volley of 

*"An Impressed New Yorker's Thirteen Months in the Eebel Army." The author of 
this work is Geo. M. Stevenson, son of Rev. Dr. Stevenson of the American Tract Society. 



Ulysses S. Grant. 375 

the advancing foe on Prentiss's front. A little later they struck Sherman. Bach 
hastened to form line of battle. The latter was successful, and for some little 
time held his ground. Prentiss was scarcely so fortunate. Meanwhile the two 
divisions had no connection ; the enemy found the gap, and the flank of each was 
turned. Sherman's left broke in disorder; the confusion was spreading to his 
right when the whole line fell back. Away to the left the enemy found another 
gap, for Prentiss had as little connection with Sherman's solitary brigade on the 
extreme left as he had with the other brigades of that officer on the extreme 
right. He was flanked there also ; three sides were enfolded ; he fell back, fight- 
ing bravely enough against the inevitable, and was at length compelled to sur- 
render such fragments of his force as still retained their coherency. The enemy 
rushing in on his left flank had struck the right of Sherman's isolated brigade, 
and it, likewise under the same stress, was hurled backward. Never was there 
a battle where everything had been so skillfully arranged to court such sudden 
disaster. The roar of the onslaught startled Grant from his peaceful Sunday 
morning slumbers, down the river at Savannah. He hurried up, on the first steam- 
boat he could obtain, to find Prentiss practically disappeared from the contest; 
Sherman's division in confusion ; McClernand's, which had hastened to support it, 
crippled, and but Hurlbut and ^Y. H. L. Wallace left to save the day. He strove 
to make the troops contest the ground more obstinately, hurried forward sup- 
plies of cartridges, and for a time did little more. He was facing his superiors 
in the art of war, and, as he first felt the weight of their skillful combinations 
and resistless assaults, we may well believe that for a moment there came over 
the mind of our Infantry Captain and Galena leather-dealer — now returned to 
his old profession to rival his old masters — a wish that the confidence born of 
Fort Donelson had not carried him so far. But he allowed no signs of distrust 
to escape him. There seemed little that he could do, but he could at least keep 
up his courage. The troops were beaten back from place to place, with an ever 
narrowing front, and a steadily swelling stream of deserters to the rear. The 
bluff was alive with them. Miles down the stream they made their hurried way 
in scores and hundreds. Still the army of forty thousand, surprised, broken in 
fragments, driven piecemeal, dwindled to scarcely more than half its number, 
kept up a good fight. Never did Generals strive more bravely in the field to 
redeem their irredeemable blunders in the council. 

By half-past four in the afternoon there remained tor them scarcely more 
than half a mile of ground to stand on. Eebel shells were dropping among the 
skulkers on the Landing. A staff officer was killed, almost at Grant's side, on 
the bluff. The tremendous roar to the left, momentaril}- nearer and nearer, told 
of an effort to cut him off from the river and from retreat. Grant sat on his horse, 
quiet, thoughtful, almost stolid. Said one to him, "Does not the prospect begin 
to look gloomy ?" " Not at all," was the quiet reply. " They can't force our lines 
around these batteries to-night — it is too late. Delay counts everything with us. 
To-morrow we shall attack them with fresh troops and drive them, of course."* 

* I was myself a listener to this conversation, and from it I date, in my own case at least, the 
beginnings of any belief in Grant's greatness. 



376 



Ohio in the Wae. 



For Buell had already arrived in person ; the advance of the Army of the 
Ohio was at Savannah ; before daybreak almost the whole column would be up. 
There was no consultation between the independent commanders now on the 
field. Grant explained to Buell the position ; Sherman furnished him with a 
little map of the roads, and, by common consent, it was understood that Buell 
was to advance at daybreak with his fresh troops on the left, where his fore- 
most division had already done some fighting. Grant gathered together what 
he could of his army and prepared to advance on the right. 




Explanations : 

A. PoBitions of Major-General Grant's forces on the morning of April 6th. 

B. Positions of Grant, with the divisions of Nelson and Crittenden, on the evening of April 6th. 

C. Positions of Grant and Buell on the morning of April 7th.' 

D. Positions of Grant and Buell on the evening of April 7th. 

E. Reserve of Artillery. 

The next day brought success. The Army of the Ohio extended its front 
over three-fourths of the battle-field; Grant's shattered troops were barely able 



Ulysses S. Grant. 377 

tt) keep up the line on the other fourth ; but there were enough — the day was 
won. The troops were too much exhausted for pursuit, and halting in the 
camps from which they had been driven the day before, were content to call it 
a victory. Not to be outdone, Beauregard (in command since Sidney John- 
ston's death in the first day's battle) telegraphed to Eichmond that he had won 
a great and glorious victory; and Mr. Davis went so far as to communicate the 
<i:lad tidings to the Confederate Congress in a special message. 

The losses were about equal. Beauregard reported his at ten thousand six 
hundred and ninety-nine killed, wounded, and missing. Grant estimated his at 
five thousand killed and wounded, while two thousand two hundred prisoners 
were known to be taken with Prentiss. The incomplete reports of the subor- 
dinates, however, subsequently showed a loss often thousand six hundred killed 
and wounded. Altogether our loss must have been fifteen thousand, and Beau- 
regard's could not have fallen many hundreds below the same figure. On the 
first day the contending forces were about equal. On the second Beauregard 
was largely outnumbered. 

Of General Grant's conduct during this battle nothing can be said but 
praise; of his conduct before it little but blame. Flushed with Donelson, and 
seeming to despise his antagonist, he neglected almost every j^recaution and 
violated almost every rule of his profession. Believing the enemy to be largely 
superior in numbers, he lay, awaiting Buell's army, in a position inherently 
false and dangerous.* The order of his encampments was worse even than the 
position. "With an enemy in front," saj^s Montecuculli, "an army should 
always encamp in order of battle." It is Napoleon himself who tells us that 
"encampments of the same army should always be formed so as to protect each 
other;" and again, that "it should be laid down as a principle never to leave 
intervals by which the enemy can penetrate between corps." The neglect to 
fortify is palliated by the popular dislike then existing to the spade as a weapon. 
But officers who had studied war and knew its requirements could scarcely have 
forgotten the spirit, even if they had failed to recall the words of the great Master 
of War, when he declared that, in the presence of an enemy, "it is necessary to 
intrench every night, and occupy a good defensive position." The neglect of 
pickets and out-posts approached criminality. That an enemy, forty thousand 
strong, only eighteen miles distant at the outset, and hourly approaching, could 
spend three days preparing to attack and in leisurely selecting its positions, 
without discovery by the antagonist General, will seem to the next generation 
preposterous and incredible. When the storm which he thus invited had burst, 
when he found how^ disaster was enveloping his army, and saw divisions melt- 
ing bodily out of his grasp, Grant rose to the height of a hero. More than that, 
he rose (and for the first time on that movement) to the height of a General. 
"For it is the first qualification of a General-in-chief," says Napoleon again, "to 
have a cool head." The man who amid the disasters of that day could calmly 

* Napoleon laid it down as a maxim of war, that "when the conquest of a country is under- 
taken by two or three armies, having separate lines until they arrive at a point fixed upon for 
their concentration, the union of these different corps should never take place near the enemy." 



378 Ohio in the Wak. j 

reason out the certainty of success to-morrow, gave proof, in spite of blunders- 1 
that under most managements would have cashiered him, of his capacity to- 
lead the hosts of Freedom in greater struggles yet to come. 

The battle of Pittsburg Landing added to G-rant's reputation at the East, 
and increased his already rapidly rising popularity. In the West, where it was 
better understood, where the ghastly losses were felt and the causes were known, 
it was held to be sufficient reason for his removal from command. The Gover- 
nors of several Western States requested his removal on the grounds of inca- 
pacity and alleged intoxication. The fearful loss of life was charged directly to 
his negligence, and exaggerated stories of his habits were widely circulated. 
Even the gross slander, that explained the disasters of the first day's battle by 
the allegation of Grant's absence for hours in a state of intoxication at Savan- 
nah, found ready believers. 

In the midst of all this. General Halleck hurried from St. Louis to take 
personal control, and thus illustrate to the Nation what one, who had gained 
such brilliant victories from his remote head-quarters, could accomplish when 
once his martial tread shook the actual field. One of his earliest deeds was to 
deprive Grant of all command. But Halleck had been lawyer quite as much 
as soldier; and his explanation to the victim, of the high honor he did him in 
thus beheading him, was a masterpiece of lawyer-like strategy. General Grant 
was the second in command ; therefore it was necessary that he should have no 
command. For, in the event, which his constant exposure made hourly immi- 
nent, of the General-in-chief 's being killed or disabled, it was necessary that the 
next in rank should be ready on the instant, and disengaged from other duties. 
" The General studied a long while over that stroke, and seemed mightily pleased 
at the shape he gave it," said an admiring staff officer. 

Grant tried hard to believe in the theoiy, but his sturdy common sense was 
too much for it. Indeed, there were times during that weary two months' 
"siege" of Corinth when those who entered his tent found him almost in 
tears — contemplating, once it is said, the tender of his resignation as a means 
of escape from a position which he felt to be humiliating. In these dark daj-s 
he had a constant friend in General Sherman — a fact not without its influence 
in the later career of both. 

Halleck's summons to the East as General-in-chief, not long after the 
evacuation of Corinth, left Grant again in active command. For a time there 
was little to do. The campaign that, opening so bravely amid Avinter snows 
around Donelson and Henry, had swept the Eebels from Bowling Green to 
Corinth, from Columbus to Yicksburg, frittered itself away by early summer, in 
inconsequential pursuits and final stagnation. The enemy had time to recover 
from blows that had well-nigh proved mortal, to concentrate his scattered forces, 
and to resume the offensive. For this it is not plain that Grant should be held 
in any sense responsible. He had always advocated vigorous action, to the 
extent indeed of taking too little rather than too much time for preparation. 
Through all the amazing delays at Corinth he had urged advance, and it may 



Ulysses S. Grant. 379 

well be believed that his natural bent was not changed when power was at last 
lodged again in his hands. 

The limits of his command naturally placed before him the task of opening 
the Mississippi. It was not till 27th of November that he was able to set about 
it. This interval of six months after the fall of Corinth, was spent in civil 
administration, and in a couple of battles directed by Grant and fought by 
Eosecrans. At first Grant established his head-quarters at Memphis. Presently 
it was discovered that the resident families of Eebel ofiicers were constantly 
furnishing them news of the movements and numbers of troops. To prevent 
this, such families were peremptorily ordered beyond the lines. Subsequently 
the order was so far modified as to permit those to remain who chose to give 
their word of honor not to communicate with the Eebel army. An order hold- 
ing the communities which sustained guerrilla bands pecuniarily liable for their 
outrages, struck at the root of the system. A disloyal newspaper was sum- 
marily suppressed. Efforts were made to keep back the swarm of unprincipled 
speculators who hastened South, loaded with specie, t© cross the lines and trade 
with the Eebels. The runaway slaves who crowded his camps w^erc organized 
into companies and made to earn a living by being set to work picking cotton. 
The army was rigorously forbidden to interfere with the natural workings of 
the slavery question. Slaves were neither to be enticed away from their mas- 
ters nor returned to them. A regiment that had been guilty of pillaging to a 
disgraceful extent, found itself charged with the value of its robberies when the 
paymaster came around. The Jews, as a class, were arraigned for "violating 
every regulation of trade established," and were ordered out of the department 
on twenty-four hours' notice, not to return under penalty of imprisonment. 

Some of these orders were perhaps indiscreet; the most were well-judged 
and had a happy effect. Grant's strong common sense was conspicuous through 
the various work; but the chaotic condition of civil affairs in the conquered 
territory, and the confusion of trade regulations under conflicting authorities 
rendered it impossible that the labors of any one should be satisfactory or 
complete. 

The midsummer repose was broken by the advance of the columns which 
the Eebels had been given time to re-assemble. Van Dorn and Price were the 
leaders. The designs were uncertain; but the first demonstration was an effort 
to break the line between Memphis and Corinth. Grant drew back his isolated 
garrisons before the advance, and suffered Price to take quiet possession of luka. 
Then, learning that Van Dorn could not come up for four or five daj's, he sud- 
denly concentrated upon Price. Ord, with six thousand five hundred men, was 
to come in from the north; Eosecrans, with nine thousand, from the direction of 
Jacinto. Grant remained with Ord's column, which was to attack as soon as 
Eosecrans could get up on the opposite side. Unfortunately a strong wind was 
blowing directly against this advance, and the sound of Eosecrans's cannonade 
was not heard. Grant, resting on the idea that as his march was a long one, 
he could hardly be expected so soon, held Ord back, and thus Eosecrans was left 
to fight the battle alone. Next morning Price, discovering his danger, had re- 



380 Ohio in the War. 

treated, and the chance of closing with a consolidated force of near sixteen 
thousand upon Price's twelve thousand, and crushing it, was lost. 

Yan Dorn next advanced upon Corinth. Grant entrusted its defense to 
Rosecrans, and disposed his remaining forces with a view to protect other points 
if the movement on Corinth should j^rove only a feint. Roseorans was attacked 
with a desperation that made Corinth one of the hardest fought battles of the 
war. The close of the second day saw Van Dorn with his combined forces in 
full flight. Grant had already forwarded fresh trooj)s to Eosecrans for the pur- 
suit; he now threw in Ord upon the flank of the beaten enemy and inflicted still 
further punishment. The brief little campaign was admirably managed. The 
pursuit might have been more energetically pushed, but there were reasons for 
delay that may leave Grant free from blame. 

The battle of Corinth was fought on the 4th of October. It was nearly two 
months later before Grant again advanced. The enemy was now posted on the 
Tallahatchie, to the south-west of Grand Junction and Corinth, where he covered 
Vicksburg and Jackson. Grant himself moved down on his fx-ont, while he sent 
a small force from Helena, striking eastward across the country, to demonstrate 
upon his rear and cut ofl" his supplies. So marked was the eff'ect of this demon- 
stration that the enemy hastily abandoned the line of the Tallahatchie, and fell 
back uj^on the Yallabusha. Grant pressed steadily down into the intei-ior, leav- 
ing in his trail a long train of posts to be garrisoned, the loss of any one of 
M'hich would inevitably throw him back upon his base. It was a hazardous 
experiment, but one that promised brilliant results if successful. 

Whether this movement had originally been designed as one against Vicks- 
burg does not appear; but about this time General Halleck sent orders from 
Washington that a direct expedition against Vicksburg should be started. Gen- 
eral Sherman was at once sent back to Memphis to organize it, with orders to 
'•proceed to the reduction of Vicksburg." The garrison, it was hoped, would 
be found weak; and Grant's advance was relied on to keep the Eebel army, then 
on the Yallabusha, too fully occupied to relieve it. 

Such were the plans when a single stroke disarranged them all, and left, in 
place of the victory that had been hoped, a barren record of retreat for one 
column and a blood}^ repulse for the other. Grant had made Holly Springs 
the immediate base of supplies for his advance, and had left it under the com- 
mand of Colonel Murphy, with a garrison of a thousand men. Supplies and 
transportation had been accumulated here to the value of over four millions of 
dollars. The Eebel cavalry were suddenly discovered dashing past Grant's 
column, with evident design to cut his communication. In alarm for his sup- 
plies he sent word to Murphy of the impending danger, and hurried four regi- 
ments back to re-enforce him. The regiments were delayed; Murphy proved 
himself an imbecile; the post was surrendered without firing a shot; Van Dorn 
destroyed everything in hot haste, and pushed on to other j)0sts in quest of 
further work. It was the defeat of the whole movement. Grant moved back, 
and the enemy was left to devote his attention undisturbed to Vicksburg. 

Sherman, unfortunately, started the day after this disaster, and before he had 



Ulysses S. Geant. 381 

heard of it. He reached the northern defenses of Vicksburg, made a gallant 
and bloody assault, was repulsed with heavy loss, and was forced to abandon 
his effort. 

And so, by the opening of 1863, Grant found himself fairly confronted with 
the problem of Yicksburg. His most trusted Lieutenant had essayed it and 
failed. He had himself essayed a co-operative movement and failed. The 
Administration said: "Take Yicksburg." The people grew restive under the 
delay in fulfilling the order. To their minds the Great River was the symbol of 
the Union. Till every obstruction to its peaceful flow Avas burst off, they could 
see no hopeful issue to the conflict. About this time, too, the whole horizon was 
dark. The partisans of McClellan waged fierce war upon the Government that 
had removed their favorite; his enemies shrank appalled, as by their own' handi- 
work, from the ghastly slaughter of our bravest which his incompetent successor 
had wrought on the heights of Fredericksburg. The capture of New Orleans 
had led to none of the expected results. Operations on the sea-coast were frivo- 
lous and inconsequential. At a great cost the old Army of the Ohio had, before 
Nashville, maintained its ground, without the ability to advance. From the sea 
to the river our armies seemed paralyzed. The opponents of the war at the 
North, encouraged by these indications, ventured upon an opener course. Their 
able representatives in Congress pointed to the failures of two bloody years as 
proof that the seceded States could never be subdued; demanded a cessation of 
hostilities; declared that continuance of the struggle would insure the eternal 
separation of the South. Their eloquent spokesman warned the Government 
that, in such case, the North-West would go with the South. If war could not 
open the Father of Waters, the men who dwelt on its tributaries and about its 
sources would make peace to accomplish the end. "There is not one drop of 
rain that foils over the whole vast expanse of the North-West," he exclaimed 
with threatening emphasis, and with the instant applause of his great party, 
"that does not find its home in the bosom of the Gulf We must and we will 
follow it, with travel and trade, not by treaty but by right; freely, peaceably, 
and without restriction or tribute, under the same Government and flag."* 

Unmoved by the clamor that thus agitated the public mind and gave fever- 
ish interest to his operations; unmoved likewise by the signs of his own growing 
unpopularity, the stories about his habits, the comments on his Mississippi failure, 
the censures of his negligence in leaving Holly Springs with defense so inade- 
quately proportioned to the importance of the post— moved by none of these 
things from his equable calm, Grant, still with the fullest support of the Govern- 
ment, began his study of the Yicksburg problem. 

It was evident that the conditions were different from those under which 
the other strongholds along the Mississippi had been successively secured. The 
naval force had in every case prpved insufiicient to reduce the Rebel batteries 
which blocked the navigation, so long as their garrisons were free from menace 

« Vallandigham's Speech on Wright's Resolutions, 37th Cong., 2d Sess., Jan., 1863. 



382 Ohio in the War. 

by a superior land column. But the moment that an army in the interior 
endangered the communications of the garrison, the post had fallen. With the 
establishment of Grant's forces at Fort Donelson, Columbus had been abandoned. 
With Pope's appearance below it, Island No. 10 had been abandoned. With the 
evacuation of Corinth came the evacuation of Port Pillow, and the resulting full 
of Memphis. With the occupation of Jackson, which Grant had essayed, might 
have come Sherman's occupation of Yicksburg. But Grant had failed to keep 
open his communications on his march toward Jackson; and whether he 
might have done better again or not, he abandoned the effort, and committed 
himself to the radically false movement* of passing directly down the river. 

He was not long indeed in discovering the error ; but the steps could not 
well be retraced. Thenceforward his mind was wholly turned upon efforts to 
find some way of vaulting from the river in the front, to the hills in the rear of 
Vicksburg. And here it was that the peculiar diificulties of the problem were 
encountered. 

Thi.s city of Yicksburg is situated at the eastern end of a great bend of 
the Misssisippi, and on its eastern bank. Its high bluffs render direct assault 
from the front an impracticable thing. It is now to be seen that a movement 
from the east bank of the Mississippi above it, around to its rear, was likewise an 
impracticable thing. A few miles above Yicksburg the Yazoo river empties into 
the Mississippi, on the eastern side. The hills which skirt Yicksburg extend 
northward, forming a good defensive line up to Haines's Bluff on the Yazoo, 
twelve miles from its confluence with the Mississippi. In front of these hills lay 
swamps, dense woods, and an old bed of the Yazoo — an uncertain region, neither 
land nor water, but presenting the obstacles of both, and admirably improved by 
the Eebel commander. The batteries at Haines's Bluff effectually closed the 
Yazoo to our gunboats : the defensive line thence to Yicksburg, just described, 
barred an advance by the land forces. 

This then was the problem : How should the army be planted in the rear of 
Yicksburg and supplied? The route overland, via Holly Springs, having been 
definitely abandoned, but two possible lines of supply seemed left. If the Yazoo 
could be used, the army might reach the rear of Yicksburg from the north side. 
If the Mississippi could be used, it might reach the rear from the south side. 
But we have seen that the Yazoo was closed by the batteries of Haines's Bluff, 
the Mississippi by the batteries of Yicksburg itself. 

Months were spent in efforts to evade first the one and then the other. All 
were futile ; and failure after failure served at once to strengthen the opposition 
at the North, to embarrass the Government, and to discourage the army. 

* High authorities will condemn this censure. But I find myself fortified in it, not merely by 
the abstract principles of war, but by the openly expressed conviction of so eminent a soldier 
and so distinguished a friend of Grant's as General Sherman. In his speech, July 20th, 1865, at a 
banquet given in his honor, at St. Louis, General Slierman, after referring to the canals and the 
" drowning on the levee like muskrats," said : "All that time the true movement was the origi- 
nal movement, and everything approximating it came nearer the truth. But we could not make a 
retrograde movement. Why? Because you people of the North were too noisy. We could not 
take any step backward, and for that reason we were forced to run the batteries at Yicksburg." 



Ulysses S. G-rant. 383 

The first project was to open the Mississippi by cutting a canal (scarcelj- a mile 
in length), directly across the neck of land axound which the river bends, to Avash 
the bluffs of the threatened city. This would have opened a line of supply to 




VICKSBURC AND SURROUNDINGS. 

the southward — even if the channel had not been permanently changed — and 
would thus have enabled Grant to move from the south side to the rear of Vicks- 
burg. The work was energetically prosecuted, but before the canal was deep 
enough, the rising river swept in the dam at its upper end, flooded the camps 
and drove off the workmen. Even then the undertaking might have been a 
success ; but the upper end of the canal had been located exactly at a powerful 
eddy in the river, which effectually prevented the current from entering it. 
And — as if the planners had predestinated failure — even if the canal had been 



384 Ohio in the War. 

made navigable, it must have been useless, for it entered the Mississippi again, 
directly under heavy batteries of the enemy. The river rose none too soon to 
prevent further waste of time on a scheme like this. 

Still seeking a route down the river by which he might supply his army 
below. Grant next bethought him of the chain of lakes and ponds and stagnant 
bayous through the swamps of Louisiana, connecting Lake Providence (lying 
only a mile west of the Mississippi) with the Tensas Eiver, which, through the 
Eed, leads again into the Mississippi far below Natchez. Chimerical, indeed, 
must have been the visions of relief from the remorseless conditions of his prob- 
lem that were swarming before the mind of the puzzled General, when the 
project of opening and defending a line like this, through the enemy's country, 
was seriously entertained. But a canal from the Mississippi into Lake Provi- 
dence was begun, and for a time the troops were kef)t busy with the spade 
upon it. 

Scarcely less unpromising was another wild eifort, the last of the schemes 
for evading Yicksburg and still descending the Mississippi. Near Milliken's 
Bend are certain Louisiana bayous, sluggish wastes of water in that "half-made 
land," which, during the spring freshets, swell into navigable streams. By one 
tortuous connection and another, through cj^press swamps innumerable, it was 
just possible that a shallop could be floated along these bayous, at flood time, 
till it should strike the Tensas, and thus again reach the Mississippi, through the 
Eed, half way down to New Orleans. Along this circuitous route an effort was 
actually made to dredge a channel. Presently the river fell, the bayous shrank 
again into scum-covered ponds, the connections with each other stiffened into 
mud, and, mayhap, before the season ended, cotton stalks were growing along 
the track the dredge boats had marked. 

With this ended the series of efforts to evade the Yicksburg batteries, and 
still find a line for supplies down the river. 

Meantime more promising plans were projected. We have seen that if the 
waters of the Yazoo could be reached, that stream would furnish a line, by the 
aid of which the army might safely essay from the northward a movement to 
the rear of the defenses of its long-coveted prize. The mouth of the Yazoo 
Deing closed by these defenses themselves, it became necessary to seek some 
other and unknown way of bursting into that river. Par up the Mississippi — 
well-nigh to Memphis itself — lies one of those anomalous sheets of water that 
line the banks of the Great Eiver, — tributaries in its weakness, parasites in its 
strength. This connects with a little lake, this again with the head-waters of 
one of the branches of the Tallahatchie, and through it with the Yazoo. Such 
is the route which now came to be known to the baffled, struggling army, as the 
Yazoo Pass. An expedition was formed to enter it, and after incredible labor, 
navigating those dark, interminably winding aisles of cypress, the Tallahatchie 
was fairly reached, early in March. "But," to take General Grant's own 
explanation, "while my forces were opening one end of the pass the enemy was 
diligently closing the other." Just as the leaders of the expedition imagined 
that they were about to reach the goal of all their labors (the Yazoo) and sweep 



Ulysses S. Gtkant. 385 

down from the rear upon the batteries of Haines's Bluff, they were suddenly 
etopped by a fort the Rebels had been busily building at the junction of the 
Tallahatchie with the Yazoo. It proved too strong for the gunboats; the high 
water jjrevented the land forces from co-operating in an attack: and so, by 21st 
March, the movement that had come so near success was abandoned, and the 
expedition returned. 

But there yet remained a roundabout road to the Yazoo, — so obscure that 
perhaps the Rebels had not obstructed it. Parallel with the Tallahatcliie, and 
like it, emptying into the Yazoo, but nearer the Mississippi, with a more slug- 
gish current, a shallower channel and more confusedly winding course, ran the 
Big Sunflower. It too could be reached, through lakes and bayous and ponds, 
from Yazoo Pass. Into this the gunboats now adventured. The trees from 
either bank interlaced their branches above; cypress trees rose in the very 
midst of the channel ; here and there a sturdy- cypress stood fair in the path the 
boats must take; logs and brush floated idly on the surface of the dai*k lagoons. 
'■ Every foot of our way," wrote an officer, " was cut and torn through a dense 
forest never before traversed by steamers." Delays were necessary, arising 
mainly from the utter ignorance of steamboatmen and all others as to the nature 
of the waters thus to be navigated. The enemy discovered the movement and 
prepared to check it; and so, when almost ready to emerge into the Yazoo, this 
last of the failures returned. 

Three months had now been consumed, and the army that had been 
expected to storm Yicksburg still lay on the Louisiana shore, with the Missis- 
sippi river between it and its goal. It was in good health, for at that season the 
evils of the climate and of the swamp are not felt; but to the excited appre- 
hensions of the people at home, who knew their sons to be aimlessly crowded 
on levees or wading through dark morasses, to no successful end, the condition 
of the troops became a matter of keenest apprehension. Meantime, all that the 
country knew was that eflFort after eflfort had failed; that now seven distinct 
and successive undertakings against Vicksburg, six of them under G-eneral 
Gi'ant's sole direction, had fallen impotent, and had only aroused the mirth of 
the enemy, who jeered at the Yankee ditch-diggers. One by one, those wise 
men of the East, who had followed the rising star from Fort Donelson, fell off. 
Long since it had been possible to number, with few figures. Grant's friends at 
the West. "There was a time," said Mr. Lincoln, "when I stood almost alone 
in supporting him." The clamor for his removal swelled. Even that sturdiest 
of champions for a friend's cause, the Congressman from Grant's own district 
who had already tilted many a parliamentary joust in his favor, grew luke- 
warm. Slanders revived. " The army was being ruined," said the coarsest and' 
most reckless of the newspapers, " in mud-turtle expeditions, under the leader 
ship of a drunkard, whose confidential adviser was a lunatic." It was the crisis 
of Grant's career. One thing, one only, stood between him and a removal, 
which would have consigned him to the purgatory of broken-down Generals, 
with a record that, in the light of this final failure, would have been read as one 
of unbroken blunders and disasters, relieved only by a victor}- that another had 
Vol. I.— 25. 



386 Ohio in the War. 



M 



won for him at Donelson. The confidence of Abraham Lincoln, though sadly, 
shaken, did not yet give way; he would "let Grant try once more." And it is^ 
to be specially noted that, in so resolving, he resolved likewise that the General !, 
thus favored should be supplied with ever}" re-enforcement and appliance for 
which he asked. With such hard fortune as befell other Generals in similar ■ 
straits. Grant must inevitably have gone down like them. But while McClellan, 
in the midst of the like futile attempts against a Eebel stronghold, clamoring for 
re-enforcements, was denied — while Eosecrans, piteously begging for troops, was 
told to cease his importunity and use what he had — Grant, in greater disfavor 
now than either, w^as still supported with generous and unstinting hand. What- 
ever he sought, that he sti*aightway received. 

The endangered General himself bore stoutly up. Through all this flounder- 
ing for a plan of operations, one feature of his character shines clear — he did 
not see how" to take Vicksburg ; but without discouragement, or despondency at 
fiiilures that would have broken down most men, with unabated hope, indeed, he 
resolutely continued to face the problem. 

"All this while," says General Sherman, "the true movement was the origi- 
nal movement," — that is, the march from Memphis via Holly Springs upon 
Jackson — and in this verdict that eminent General unquestionably follows the 
teachings of sound military science. That, at the time, he urged upon General 
Grant a return to Memphis to undertake the campaign over again on some such 
route is well understood ;* that Grant was for a time impressed by the suggestion 
seems probable. But our " uncle-like youth " had been growing. Eepeated 
failures had cleared his vision and inflamed his resolution; till now, determined 
not to go backj he had wrought himself up to the point of an undertaking, 
obvious enough to have been talked over among the privates by their camp- 
fires, but so hazardous that not the boldest General in all that brave army 
would have dared it. He decided to march his troops southward on the Louisi- 
ana side, to trust for supplies to steamboats that might run the gauntlet of tne 
Vicksburg batteries, to cross the Mississippi below the last post in the chain of 
defenses, and then, staking everything upon the die, and trusting to the fortune 
of the cast, to cut loose from supplies, and strike for Yicksburg or ruin. More- 
over, there was that in the mind of this most audacious of Generals that never 
permitted him to doubt of success, or to admit, in this wildest flight, the most 
prudent and judicious precautions. 

In the last days of March, the troops moved across the little peninsula 
opposite Vicksburg, and came out on the Mississipjii below New Carthage. Gun- 
boats and transj)orts next ran past the batteries, — a fearful ordeal, from which 
they emerged, battered, shattered, some in flames, while others had gone down 
beneath the pitiless rain of shells. Then, with gunboats leading the way, and 

* General Sherman, in his St. Louis speech, referring to an incorrect version of the above 
statement, emphatically denied having protested against Grant's final movement. " I never pro ■ 
tested against anything," he said. But he did not deny that, after Grant's movements had 
actually begun, he submitted in writing his reasons for believing that his own policy, as indicated 
above, would be better. Portions of this memorandum may be found in the (following) sketch 
of Sherman's life. 



■ \ 

Ulysses S. Grant. 387 

transports bearing down store of provisions, the army marched on, till it came 
opposite the last Kebel fort, that at Grand Gulf Here the gunboats were 
expected to reduce the hostile works, but the}' failed. Grant then hastened 
twelve miles further down; the gunboats and transports followed. 

The movement had now consumed a month ; and the Eebels were still 
incredulous or blind as to its real purpose. For Sherman had been left above, 
with his corps; and, when Grant was ready to cross to the eastern side of the 
river and at last launch his army upon the enemy's rear, he had skillfully 
arranged that Sherman should be making a feint of attacking them in force 
above. And so it came about that, while, on the first of May, Pemberton was 
watching Sherman, at Haines's Bluff, Grant was fairly across, far below the city, 
and moving rapidly in the rear of Grand Gulf 

From this moment there was in the mind of the great strategist, now at 
the head of all the Confederate armies in the West, no doubt of the course to be 
pursued. Comprehending instantly the menace, recognizing that the fate of 
Yicksburg was now to be settled by the fate of this army that was so suddenly 
rushing without a base into the enemy's country, General Jos. E. Johnston 
ordered Pemberton out of Vicksburg, to concentrate everything, fall upon Grant 
and crush him. But not less, clear was the vision of the General with whom 
Johnston was contending. From the hour that he set foot on the east side of 
the Mississippi, below Vicksburg, he persistently addressed himself to one clearly 
defined, distinct object, from which no raids upon his rear, no question of com- 
munications, no dubious maneuvers of the enemy were to swerve him. Herein 
lay the great Generalship of his movement. He at last knew j)recisely what he 
wanted. Interposing between Pemberton's forces near Vicksburg, and any 
troops to the eastward which Johnston might collect for the emergency, he 
fltruck straight along the most eligible route for the rear of Vicksburg, whence 
bursting off instantaneously, by attack in reverse, the fortifications on the 
Yazoo, he might open communication with the fleet, and sit down at his leisure 
to the siege. 

Accordingly, no sooner had the advance corps landed on the east side of the 
river and drawn four days' rations than it was pushed out on the road to Port 
Gibson — a point, the possession of which necessarily menaced the Eebel fortifi- 
cations at Grand Gulf The garrison here understood well enough the 
nature of such movement, and four miles in front of Port Gibson strove desper- 
atel}' to check the advance. The battle raged along the narrow ridge on which 
ran the road of the National army throughout the day, and cost a thousand of 
Grant's troops. But the end was inevitable; the Rebels were defeated and 
forced back toward their fortifications. Grant pushed instantly on, and the 
Grand Gulf garrison found itself on the point of being cut oft' from Vicksburg. 
In all haste, therefore, it evacuated and fled, leaving Grant to move up the trans- 
ports fi'om Bruinsburg, and make his temporary base of supplies at the point 
he had originally selected. 

A little above Grand Gulf, tlie Big Black, after flowing a few miles to the 
rear of Vicksburg. and thence almost parallel with the Mississippi southward, 



388 • Ohio in the Wak. 

empties into the Great River. Crossing it at the bridge which the Grand Gulf 
garrison took, there lay before the armj^ a straight road, only twenty miles long, 
directly to Yicksburg. But it was no part of Grant's plan to move square in the 
teeth of his foe. Yet he sent a column along this road to pursue the flying gar- 
rison, and thus creating the impression that the whole National army was rushing 
straight upon him, held Pemberton near Yicksburg. Then, pushing his army 
along the eastern bank of the Big Black, he protected by that stream his left 
flank, while he hastened to plant himself upon the line by which Johnston and 
Pemberton communicated — the short forty -five mile railroad connecting Yicks- 
burg with Jackson, the capital of the State. Assured by this skillful interpo- 
sition of the Big Black, of his safety from Pemberton, he even stretched his 
right, under McPherson, miles away to the eastward, to strike Jackson itself, 
destroy the Ptebel stores, and discover what force Johnston might be gathering 
for Pemberton's relief. 

Meantime it was the fate of that able but unfortunate commander to be 
cursed with subordinates who fancied they knew more than their chief. Troops 
for the emergency were collecting at Jackson. He had already ordered Pem- 
berton to concentrate against Grant; now, on his arrival at Jackson, he found 
Grant pushing by long strides against the railroad, midway between Jackson 
and Yicksburg, while Pemberton, conceiving it to be his duty in any event to 
cover Yicksburg, lay near it on the railroad. Johnston saw at once the false 
position of his forces, scattered on either side of Grant's column and sure to be 
beaten in detail; and he peremptorily ordered Pemberton to move north-east- 
ward, crossing in advance of Grant's front, and so reaching Jackson. Had that 
brave but brainless General known only enough to obey his superiors, the issue 
might have been diff'erent. But he could not conceive of anything that could 
absolve him from the duty of standing by the earthworks of his cherished forti- 
fication; and so he took it upon himself to disobey Johnston's order. Not merely 
this; so bent was he upon helping his adversary that, remembering the rule in 
the books about striking an enemy's line of communications, and utterly foiling 
to comprehend the essence of Grant's movement, which was an abandonment of 
all lines of communication, he actually marched southward, big with the mighty 
purpose of preventing Grant from drawing supplies from Grand Gulf 

Meanwhile, Grant, hearing of Johnston's attempted concentration at Jack- 
son, bent eastward the lines of Sherman and McClernand also, so that suddenly 
the whole army thus concentrated, burst upon Johnston's feeble force. That 
commander, disobeyed by his subordinate on whose troops he had confidently 
counted for such an emergency, did the best he could; but in two hours his hand- 
ful was driven from Jackson, and the accumulated stores were in flames. Then, 
having thus cleared away obstructions in the rear, turning sharp to the west- 
ward. Grant had before him — Yicksburg ! 

To this'stage had he reached in two short weeks! For, crossmg the Missis- 
sippi on the first, he was now, on the fifteenth, marching straight from Jackson 
upon the doomed^city. All too late, Pemberton discovered his blunder. Four 
days before his mighty resolve to throw Grant back by cutting his communica- 



Ulysses S. Grant. 389 

tions/Grant had sent word that "he would communicate no more with Grand 
Gulf." Now, therefore, Pemberton finding that, in utter contempt of his threats, 
Grant was almost upon his flank, came hastening back with intent to march north- 
eastward in the direction of Johnston's original order. But while he had been 
marching and countermarching. Grant with single purpose, had been driving 
straight to his goal. So then, when Pemberton, coming up from his futile raid 
against an abandoned line, reached in his northward march the Jackson and 
Yicksburg railroad, he was struck by Grant's columns hastening westward. It 
was too late to think of concentrating now with Johnston ; for his life and the life 
of his army he was forced to fight on the ground where he stood. Thus came 
about the battle of Champion Hills, at which the doom of Vicksburg was sealed. 

Pemberton's position was naturally strong and he had twenty-five thousand 
men to defend it. * Grant's heads of columns only were up ; one entire corps — 
that of Sherman, was still near Jackson. By eleven o'clock Hovey's division of 
McClernand's corps was fiercely engaged. Once it was repulsed; but Grant has- 
tened to put in a division from McPherson's corps to strengthen it. Meantime 
Logan was sent far to the right to feel the enemy's flank. He found the road 
on which he moved suddenly bend down so as to bring him fairly upon the 
enemy's rear. Hovey was being once more repulsed, in spite of supports, when 
Pemberton discovered this new source of danger and hastily drew ofi". Then 
Hovey and the rest pressed forward; Logan's flanking column joined in; the 
retreat of the EebC'ls became a rout ; one whole division was cut off" from their 
army, and the rest were driven to the Big Black— almost within hearing of the 
bells of Yicksburg — before nightfall. 

Here came the last flickering effort of the bewildered and blindly struggling 
Rebel commander. Crossing most of his troops, he left on the east side enough 
to hold the strong work defending the approaches to the river, while on the 
heights of the western bank he posted his artillery. Here, next morning, the 
advance corps of Grant's army, after some skirmishing, made an impetuous 
charge. The demoralized Eebel force broke at once. Pemberton vainly strove 
to rally them. Threats, persuasion, force were all in vain; disordered, terror- 
stricken, a mob, not an army, they poured back to Vicksburg. f There were 
still left them a few hours in which to escape, for Grant was delayed half a day 
bridging the Big Black. Johnston's peremptory order once more came to save 
them, but not even as by fire was this Pemberton to be saved. He could still see 
nothing but Yicksburg, and while he debated with his ofiicers about Johnston's 
strange order to evacuate and hasten north-eastward. Grant's columns came 
sweeping up in rapid deployment around the city, and thenceforward there was 
no evacuation for the caged army. It was only the 18th of May; the movement 
had begun on the Ist. Into such brief limits was crowded the most brilliant cam- 

*Some Rebel authorities say only seventeen thousand five hundred. 

t Eighteen guns were captured here and fifteen hundred prisoners. Grant's total loss was but 
two hundred and seventy-one. At Champion Hills, however, the day before, he lost two thousand 
four hundred and fifty seven. Tlie Rebel loss in killed and wounded was nearly as great; while 
it was swelled by two thousand prisoners, fifteen guns, and the death of Lloyd Tilghman, of Fort 
Henry memory. 



390 Ohio in the War. 

paign of the General whose star, bursting at last from all clouds and co/ieenl- 
ment, soared thenceforward steadily to the zenith. 

Here Grant might well have rested, for his right had already carried the 
Yazoo, and communications with the fleet were once more restored, and the issue 
of a siege could not be doubted. But as Johnston was known to be in the rear 
with a force which he would doubtless strive to increase for the purpose of rais- 
ing the siege, and as the Eebel garrison was known to be greatly demoralized, it 
was thought best to try the efi'ect of an immediate assault. Accordingly the 
day after the investment, this was ordered, but resulted only in canying the 
lines forward upon the very verge of the enemj^'s works. Two days later, after 
ample preparations, a grand simultaneous assault along the whole line was made. 
Twenty-five hundred men were lost in the attempt, and Grant then concluded,^ 
to use his own words, "that the enemy's position was too strong, both naturally 
and artificially, to be taken in that way." 

Then followed the regular details of a siege. The utmost activitj^ was main- 
tained; Grant himself exercised the closest supervision of all the bombardments, 
mines, parallels, and siege approaches. By and by Johnston was reported to be 
moving upon him. Straightway Sherman was detached to face the new danger. 
"The Rebels," wrote Grant, referring to the intercepted letters on which he 
based this movement, "seem to put a great deal of faith in the Lord and Joe 
Johnston; but you must whip Johnston at least fifteen miles from here." 

With all his efforts Johnston was too late. By the 7th of July, as he finally 
wrote Pembei'ton, he would be able to make an efl'ective diversion. But Pem- 
berton never received the letter; it went, like so many more, to swell the well- 
grounded confidence of the taciturn commander who now pressed his lines hard 
against every point of the beleaguered defenses. The garrison had long been on 
half rations; hope was exhausted; on the 3d of July Pemberton sought to 
"capitulate" on terms which "commissioners" might arrange. Grant knew hit* 
advantages and replied that commissioners were useless, since he had no terms 
but unconditional surrender to offer. Still he was willing to have an interview 
on the subject. Pemberton gladly assented. They met between the lines under 
a clump of trees, at a spot since mai-ked by a monument. Pemberton insisted 
upon commissioners. Grant, between the puffs of his cigar, replied that it was 
impossible. They sat down on the grass — tens of thousands of eager troojjs 
from the lines on either hand devouring their every movement — and talked it 
over. Pemberton still stood out for better terms. Perhaps, as the Rebel com- 
mander has since hinted, some trace of the melo-dramatic tinged Grant's wish 
that the next daj', the Fourth of July, should Avitness the surrender which he 
knew to be inevitable. At any rate, that night he receded from his demand of 
unconditional surrender, agreed to parole the entire Rebel armj^ and permit it 
to carry off such provisions as it wanted. Pemberton still higgled, with skill 
commonly attributed in his section only to Yankee bargainers, and on the morn- 
ing of the Fourth he gained the further privilege of marching out with colors 
and arms, and stacking them in front of hie limits. This done the conqueror 
rode in. McPherson and Logan were by his side; a division of the army that 



Ulysses S. Gkant. 391 

had followed him from his movement on Jackson six months before^ through all 
the buffets and reverses that fortune had given him, up to this crov^ming moment, 
followed him now. As he rode, the "uncle-like youth " placidly smoked his 



cigar 



This triumphant ending of the six mouths' efforts against Vicksburg was 
slightly marred, in the popular estimation, by undue lenity. It was generally 
believed that the paroles of an army of thirty-seven thousand men were not likely 
to be too scrupulously regarded in such straits as those upon which the Confed- 
eracy was now fallen, and Grant was blamed for not having sent his prisoners to 
the North. In reply, it was said that, under all the circumstances, this was 
impossible. But the subject never affected the instant outburst of enthusiasm 
that bore Grant to the first rank among all the Generals in the service of the 
country. From the day that Vicksburg fell, he was, in the eyes of the men who 
made up the army, and of the men who sustained it, the central figure of the war. 

President Lincoln addressed him a characteristic letter — "in grateful 
acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. 
I wish," he continued, "to say a word further. When you first reached the 
vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did — march the 
troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below, 
and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, 
that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below, 
and took Port Gibson, Grand Gulf and vicinity, I thought you should go down 
the river and join General Banks ; and when j^ou turned northward, east of the 
Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make a personal acknowl- 
edgment that you were right and I was wrong." Ptarel}- as such words have 
reached a General from the head of a great Government, it has been more rarely 
still that the high honor they confer has been so meekly borne. While the army 
was wild, while the North was ringing bells and building bonfires, while the 
politicians were nominating him for the Presidency, and the President was thus 
wreathing his name wuth the praises of the Nation, General Grant, scarcely 
pausing to look at his conquest, was hastening to make head against Johnston's 
army in his rear. Sherman's division was not even allowed to enter the city 
before which it had so long suffered and fought. While the streets of Vicksburg 
resounded with the shouts of such troops as had entered, it was toiling far to 
the eastward again, to press Johnston into position at Jackson, and soon there- 
after to force him to retreat. At the same time General Frank J. Herron was 
sent to capture Yazoo City; that handsomely accomplished, he was ordered to 
re-enforce Sherman. 

Throughout these operations, thus happily ended, three great traits of 
character shone conspicuously. Grant rarely mistook his men, or failed to 
choose for every task, leaders amply qualified to execute it. He was uniformly 
calm and sensible, even in his moods of most audacious undertaking. And his 
determination to conquer, at whatever cost, was invincible — not to be daunted by 
any risk, not to be turned back b}' any slaughter. 



392 Ohio in the War. 

There followed an interval of comparative leisure, extending to the middle 
of October. Expeditions were sent to prevent the passage of supplies from the 
Trans-Mississippi to Johnston ; re-enforcements were dispatched to Banks and 
Schofield; civil affairs were measurably adjusted in the conquered territory and 
along the Great Eiver that at last "went unvexed to the sea." Grant care- 
fully regulated the issue of rations to the destitute inhabitants and to the swarm- 
ing contrabands. He opposed the policy, enunciated in the expression jittributed 
to Secretarj^ Chase, that " trade follows the flag," declaring that an}- trade what- 
ever with the rebellious States was equivalent to a weakening of the National 
forces thirty-three and a third per cent. He observed the extortions practiced by 
the greedy steamboat men who first followed the re-opened river, regulated the 
fares they were permitted to charge soldiers; and ordered that, if a private 
soldier chose to travel as a cabin passenger, and had the money to pay for the 
privilege, no boat officer should have the power to hinder him. 

For the first time since the outbreak of the war he saw his wife. She now 
visited him at his head-quarters. The good woman's uneasiness about a liveli- 
hood for the future, from the man who had been forced to peddle wood through 
the streets of St. Louis to earn a living for her, were at last at an end ; for hav- 
ing resigned his place many j-ears ago, in the regular army, he was now 
re-appointed. But what a leap was there! He had resigned a Captaincy with 
the pay of an ordinary clerk; he was appointed to a Major-Generalship with 
a salary for life larger than that of a cabinet officer or of the Chief-Justice 
of the United States! Soon after, he was entertained at a costly banquet given 
to him in Memphis. The honors and attentions showered upon him wrought 
no change. He was the same quiet, undemonstrative, plain-looking, plain- 
spoken man that had been at his wit's ends, digging ditches through wear}'- 
months of vain experiment above Vicksburg. Some one sought to draw out his 
political opinions. He had none, he said. He didn't understand politics. But 
there was one subject he did understand, and, if they chose, was ready enough 
to discuss. He thought he knew all about the right way for tanning leather! 

In September he went to New Orleans, for a little rest. General Banks had a 
grand review in his honor. Grant was given a very fieiy horse to ride. Even in 
the review he proved unmanageable, and the guest, unable to control his steed, 
went thundering along the lines as if he rode a break-neck race. The attendant 
Generals and their staffs did their best to keep u}), and the horses all became 
wild with the excitement. As Grant turned back to the city, the sudden shriek 
of a locomotive startled his horse ; it plunged against a carriage that was meet- 
ing him, and threw Grant heavily to the ground. He was carried insensible to 
an adjacent house; his hip was paralyzed; and for a time it seemed that he 
was permanently disabled. More than two months passed before he could 
walk without the aid of a crutch. 

While Grant was resting after the completion of his task, Rosecrans had 
been busied with his. Sweeping down from Murfi-eesboro', with the movements 
of a consummate strategist, he had maneuvered Bragg beyond the Tennessee ; 
then, gathering all his resources, with muscles tense and every nerve on the 



Ulysses S. Gkant. 393 

rack, he hvA leaped to clutch the end of his campaign — the Hawk's Nest* that 
looks down to Georgia and the Sea. At the cost of a bloody battle he had 
won it, and Chattanooga was ours. But the conquest cost the conqueror his 
command. 

Startled by their loss the Eebels hastened to concentrate upon the devoted 
army that, perching there among the mountain ftistnesses, held firm in its bloody 
grasp the key to all their land. It was well-nigh too late when the War De- 
partment perceived the danger to be real. Then, detaching from the Potomac 
a column under Hooker, it ordered Sherman across from the Mississippi, and 
made haste to concentrate the great armies of the West upon the spot whence it 
saw that, henceforth, the West must be defended and the South subdued. 
Inasmuch as it had decided to remove Eosecrans, there was but one man left to 
command these converging columns. The hero of Vicksburg was spontaneously 
suggested. On his arrival, under orders, at Indianapolis, he was met by the 
Secretary of War in person, and was given command of the whole country 
between the Mississippi and the Alleghanies. At last, then, victory was indeed 
organizing. Eosecrans had been left with the depleted Army of the Cumber- 
land, with restricted command, and no possibility of re-enforcements, to take 
the strategic point and hold it against Bragg and Longstreet. It was the rare 
good fortune of his successor that, thanks partly to the awakened apprehen- 
sions of the Grovernment, but more to its present unlimited confidence in the 
man, he was able to bring to the continuation of this same work the colossal 
re-enforcement of two armies. 

On the 23d of October, 1863, G-eneral Grant arrived at Chattanooga. He 
found the men on half rations and likely, within a week or two, to be starved 
out. But he found, also, the plans elaborated by which they could be relieved 
the proper officers apprised of their nature, and the troops in position to execute 
them. Furthermore, he found the plans elaborated for the army's resuming the 
offensive. With his usual good sense he at once adopted these arrangements of 
his predecessor, and, with larger forces and unquestioning support from the 
Government, proceeded to their execution. We may now, therefore, look back 
to the weeks intervening between the disastrous day of Chickamauga and 
Grant's appointment to his new command, to trace the origin and development 
of the brief but brilliant campaign that was to carry our sturdy hero one step 
higher, and bring him the only promotion that remained for him to win. 

When, crushed beneath the Eebel concentration which the War Department 
had refused to believe possible, Eosecrans drew back his shattered columns to 
Chattanooga, that astute strategist realized, more fully, perhaps, than when a 
wing of his army first entered it, that there was the top and crown of his 
rounded campaign — not to be lost under any circumstances — not to be yielded 
to any superiority of attack. Knowing how largely he was outnumbered he 
first sought to form a defensive line, sufficiently concentrated to defy the enemy 
in anv strength. To this end he abandoned Lookout Mountain and his line of 

* The Indian word Chattanooga means "Hawk's Nest." 



394 Ohio in the Wak. 

supplies south of the Tennessee, trusting that the re-enforcements, at last sO 
vigorously forwarded after the battle was over, might arrive in time to re-open 
the line before its loss should be seriously felt. Meanwhile steamboats were 
building at Bridgeport for supplies, and bridge materials were earnestly sought. 

Now the position in which the army that had wrested Chattanooga from 
the enemy stood, was this: Lying on the south side of the Tennessee, closely 
shut up within its fortifications, it was forced to bring its supplies far over 
rough mountain roads to the northward. In front of it lay its victorious enemy, 
looking down into its camps from the fastnesses of Mission Eidge, with out- 
lying divisions down the river to its right, holding the point of Lookout Moun- 
tain which abuts on the river, and the ferries below it. But to the left, above 
Chattanooga, it was possible for a force operating from the north side of the 
stream to cross to the rear of the enemy, who there bent his flank down around 
the beleaguered garrison. Likewise to the right, below Chattanooga, it was 
possible again for a force, operating from the north side of the river, to plant 
itself on the enemy's flank. For the river bends southward below the city, and 
then returns, making a huge U, with the curved end toward the south. Xow 
against this curved end abuts Lookout Mountain. But beyond this, along the 
returning side of the U, runs Lookout Valley. The force holding Chattanooga, 
by passing to the north side of the river, behind the city, and marching across 
the little peninsula inclosed within the two sides of the U, would strike the 
river again below and beyond Lookout, and, by gaining a passage there, would 
find itself directly on the flank of the troops that held Lookout Mountain. 
Moreover, it would still be practically nearer to its main body than w^ould any 
force which the enemy could then send to attack it. For, from Lookout, no 
artillery could be moved to this lower point, save by a long march twenty-six 
miles to the southward, to the nearest practicable gap. But from Chattanooga 
there was only the short march, on the north side, across the little peninsula. 
Thus, when this ferry on the further side of the peninsula was once gained, its 
possession was secure; for if it were disputed the army from Chattanooga could 
concentrate there in two hours, the enemy scarcely in two days. 

If we have at all succeeded in explaining these peculiar topographical fea- 
tures, we have made the plans of G-eneral Eosecrans clear. As soon as Hooker's 
re-enforcements began to approach, they were ordered to Bridgeport, the place 
Avhere the railroad strikes the Tennessee, and the nearest point on the river in 
our possession. Hooker was to cross here; troops from Chattanooga were sud- 
denly to seize the ferry on the lower side of the peninsula wo have described, 
leading into Lookout Valley; Hooker was then to sweep up to it along the south 
side road from Bridgeport, and the direct line of supplies would be once more 
opened; while the enemy's flank down the river would be compromised. Then 
another force was to be crossed above Chattanooga, at the point already men- 
tioned, and planted upon the other flank. 

Further than this it does not appear that the plans of Eosecrans had taken 
consistent shape; when, on the very day of his return from the final reconnois- 
eance of the ferry, by which he meant to open communication with Hooker, 



Ulysses S. GtKant. 395 

then ,ibout ready to march, he found orders relieving him from command of the 
army.<= 

Four days later General Grant arrived. He found these elements of a 
campaign ready to his hand, and competent subordinates to explain them. In 
three days, in precise conformit}^ to Eosecrans's arrangements, he had Hooker 
crossing at Bridgeport. Meantime General W. F. Smith, one of the officers to 
whom Eosecrans had developed the plans, was sent down the river with a small 
force, in pontoon boats, to float silently past the enemj^ at Lookout, and seize 
the ferr}- at Lookout Valley. No sooner had they landed and driven off" the 
Eebel pickets, than they were re-enforced by a column that had been marched 
across the peninsula. It only remained to fortify and await Hooker's advance. 
That officer pushed vigorously foi-ward, suffering a terrible night attack from 
the now thoroughly aroused enemy; but repulsing it and eftecting the connection 
on the 29th of October. Supplies could then come forward freely, by rail to 
Bridgeport, thence by river to the posts in Lookout Valley; and thence it was 
but a two hours' march, over the pontoon bridge and across the peninsula, to 
Chattanooga. 

Favored as he had been by great re-enforcements and wise dispositions for 
the execution of a skillful plan, there was now reserved for Grant a crowning 
piece of good fortune. The Eebel commander, seeing that it was no longer 
possible to starve out the army in Chattanooga, and little dreaming that his 

* The above account differs widely from those currently received, which attribute to Rose- 
crans the intention of abandoning Chattanooga, and to Grant the elaboration of the brilliant 
campaign that raised the siege after his arrival on the spot. But Grant's fame is too solidly 
established to need such poor inventions for building it up by detraction of others. General 
Eosecrans, in testimony under oatli before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, specifically 
stated that he had formed these plans, had made reconnoissances preliminary to carrying them 
out, and had explained them (fifteen days, in fact, before his removal) to Generals Thomas and 
Garfield, and, some time later, to General William F. Smith. Grant afterward acknowledged, in 
terms, his indebtedness to General William F. Smith for the crossing below Chattanooga, and 
the connection with Hooker; and Sherman took pains to emphasize his obligations to Smith for 
aid in all the details of the crossing above. 

In the course of his testimony, just referred to. General Rosecrans said: "As early as the 
4th of October, I called the attention of Generals Thomas and Garfield to the map of Chattanooga 
and vicinity, and, pointing out to them the positions, stating that, as soon as I could possibly get 
the bridge materials for that purpose, I would take possession of Lookout Valley (the point on 
the south side, reached by the march across the peninsula) and fortify it, thus completely cover- 
ing the road from there to Bridgeport To effect this General Hooker was directed to 

concentrate his troops at Stevenson and Bridgeport, and advised that, as soon as his train should 
arrive, or enough of it to subsist his army, ten or twelve miles from his depot, he would be 

directed to move into Lookout Valley On the 19th I directed General William F. 

Smith to reconnoiter the shore above Chattanooga, with a view to that very movement on the 
enemy's right flank which was afterward made by General Sherman." 

These words of Rosecrans, it will be seen, are the only direct evidence I have cited to show 
who planned the Chattanooga and Mission Ridge camjaaign. No other evidence will be needed 
till it can be established, first, that General Rosecrans is at once knave and fool enough to be 
guilty of the perjury, with circumstance of falsely swearing to these statements, and naming the Gen- 
erals who must know them to be true or false ; and second, that these Generals, all honorable and 
highly esteemed gentlemen and soldiers, are guilty of silently suffering themselves to be thus 
quoted, in matters of high moment, as authorities for statements which they know to be untrui' 



396 Ohio in the War. 

own mountain-girt eyrie could be assailed, bethought him of the plan of crush- 
ing Burnside's weak column in East Tennessee, which should have been sent, 
months ago, to Eosecrans. General Longstreet, with his tried division of 
incomparable soldiers from the Army of Northern Virginia, was accordingly 
detached to East Tennessee. It was Grant's opjsortunity. He was already 
re-enforced by Hooker; Sherman, with the Army of the Mississii^pi, was march- 
ing to join him; and thus, while the force that held Chattanooga was being 
well-nigh trebled, its unwaiy antagonist was being weakened by almost one- 
half of his fighting capacity. Manifestly, Sherman's arrival must be the signal 
for attack. The outlines of the plan were already drawn. Hooker lay below 
menacing the enemy's flank on Lookout. Thomas, in Chattanooga, faced his 
center. It remained to put in Sherman on the upper flank; and the means for 
doing this secretly, from the north bank of the river, had already been devised 
by Smith, in the reconnoissauce on which Eosecrans had sent him. On Sher- 
man's arrival. Smith, at once, became his guide. 

It was only left to deceive the enemy as to the destination of this new 
army, now marching in from the westward. A happy accident directed one of 
its divisions to Hooker; behind this, and unknown to the enemy, the rest of the 
army passed to the north side, behind Chattanooga and up to the points already 
selected for its recrossing to the eastward of the enemy's strongest position on 
Mission Eidge. 

Thus positioned, the troops awaited the signal of the quiet soldier now 
limping about the streets of Chattanooga on his crutch. They were seventy-five 
thousand strong; their recently weakened antagonist could only muster forty 
thousand. Grant had been impatient to attack from the moment he had heard 
of the detachment of Longstreet's corps; the imjDortunities of the War Depart- 
ment concerning the danger to Burnside made him more eager; and he had 
once resolved not to wait for the arrival of Sherman. In that case he would 
have been carrying out Eosecrans's plan with Eosecrans's means. But fortune 
meant better for him. Now, on the evening of the 23d, Sherman's army lay con- 
cealed above Chattanooga, on the north bank, and ready for the crossing. There- 
fore, it was time that the movement should begin by attracting the enemy's atten- 
tion somewhere else. Thomas was accordingl}^ moved out on the center — that 
superb soldier so handling the finely-tempered force that had won its way from 
Stone Eiver to the ground it stood on, that the enemy, looking down from 
the heights of Mission Eidge, thought it was a grand review, till, with compact 
lines, the column suddenly swept out upon his jjickets and on over his advance 
posts, and crowned the -'review" with the capture of Orchard Knob. The 
new positions were at once intrenched and strengthened with heavy artillery. 

Six hours later Sherman's men w^ere crossing. By daylight a column, eight 
thousand strong, stood ready for the march on Mission Eidge; by noon the 
bridges were all built, and the whole Army of the Mississippi was crowding 
across ; by half-past three the north end of Mission Eidge had been carried, 
and, in strongly intrenched positions, Sherman awaited the hour for pressing 
hard upon the enemy at this vital point, while, by sweeping down the river from 



Ulysses S. Gkant. 397 

the newly-gtiined heights, communication was opened again on ttie south side 
with the army in Chattanooga. 

Simultaneous with these operations were those grander ones down the river, 
which, through all our history, are to be known as Hooker's battle above the 
clouds. While the enemy, suddenly called off from contemplating the capture 
on his center, in which Thomas's grand review had ended, was now striving to 
make head against the new danger up the river, where Sherman was pushing 
into the very fastness of his strength, and while Grant knew, by the necessity of 
his Aveakened ranks, that his forces below on Lookout could not be large. Hooker 
was ordered to advance and take it. He charged up the slopes of the mountain, 
carried the works, took two thousand prisoners, and, emerging on the side of 
Lookout up the river, kindled his camp-fires at night in safety among the clouds, 
in full view of the patient commander in Chattanooga, who now saw his several 
lines converging to their focus, and his preparations complete. 

JS^ext morning* Sherman and Hooker both advanced — the latter cai-rying 
ever}^ thing before him as he marched down Lookout and across the interven- 
ing valley, toward Mission Eidge ; while Sherman moved vigorously from the 
heights of that Eidge next the river, across some intervening depressions, till 
Bragg, concentrating upon his front, held him stoutly at bay, and for a brief 
time drove one or two of his divisions. In thus strengthening his exposed flank 
the Eebel commander had weakened his center. Now, therefore, was the op- 
portune moment. Hooker, delayed for a time by the sti-eam that runs through 
the valley between Lookout and Mission Eidge, was now advancing again. 
Thomas lay ready. Grant, watching the panorama from Orchard Knob, gave 
the signal. Six guns, fired at intervals of two seconds, from head-quarters, 
sounded the order to charge along the lines. In an instant the old Army of the 
Cumberland was up, Hooker was up, the last reserves were up, every man that 
could bear a musket was thrown forward. The plain was swept; the rifle-pits 
were carried. And then the spectator on Orchard Knob saw that the troops no 
longer waited for his orders. They were climbing the mountain. " They dash 
'lut a little way and then slacken; they creep up, hand over hand, loading and 
firing, and wavering and halting, from the first line of works to the second; 
they burst into a charge, with a cheer, and go over it. Sheets of flame baptize 
them; plunging shot tear away comrades on right and left; it is no longer 
shoulder to shoulder; it is God for us all. Under tree trunks, among rocks, 
stumbling over the dead, struggling with the living, facing the steady fire of 
eight thousand infantry, poured down upon their heads as if it were the old 
historic curse from heaven, they wrestle with the Eidge. Ten, fifteen, twenty 
minutes go by like a reluctant century. The hill sways up like a wall before 
them, at an angle of forty-five degrees; but our brave mountaineers are clam- 
bering steadily on. They seem to be spurning the dull earth under their feet, 
and going up to do Homeric battle with the greater gods. If you look you 
shall see, too, that these thirteen thousand are not a rushing herd of human 
creatures; that along the Gothic roof of the Eidge a row of inverted Y's is 

* Wednesday, 25th November. 



398 Ohio in the Wae. 

slowly moving up, almost in line. At the angles is something that glitters like 
a wing — the regimental flag — and glancing along the front you count fifteen of 
those colors that were borne at Pea Eidge, waved at Pittsburg Landing, glori- 
fied at Stone River, riddled at Chickamauga. Up move the banners, now flut- 
tering like a wounded bird, now faltering, now sinking out of sight. Three 
times the flag of one regiment goes down. You know why. Just there lie three 
dead color-sergeants. But the flag, thank God! is immortal, and up it comes 
again, and the V's move on. The sun is not more than a hand's breadth from 
the edge of the mountain; its level rays bridge the valley from Chattanooga to 
the Ridge with beams of gold; it shines in the Rebel faces; it brings out the 
National blue; it touches up the flags. Oh, for the voice that could bid that sun 
to stand still. Swarms of bullets sweep the hill; you can count twenty-eight 
bullets in one little tree. The Rebels tumble rocks upon the rising line; they 
light the fuzes and roll shells down the steep; they load the guns with handfuls 
of cartridges in their haste. Just as the sun, weary of the scene, was sinking 
out of sight, the advance surged over the crest, with magnificent bursts all .along 
the line, exactly as 3'ou have seen the crested waves leap up at the breakwater. 
In a minute, those flags fluttered along the fringe where fifty Rebel guns were 
kenneled. AVhat colors were first upon the mountain battlement one dare not 
try to say; bright honor itself might be proud to bear, nay, to follow the hind- 
most. Foot b}" foot they had fought up the steep, slippery with much blood; 
let them go to glory together!"* At the same time Hooker was charging 
through the Rossville Gaj), on the enemy's left flank. The battle Avas over; the 
Rebels retreated in wild disorder. Bi'agg himself narrowly escaped capture. 
The Hawk's Nest was secure, and the army stood ready to be launched on At- 
lanta and the sea. First, however, Burnside was to be saved, and Sherman was 
hastily detached to that end; while a brief pursuit harassed the enemy to 
Tunnel Hill. 

Grant modestly announced his success. Quartermaster General Meigs sent 
an elaborate dispatch, describing it, in which he declared that "perhaps not so 
well-directed, well-ordered a battle had taken place during the war;" and the 
fame of the General now rose to its culmination, while Avitli the War Depart- 
ment, with the President, and with the people, his word became law. The Leg- 
islature of his native State voted him its thanks. That of the Enn)ire State 
followed its example. Congress voted him a gold medal, bearing his laurel- 
wreathed profile and the image of Fame, with the scroll of his victories. Pres- 
ents were showered upon him. Honorary memberships in societies of all sorts 
were conferred. And most significant of all, his sturdj' friend, Mr. Washburne, 
now introduced his resolution reviving, for Grant's sake, the grade of Lieutenant- 
General, never filled in our armies save by Washington and (with brevet appoint- 
ment only) by Winfield Scott. While it was pending. Grant visited diflerent 
points of his Department, received the banquet and municipal honors of the 
city in which he had hauled Avood to the kitchen-doors of its citizens, for a 
livelihood, and so passed away the winter. Men talked to him about the Pres- 

"From the Stirling account of the battle written by B. F. Taylor, Esq., an eye-witness. 



Ulysses S. Grant. 399 

idenc}', for it was now within a few months of the time for a nomination, and 
great journals, discerning that he was the most popular man on the continent, 
were urging his name. G-rant's common sense and caution stood him in good 
stead. His Commander-in-Chief was a candidate for re-election ; and besides, as 
we may well believe, he could see that just then his greatest glory was to be 
won in the field. So, when approached on the subject, he replied that there was 
l)ut one political office that he desired — after the war was over he wanted to be 
elected Mayor of Galena. If successful, he meant to see to it that the sidewalk 
between his house and the depot was put in better order! 

On the 2d of March, 1864, the leather-dealer of Galena, who had raised a 
company and marched with it to the State capital to gain an entry into the ser- 
vice, became Lieuten ant-General of the United States Army. He repaired at 
once to Washington, to accept the position and study its requirements. The 
diners at the fashionable hotel scarcely noticed the quiet, rather rough-looking 
little man, who, with an air of embarrassment, came down the private stair- 
case, leading a little boy, and was shown to a seat at the head of one of the 
cross-tables. But presently a buzz ran along the great dining-hall, fair ladies 
turned with feminine impetuosity to gaze at the man who had taken Vicksburg, 
and scaled Missionary Eidge ; the inevitable Congressman sprang to his feet to an- 
nounce that " We have the honor of being in the presence of Lieutenant-General 
[jlysses S. Grant ;" and the ftishionable proprieties were startled by three cheers 
that rang from end to end of the hotel, while the mob of Washington greatness- 
and beauty bore down upon the General's devoted hand. In the evening our 
quiet officer thought it his duty to pay his respects to the President, who had 
just placed him at the head of the army, and so he went up to the levee. He 
met Abraham Lincoln for the first time in his life. But there was little oppor- 
tunity for acquaintance. The mob again besieged the conqueror from the West, 
and the evening was devoted to hero-worship, in its coarser forms of staring and 
crowding and forcing on exhibition. The next day, in the presence of the Cabi- 
net and the i-etiring General-in-Chief, he received his commission, with the gentle 
admonition that, with the high honor devolved a corresponding responsibility, 
and a few days later a Presidential order gave him the actual control over the 
armies which his rank implied. 

The man into whose hands were thus committed the issues of the war was 
now in his forty-third year. His rapid rise had in no wise changed his appear- 
ance or bearing. He was still the same taciturn, undemonstrative, unpreten- 
tious person, in well-worn uniform, with perpetual cigar, and withal not a little 
embarrassed by the attentions of the fine people with whom he now found him- 
self surrounded. Experience had taught him much in the details of his profes- 
sion. There was no chance for another Belmont in his career, no possibility of 
another Pittsburg Landing. But this experience had not altered the essential 
characteristics of the man's mental organization. There were no flights of 
genius about him ; no strokes of brilliant generalship; there were "the genius 
of common sense " and an unconquerable pertinacity. 



400 Ohio in the Wae. 

The jDOsitiou, as the Lieutenant-G-eneral saw it, was this : At the North was 
a great people, weary, perhaps, of reverses and delays, but not yet touched by 
the exhaustion of war. Its resources, instead of being drained, were, m fact, 
scarcely comprehended. Its spirit was invincible ; the troops it could command 
were innumerable. Against it stood up a brave, skillful antagonist, driven to 
the last straits, with limited resources and inferior numerical strength. The 
General shall himself tell us what resolution the sight inspired: "I, therefore, 
determined fii'st to use the greatest number of troops practicable against the 
enemy; second to hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy 
and his resources, until, by mere attrition, if in no other way, there should be 
nothing left to him."* That strategy of the campaigns that followed is not far 
to seek. There it is, in its author's own words: "To hammer continuously, till, 
by mere attrition, there should be nothing left to him." In the light of that 
sentence we may follow with a quicker pen all that follows. 

By the rule of hammering continuously, which the Lieutenant-General thus 
prescribed for the conduct of our armies, strategic points lost a large share of their 
importance. Armies, not strongholds, now became our objectives. The purpose 
in view was to kill off or capture the Eebel soldiery — not specifically to conquer 
the Eebel territory. Two Eebel armies thus became the objectives of the great 
Eastern and Western campaigns — those under General Eobert E. Lee and Gen- 
eral Joseph E. Johnston. The latter Grant committed to his trusted associate 
and friend, General Sherman, whom he raised to the chief command between 
the mountains and the Mississippi. For himself he set the task of crushing the 
great, often-tried and fire-refined army of Northern Virginia. For the work he 
was able to concentrate a column of one hundred and thirty thousand, against 
the fifty-two thousand six hundred and twenty-six f men, of all arms, whom 
General Lee was able to muster. But, besides this overwhelming preponder- 
ance, he was also able to dispose a column of thirty thousand on the James to 
menace the flank of Eichmond, and another of seventeen thousand for co-ope- 
rative movements in the Shenandoah and Kanawha Valleys. Plainly he was 
able, as he was sometimes credited with saying, to change off man for man with 
his antagonist, and still come out, by long odds, victor in the end. 

Two months of pi-eparation intervened. Sherman was visited; particular 
instructions were dispatched to Banks, now engaged in the ill-starred Eed Eiver 
expedition, and to other outlying commanders. Then Grant returned to the 
Army of the Potomac, and addressed himself to his task. 

On the 2d of May, 1864, the long-expected order was issued. Within 
twenty-four hours the army was crossing the Eapidan. Below it lay Lee, not 
unmindful of its movements. Grant's hope was to turn the Eebel right beyond 
the Wilderness, then throw his army between Lee and Eichmond. To the Wil- 
derness itself, that dark, tangled "region of gloom and the shadow of death," 

* Grant's first Annual Keport as Lieutenant-General. 

t The exact figure shown by the consolidated morning returns of Lee's army for the Ist of 
May, 1864. 



Ulysses S. Geant. 401 

ho trusted for protection of his own flank, and concealment of his purpose, till 
liis success should disclose it. But, for the first time in his career, since his dis- 
asters at Pittsburg Landing, he was matched against a first-class General.* 
Scarcely had his movement begun till his experienced adversary had detected 
and prepared to neutralize it. And so it came about that while Grant was 
marching through the Wilderness, with eyes and thoughts only for that which 
should befal him when he had emerged from it, he was suddenly struck fair on 
the flank by Lee's veteran divisions. At first he refused to believe that it was 
more than a light reconnoitering party of the enemy, to be hastily brushed 
aside by and by. The fierceness of the confused grapple in the dark woods 
taught him better, and he made all haste to call up the detached corps from 
their loose marching order, lest, before he could concentrate, his army should be 
fairly cut in two by this terrible flank attack. The battle raged thenceforward 
with musketry alone — a huge " bushwhacking" Indian fight, with varying suc- 
cess, but perfectly indecisive issue, till nightfall. It was not at all what he had 
hoped when he moved across the Eapidan; but, undismayed by the failure 
of his purpose, he issued his simple order of battle for the morrow, to " attack 
along the line at five o'clock." But once more Lee was quicker. At daybreak 
his massed troops fell upon Hancock, and only the accidental wounding of 
Longstreet, the Eebel General in charge of the attack, would seem to have saved 
the army from serious disaster. As it was, the day wore on with the rattle of 
musketry in the gloomy woods, where no man could see the battle, and with 
confused struggles by troops that had lost all formation in the tangled thickets. 
Grant seated himself on the grass, under the trees, a little to the rear, smoked 
his cigar, and awaited the issue. "It has been my experience," he said, "that 
though the Southerners fight desperately at first, yet when we hang on for a day 
or two we whip them awfully." f Fresh onslaught, however, broke out along 
his lines, while his orders for preparing for another attack were being delivered, 
Lee had again precipitated his gray masses through the obscure woods, upon 
our exposed lines. The fight raged till dark ; then, exhausted with their blind 
and fruitless wrestling, the antagonists each withdrew a little, and waited to 
see what the other would do. 

The Army of the Potomac, accustomed to fall back when failure to accom- 
plish its intent was palpable, awaited the order to return across the Eapidan, 
But it was now commanded by the man who, amid the disasters of Pittsburg 
Landing, calmly reasoned out the certain success of the morrow. As he found 
that Lee's attack upon his flank had ended through exhaustion, he silently drew 
out his troops and — renewed his march toward Eichmond ! 

This opening slaughter certainly displayed no brilliant generalship. It was 
the blind collision of brute masses in the midst of dense thickets. It cost us 
twenty thousand soldiers — the enemy scai'cely ten thousand. But our army 

* Johnston indeed sought to make head against him at Vicksburg, but was without troops, 
and utterly disobeyed by his subordinates, 

t Swinton's Decisive Battles of the War, p. 380. 
YOL. I.— 26. 



402 Ohio in the Wak. 

marched onward. It was to hammer continuously — had not the Lieutenant- 
General declared it? 

On the night of the 9th of May the advance of the Army of the Potomac 
silently moved out from the Wilderness, and marched rapidly toward Spottsyl- 
vania Court House. The troops were somewhat entangled on the narrow roads, 
and several hours were thus lost. When, at last, Spottsylvania was approached 
a seething fire of musketry burst out upon the column, and told that again Lee 
had divined the movement. Only his advance was yet up, and a vigorous 
attack might have gained the point ; but one untoward event and another hin- 
dered; Lee gained time to form his lines, and when, on the morning of the 10th, 
Grant renewed his assault, he was everywhere met by a compact, well-ordered 
resistance. Hancock was sent across the Eiver Po, to the north-west of Lee's 
position, without any very distinctly defined object. Presently he was ordered 
back to aid in an assault. In retiring his troops were vehemently assailed, the 
woods behind him were fired, and, after appalling suffering and heavy loss, his 
corps rejoined the army. Meanwhile there had been two successive assaults 
upon a hill crowned by the enemy's works, and approachable only through a 
thicket of dead cedars. The failures taught no lesson ; with the re-enforcement 
of Hancock's corps two more charges were made upon the same position ; five 
or six thousand men were lost, and, at last, the effort was abandoned. All this 
was hammering continuously, but the process was proving fatal to the hammer. 
At daybreak on the 12th a better devised attack began. A point in Lee's 
center was selected as likely to be more easily carried. The troops, unable to 
see it after they entered the woods, were guided to it by the compass. A bril- 
liant charge carried a salient of the Eebel work; an effort to penetrate further 
met a bloody repulse ; the troops, however, kept the salient, and there, heavily 
re-enforced, barely held up against Lee's tremendous efforts to regain it. An 
effort was, thereupon, made to break another point in Lee's line, which it was 
supposed must be weakened by his concentration to regain the salient. The 
supposition proved erroneous, and another bloody repulse followed. Then 
ensued fresh struggles around the salient, till at night the Eebel dead were act- 
ually piled in veritable heaps on the slopes of the intrenchments. Eight thou- 
sand more were added to the fi-ightful lists of the National lost. 

It was the day before these bloody repulses that Grant had sent his roseate 
dispatch to the Secretary of War, announcing that the result, up to this time, 
was much in his favor, that he believed the enemy's loss to" be greater than his 
own, and that he "proposed to fight it out on this line if it took all summer." 
Only, indeed, on this groundless opinion that the enemy was losing as much as 
himself, can we comprehend Grant's persistent attacks fair on the front of a 
position he could so easily have turned. Man for man he was willing to kill off, 
till the list on the Eebel side should be exhausted. No higher generalship con- 
trolled the contests around Spottsylvania. Seven days more of blind attacks or 
essays to attack followed. Everywhere the attacking column — mayhap marched 
wearily for miles along the extended front, to catch the enemy unawares — ^was met 
by the vigilant antagonist with ample force. The troops were worn out. At last, 



Ulysses S. Gtrant. 403 

on the night of the 20th, fiiirly baffled, Grant di-ew back once more, and, in 
secret silence, renewed the march past Lee toward Richmond. 

Since crossing the Rapidan he had lost, in his hammering, forty thousand 
soldiers — four-fifths as many as the entire army which, at the outset, confronted 
him! The difference between the generalship which only projDOses to hammer 
continuously and that which seeks to accomplish ends, with all the saving of 
life that may result from the most skillful applications of military science, could 
find no more imiDressive illustration. Lee — on the offensive quite as much thus 
far as Grant — lost through this series of battles less than half as many! 
Alreadj^ Grant's army of one hundred and thirty thousand going out to do 
battle against fifty thousand, was calling lustily for re-enforcements ! 

Meanwhile Grant had signalized his assumption of personal command at 
the East, by the opportune display of one of his strong points. At Mission 
Bidge he had noticed a fiery little division General. He remembered the man ; 
and now Philip H. Sheridan was placed at the head of the cavalry, and sent 
sweeping around Lee's rear to Richmond. The expedition took much spoil and 
brought back much information. At the same time Butler had been demon- 
strating against Richmond along the James. That he accomplished little was 
mainly due to the orders under which he acted. 

The movement away from Sj^ottsylvania was hazardous; but it was skill- 
I fully accomplished; and the army, once more with a clear road before it, struck 
out Richmondwards. Not less active, however, was its wary antagonist. The 
columns headed for the North Anna; on the morning of the 23d they ap- 
proached it, only to behold, on the opposite side, the advance of Lee's army 
I ready to receive them. A passage was forced; there was some heavy fighting 
'] by detached corps; in the end the amny found itself pushed out southward, from 
the river on each wing, with Lee clinging firmly to it in the center, and thus 
ready to cut the column in two, and beat it in detail. Discovering his dangerous 
predicament Grant drew carefully back again, abandoned the route upon which 
he had essayed to enter, and turned the heads of his corps away toward the 
Pamunkey. The army was skillfully handled on the route; it reached the Pa- 
munkey and crossed it in safety, connecting thus with its new base of supplies 
from the Chesapeake;* and then the march turned toward the Chickahominy. 
But once more Lee, having the shorter route, was found in advance, planted 
across the paths by which the army moved. His real positions were skillfully 
masked; but at last he was found near Cold Harbor, covering the approaches to 
the Chickahominy. It was the old battle-field of Gaines's Mills, whence McClel- 
lan's retreat to the James began ; but with this difference, that Lee now occupied 
McClellan's, and Grant, Lee's old ground. Preliminary contests for position, on 
June Ist, cost two thousand men. 

On the 3rd Grant decided upon attack, not upon any special point, but along 
the whole line. It was executed at daybreak next morning, and resulted in 

* A striking feature of Grant's overland march was that the peculiar topography of the coun- 
tiy enabled him to dispense with long supply trains. Each new movement brought him to a 
new river which floated his supplies. 



404 Ohio in the Wak. 

bloody failure. The men swept up to the works, found them impregnable (save 
at one point where a footing was actually gained in the intrenchments, but, bein^ 
utterly unsuj^ported, was lost again), then sullenl}'- fell back, and, thencefoi-th 
refused to advance — having no further faith in orders to pour out their blooc 
for nothing. The battle scarcely lasted a quarter of an hour; it cost elever 
thousand men ! When an order was sent to each corps commander to renew 
the assault, independently of any other part of the line, it was duly delivered 
and the men, from one end of the line to the other, simply refused to stir 
There were brains in those ranks; and they did not reckon self-murder to b( 
the best method of making war. A few days of fi-uitless siege operations followed 
then came a total change in all the plans of the campaign. 

Up to this point Grant, starting with one hundred and thirty thousanc 
m'en, had lost the appalling number of sixty thousand in a month's campaign 
The losses inflicted on his adversary scarcely reached twenty thousand. If th( 
object of the campaign had been to reach the positions on which, at its end, th( 
army stood, one-half the loss might have been saved. For it is to be observec 
that the heavy casualties occurred in the hopeless, direct assaults on the enemy'f 
fortified positions, after the failure of which they were, in each case, success 
fully flanked. But if the object had been to wear out the Eebel army by th( 
"attrition of continuous hammering," it was most unfortunate that the process 
should be so managed as to cost us three to the enemy's one. And in these words 
there seems to be summed up all the criticism the campaign requires. 

But we have now to see that, after such ghastly experience, the mind of the 
General who conducted this campaign, far from depression, was actually rising 
to the height of a moral courage, capable of steps most distasteful to the Gov 
ernment whose favor had made him, and to whose favor, after this costly exjDe 
rience, he still looked for support. General Grant determined to abandon th( 
overland route against Eichmond,* to abandon the work of furnishing direci 
cover to Washington by his army, and, marching away from the Rebel intrench 
ments at Cold Harbor, to plant himself on the south side of the James River 
Lee's army ceased to be his objective; he now made it — Richmond. 

Warren was instructed to seize certain crossings of the Chickahominy 
spread his front to cover all the roads by which Lee could attack the retiring 
army, and create the impression that he was about to assume a vigorous offen 
sive. The plan was admirably carried out; the army crossed the James undis 
turbed, and Lee, when he discovered the movement, retired into Richmond 
But there had been one or two unfortunate delays in a plan, the success oi 
which depended upon its celerity. For General Grant was now resolved to cap 
ture Petersburg, to the south of Richmond, by the very suddenness with whicl 
he approached it, while Lee was in doubt as to his plans. This done, the Rebe 
capital was untenable. But he had intrusted the whole work to W. F. Smith 
and, with singular lack of precaution, had even failed to inform the advance oil 

*The line on which he had proposed to fight it out if it took all summer. 



Ulysses S. Grant. 405 

lie Army of the Potomac of his plans. Smith advanced from Butler's position 
,1! the James, reconnoitered the defenses of Petersburg, and finally carried the 
xiter works, when, at nightftill, further operations were most unfortunately sus- 
|. ended, although the moon shone brightly, and energy was never more needed. 
[n spite of the delays Hancock was across the James that day, in ample time to 
liave re-enforced Smith, when Petersburg must have fallen without a struggle. 
But till late in the afternoon he was kept idly awaiting rations at the river-bank, 
and was not even told what weighty matters were in hand a few miles out on 
his front. When at last he was moved up the opportunity was not yet quite 
lost, for an assault by moonlight was practicable. But the auspicious moment 
was soon gone. Lee's advance, marching all night, reached Petersburg in time 
tu confront the old antagonists from behind its formidable earthworks at day- 
break; and the Cockade City, instead ot being carried with a rush in an even- 
in o"s attack, was to be, for a twelvemonth, the impassable barrier on which 
the great armies of the Lieutenant-General were to wear themselves away. 

Grant himself was now up. In his vexation he cast the blame for the fail- 
ure to take the city upon W. F. Smith,* and ordered an instant assault. It 
foiled. Eepeated efforts were made to find some weak spot in Lee's close-jointed 
armor. All failed. The army was swung southward, away to its left, to cut one 
of the railroads supplying Petersburg. This, too, failed. Then at last, when two 
weeks of such efforts had cost Grant fifteen thousand more men, and had gained 
for him absolutely nothing, he sat down to that nondescript thing which was 
called a siege. Widely different, indeed, were the conditions here, from those 
which had, from the outset, insured his success at Yicksburg. There the enemy 
was completely cut off from any communications; the fleet thundered on the 
front, the army on the rear; and surrender was only a question of rations and 
physical endurance. Here Lee was in no sense under siege, save in name. To 
his rear stretched four great lines of road, securely connecting him with all 
that was left of the Confederacy. By his side lay Eichmond, protected by hia 
position. His front was covered with fortifications which Grant's engineers 
pronounced too formidable for assault ; he so guarded his flanks that all attacks 
were repulsed at heavy cost to the assailants. 

Eealizing that his hopes of speedy results in the campaign, undertaken 
with such superb forces, and prosecuted with such fearful loss— a loss already 
swelling to seventy-five thousand men — were all blasted. Grant began a series 
of fortifications to match those of his enemy. These completed, a mine was 
extended under one of the enemy's forts, the explosion of which should prepare 
the way for a grand assault. Then a force was detached to the north side of 
the James, which, demonstrating against Eichmond, drew away from Peters- 
burg to the immediate defense of the imperiled capital a heavy portion of Lee's 
army.f Thus the most fixvorable conditions for the explosion of the mine and 
assault were happily secured. Unfortunately, however, instead of the best, it 

* "Baldy" Smith— the same who had figured so prominently in the movements at Chatta- 
nooga and Mission Ridge. 

tFive out of Lee's eight divisions. 



^^^ Ohio in the Wae. 

actually turned out that the very poorest troops in the army were selected for 
the assault. Burnside's corps— the worst in the army— having been ordered to 
furnish the assaulting column, it was reported to General Grant that the negro 
division was the best in the corps. Grant, however, refused to permit it to 
make the assault; the choice between the other divisions was made by lot; the 
assault was, of course, badly made, and inefficiently supported. Miserable con- 
fusion and slaughter followed, ending in total repulse. The loss was over four 
thousand. General Grant was not on the ground at "this miserable affair," as 
he has himself justly styled it, nor was the officer whom he retained as the titu- 
lar commander of the Army of the Potomac ; and the military court of inquiry 
subsequently pronounced as one of the potent causes of failure, " the want of a 
competent common head at the scene of the assault to direct affairs as occur- 
rences should demand." =!^ 

Meantime, Lee, as soon as the failure of Grant's initial attacks on the lines 
of Petersburg, and the beginning of elaborate fortifications, had assured him of 
the comparative safety of his positions, detached Early with a considerable force 
to menace the National capital. In this operation the sagacious Eebel com- 
mander relied upon a double reason, which seemed to render certain the aban- 
donment of Grant's efforts against him. He remembered how fears for the 
safety of Washington had so often paralyzed the aggressive operations of the 
Army of the Potomac, and reckoned on similar results now from the similar 
causes. But, furthermore, he was convinced that his present antagonist was a 
General who relied for success solely on overwhelming superiority of numbers— 
an opinion that the events of the campaign were, by no means, ill-calculated to 
produce. Now he was well assured that menace to the capital would immedi- 
ately call forth from the Washington authorities orders for the return of at least 
a part of Grant's army. With such a reduction of strength he believed that it 
would not accord with Grant's theory of superior numbers to continue the efforts 
against Petersburg, f 

But our quiet General was to surprise Lee, as he had surprised so many 
others, by the exhibition of qualities for which no one had given him credit. 
He, indeed, detached a corps to defend the capital, and deflected another to the 
same end, which was on its way to him from New Orleans ; but he never relaxed 
his grip on the positions which menaced Eichmond. The agitation at Wash- 
ington was extreme, and, indeed, the peril was for a few hours imminent. Under 
former managements, the Army of the Potomac would have come streaming 
back; there was the more reason to expect it now, since, when Grant crossed the 
James in disregard of the well-known views of the Administration, as to the 
necessity of covering Washington, it was with the implied pledge that he would 
keep the enemy too busy at home to leave them the opportunity for adventures 
north of the Potomac. Through such action the capital was now on the verge 
of capture; could he fail to bend every energy to its relief? But there was that 

•■•■ Eep. Com. Con. War. Second Series, Vol. I, page 215. 

t The latter motive for the movement against Washington was assigned by Lee's staff officers. 
Swinton s History Army of the Potomac, p. 528. 



Ulysses S. Gteant. 



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Ulysses S. Geant. 409 

in the amazing calm of Grant's intellect which enabled him to perceive that 
where he stood, not where the capital stood, was the vital point to be held at 
any sacrifice of Government favor or Northern territory. 

Fortunately, the Eebel commander of the column moving against Washing- 
ton was without enterprise, and while he stood hesitating before earthworks, 
manned by a corporal's guard, the re-enforcements arrived, the capital was 
safe, and Grant was left to pursue his policy. What ensued along the Potomac 
need not here be further traced, save to add that Grant displayed again his hap- 
piness of selection, in giving Philip H. Sheridan charge of all matters in that 
direction. He was a young man, in years and in experience, for such a place; 
but the campaign that followed far more than vindicated the choice. 

Thenceforward, through the summer and fall of 1864, Grant was left undis- 
turbed, to work out, with ample support of every kind, whatever results against 
the enemy's position the resources of his skill and daring might accomplish. 

First of all came, on the 12th of August, an effort against Eichmond, in the 
way of a surprise, from the north bank of the James. It reached the enemy's 
works, vainly assailed them, and after four days of fruitless effort to find a weak 
place, returned, with a loss of fifteen hundred men. 

But now Lee had moved considerable re-enforcements to the north side of 
the James, to meet this attack. Grant, therefore, judged it an opportune time 
to strike at one of the railroad connections of Petersburg, while the bulk of 
Lee 's forces were at the extreme opposite end of his extended lines. Warren's 
corps was accordingly launched from the left upon the Weldon Eailroad, which, 
after a sharp action, it succeeded in seizing. Lee made desperate efforts to re- 
gain it, and in one of these some blundering of the subordinate Generals led to 
false positions of Warren's force, and to the capture of twenty-five hundred of 
them. Ee-enforcenients came up in time and the railroad was firmly held. 
After some further efforts, Lee was forced to submit to lose this important line 
of communication. But he had again exacted a heavy price. The losses of 
Warren's corps in these movements amounted to four thousand four hundred 
and fifty-five. 

Hancock, having returned from the north side of the James, was now ordered 
out on the left, in rear of Warren, to another point on the Weldon Eailroad, four 
miles further south. Here he was engaged in destroying the track, when he 
was heavily attacked. The assaults were repulsed until nightfall, when Han- 
cock withdrew, not at all satisfied at the failure to re-enforce him. This affair 
cost twenty-four hundred men, and accomplished only trivial results. 

A month's rest for the army followed, varied only by the fierce picket-fight- 
ing and artillery practice at such points as that much dreaded one which the 
soldiers, half in jest half in earnest, named Fort Hell. Late in September, act- 
ing on the general theory that by attacking at the extremities he should greatly 
weaken and harass Lee's thin lines, General Grant began simultaneous move- 
ments north of the James, threatening Richmond, and on the extreme left, to 
the south of Petersburg. Butler's movements on the James were successful, and 
the position which he gained at Chapin's Farm proved of high value. On the 



410 Ohio in the War. 

south two corps of infantiy, with a cavalry force, pushed out on the left, sus- 
taining pretty heavy resistance, but securing their positions. No considerable 
gains, however, resulted, and the cost was over twenty-five hundred men. 

Another month of preparation ensued; then another effort on the left was 
made — the object this time being to seize the South-Side Railroad. The opera- 
tions Avere complicated and confused; the enemy struck between two corps, 
shattering the flank of each ; and finally the troops returned to the intrench- 
ments, having little or nothing but the losses to show for their fighting. With 
a few further slight movements to the left, and with some demonstrations by the 
cavalry, the active work of the army for the season ended. 

In this campaign the Army of the Potomac alone had lost eighty-eight 
thousand three hundred and eighty-seven men !* Of the Army of the James 
we have not as precise returns; but the aggregate losses of the two are known 
to have been largely above a hundred thousand — more than double the entire 
strength at the outset of the army they were to annihilate. The movements 
about Petersburg were always accompanied by heavy losses; they were invari- 
ably made in such a way that the enemy was able to strike the exposed flank of 
the moving column, and their only appreciable gain was the prolonged exten- 
sion of our lines, not around, but away from, the "besieged" city. Grant's oper- 
ations here will not comj)are in boldness with those happier strokes of daring 
by which he planted himself in the rear of Vicksburg. The terrible punishment 
he had received on the overland march seemed to have made him timid about 
cutting loose from his base; and besides he had now the capital to observe, as 
well as the enemy. Across the mountains, his friend and subordinate, in similar 
check before a fortified city, had swung far to the southward, planted his army 
squarely upon the connecting lines of railroad, and thus taken Atlanta. But 
Grant had grown cautious of positions and lavish of lives. 

The time had now come when influences from without were to reach what 
Grant's own continuous hammei'ing had failed to accomplish. If the camj^aign 
to which he had given his personal attention had been less successful than he 
hoped and the country had a right to expect, those other movements which he 
had discussed in outline with his subordinates, and which he had intrusted to 
their execution, began to converge in their influence upon the hapless little body 
of brave men in the trenches of Petersburg. Sheridan had cleared the valley, 
put an end to fears for the capital or the North, and swept through the enemy's 
country, destroying his means of communication and his stores. The last port 
of the Confederacy had been closed by the capture of Fort Fisher. The power 
of the rebellion in the West had been annihilated before Nashville. And now, 
fluttering across half the continent, came the banners of the victorious army of 
Sherman on Lee's line of retreat. 

Against this converging circle of a million soldiers stood the armies of Lee 
and Joseph E. Johnston, the one numbering barely fifty thousand, the other 
scarcely half so many. The people of the South had lost faith in the rebellion, 

* Grant and his Campaigns, p. 399. 



Ulysses S. G-kant. 411 

the armies were not re-enforced, desei;tion depleted them far faster than the 
"continuous hammering." Their commissariat was so wretchedly managed 
that the few troops remaining were not half supplied; in fact, seven pounds of 
flour and a pound and three-quarters of meat formed the week's ration for Lee's 
own soldiers through the winter. The depression of the people reacted on the 
army, and completed the work its privations and thinned ranks had begun, so 
that the effective force of Lee's troops was less than (in the times of their old 
vigor) their number would have indicated. In silence, not perhaps unmiugled 
with dread, they awaited the movements of the quiet, thoughtful soldier, who 
sat in his log cabin at City Point, and studied the positions of the forces. 

At last that soldier determined upon his course. Sherman must be left to 
manage Johnston, with whom it was now known that Lee was anxious to form 
a junction. For himself, he reserved the work he had essayed on the banks of 
the Eapidan a year ago, that of crushing the Army of Northern Virginia. To 
that end he once more ordered one of the old movements on the left ; this time 
with larger forces and without the diversion north of the Potomac. The verge 
of his swinging column was formed by Sheridan's cavalry, which was to cut 
loose as soon as the movement was developed, and strike for the old goal, the 
South-Side Eailroad. While these preparations were in progress Lee, already 
striving under an offensive mask to prepare the way for an evacuation, attacked 
Grant's lines on the right. His troops failed to fight with their old spirit; the 
attack, after some initial successes, was repulsed, and some two thousand prisoners 
were lost. Grant followed up this success by precipitating his movement on the 
left. Moving with the column himself, he became more and more impressed with 
the signs of Eebel weakness, and at nightfiill he dispatched to Sheridan word 
that he " now felt like ending the matter, if it were possible to do so, before 
going back." Sheridan's orders to strike for the railroads were accordingly 
withdrawn, and he was directed to push to the right and rear of the enemy. 

To the sorely-beset Eebel commander the only hope was to break this encir- 
cling line. He struck first at Warren, then at Sheridan. Each bore up against 
the fury of the attack; but for Sheridan, who lay isolated at Dinwiddie Court- 
House, the keenest apprehensions were felt. Grant made every effort to get 
Warren's corps moved out to him, but the unexpected lack of bridges on the 
road prevented. Next morning it was found that Sheridan's front was clear 
again, Lee having drawn back to Five Forks. Thither Sheridan followed, 
Warren now joining, and coming under his orders. The battle that ensued, 
brilliantly managed by Sheridan, with happy use of cavalry to aid the opera- 
tions of the infantrj^, resulted in the breaking up of the entire force which Lee 
had here massed on his right — the painful collection of all the available material 
he could strip from his extended lines of works. Fragments of these troops 
fled westward, a few rejoined the main body, over five thousand laid down their 
arms, Lee was left with the thin lines stretched from Hatcher's Eun to the 
Appomattox, "the men scarcely close enough together for sentinels." To such 
straits was the great Army of ISTorthern Virginia fallen. But it was not yet 
without sparks of its ancient fire. 



I 



412 Ohio in the Wak. 

The next day,* indeed within a few hours after the issue of Five Forks, 
Grant ordered an assault of the Eebel intrenchments, preluded by a fierce bom- 
bardment through the whole night. The attack swept the weak lines of the 
enemy from the outer works, and to the eye of the experienced Eebel com- 
mander it was plain that the end had come. At eleven o'clock he announced 
to Mr. Davis his intention of evacuating Eichmond and Petersburg. But even 
yet he was able to maintain stout resistance, and, indeed, to make one last 
offensive sally. This over he drew back his few wearied, half-starved troops, and 
under cover of the darkness, moved away rapidly to the south-westward. Only 
twenty-five thousand were left of them; by daybreak, under his skillful man- 
agement, these were sixteen miles away from Petersburg. He was still hopeful; 
he looked to a junction with Johnston, to unlimited opportunities for falling 
upon Grant's detached corps far away from their supplies ; to all the myriad 
chances of war that may come to the General who takes heart of hope even in 
the gloomiest conditions. But the times of his good fortune were past, and fate 
now dealt him her unkindest blow. Thirty-eight miles down his road of retreat 
lay Amelia Court-House, whither he had ordered supplies from Danville. The 
blundering officials in Eichmond ordered the cars forward for their own escape; 
the stupid ti'ain-men never thought that they should first unload the supplies, 
and so the food for the retreating army was lost at Eichmond. The last hope 
here vanished. The army had to be delayed to forage. Grant was pushing the 
pursuit with a tremendous energy proportioned to the magnitude of the game 
he had now in hand. Sheridan soon struck the baggage trains, next he dashed 
in upon a train bearing painfully collected supplies for the famished troops; at 
last he planted himself squarely across Lee's path, hurled back his desperate 
effort to cut through, and was just ready to charge down uj)on the sorrowful 
remnants of the great army, when a white flag appeared. Hostilities were ended. 

Before this, indeed. Grant had addressed Lee a note asking, to prevent the 
useless effusion of more blood, the surrender of the Eebel army. Lee had 
replied, doubting if he were yet forced to this, but hinting a willingness to treat 
for the surrender of all the troops of the Confederacy, the manifest object being 
to gain terms for all that could not be demanded for these poor fragments alone, 
which he was now leading. Grant declined to entertain such propositions, 
wisely perhaps, and drove on the pursuit. Then came the inevitable, and when 
next Lee discussed the subject of surrender, it was at a deal-table in an humble 
dwelling in Appomattox Court-House, with the remorseless Chieftain whose 
continuous hammering had at last worn him out, seated opposite, to name at 
pleasure what terms he would. In this supreme moment of his life Grant, cool 
and quiet as ever, generously sought to break the fall of the antagonist he had 
such weighty reason for respecting, and his conduct throughout was delicate and 
magnanimous. The Eebel soldiers were paroled, officers were allowed to retain 
their side-arms and private horses, all were to return to their homes, "not to be 
disturbed by United States authorities so long as they observe their paroles and 
the laws in force where they reside." The last condition was afterward to prove 

* Sunday morning, April 2, 1865. 



Ulysses S. G-rant. 413 

embarrassing to the Government, and it would have been wiser in Grant to have 
avoided passing beyond the strictest line of his military powers. But in the 
rejoicings that followed the matter was for a time almost wholly overlooked. 

A few days' later Grant's most trusted friend became involved in grave 
troubles, arising out of efforts to discharge duties never committed to his care 
The Government felt outraged, a conspicuous Cabinet officer* went so far as to 
declare that the least punishment Sherman deserved was dismissal from the 
army, and there was danger that the hero of the South-West would retire from 
the service in disgrace with the Administration. Grant stood up stoutly for his 
friend, and went personally to present the Government's disapproval of his 
negotiations and ease his fall. 

Then came reviews, presentations, felicitations innumerable. Whichever 
way Grant turned the grateful people overwhelmed him with their honors. 
Visits to the leading cities he could not escape. Each strove to out-dp the other 
in the warmth of the reception it extended. Banquets, levees, speech -making 
were forced upon him. He went to his late home at Galena, and the half-wild 
populace escorted him along the " mended pavement" to his old house, so reno- 
vated that he could scarcely recognize it. In the city in which he had been a 
wood-peddler he was received with such warmth of honors as no President since 
Washington could have commanded. More substantial tokens of approval fol- 
lowed. An elegant residence in Philadelphia, and another in Washington were 
presented him. Finally, Congress created the grade of full General— till now 
unknown in our army— for his benefit; and the tanner's son stood decorated 
with a rank higher than that bestowed upon the Father of his Country. 

At this giddy height we leave him. It is for the future to show whether its 
glories intoxicate or its perils bewilder. 

We close as we began. Sucb a career laughs at criticism, and defies depre- 
ciation. Success succeeds. 

But when the philosophic historian comes to analyze the strange features of 
our great war, no anomaly will be more puzzling than Grant. He will find him 
guilty of errors and disasters that would have set aside any other General in 
disgrace. He will follow him through a tale of futile efforts and heroic devise- 
ments, of inexcusable slaughter to no purpose, commingled with happy triumphs 
at little cost. He will marvel at the amazing mental equipose of the man, cast 
down by no disaster, elated by no success. He will admire his strong good sense, 
his instinctive reading of men's characters as of an open page, his tremendous 
unconquerable will. He will find him not brilliant in conception, though sound 
in judgment; not fertile in expedients, but steadfast in execution ; terrible in a 
determination that was stopped by no question of cost; stolid as to slaughter or 
famine or fire, so they led to his goal. Yet he will look in vain for such charac- 
teristics as should account for his being first in a Nation of soldiers; and will 
not fail to observe the comparative poverty of his intellect and his acquirements. 
Seeking still for the causes of his rise, he will record the firm friendships that 

*Hon. Hugh McCulloch, Secretary of the Treasury. 



414 Ohio in the Wak. 

were so helpful ; will allow for the unexampled profusion in which soldiers and 
munitions were always furnished at his call ; will observe how willingness to 
fight, while others were fortifying, first gave him jDower; how remoteness from 
the Administration long preserved him from interruptions ; how he came upon 
the broader stage only when it was made easier for his tread by the failures of 
his predecessors and the prestige of his own victories, and how both combined to 
make him absolute. But after all these considerations he will fail to find the 
veritable secret of this wonderful success; and will at last be forced to set it 
down that Foi'tune — that happy explainer of mysteries inexplicable — did from 
the outset so attend him, that in spite of popular disapproval and protracted fail- 
ure, through clouds and rough weather, he was still mysteriously held up and 
borne forward, so that at the end he was able to rest in the highest pi'ofessional 
promotion, "in peace after so many troubles, in honor after bo much obloquy." 

In private life. Grant's manners are as unj)retending as his person. He re- 
ceives attentions with embarrassment, and is best pleased with simple ways and 
little ostentation. He would scarcely be held a good conversationalist, and yet, 
on topics that interest him or have come within the range of his observation, he 
converses clearly and well. His friendships are strong ; so also are his preju- 
dices, though he rarel}'' seems to bear malice. Even after the bitter relations 
had sprung up between himself and General Butler, he asked Butler to a social 
party at his house, and seejned a little surprised at the indignant refusal of his 
invitation. In his military judgments he is generally generous. He is, indeed, 
rarely willing to acknowledge that he has started on a wrong course; and he 
rarely forgives those who, in failing to execute imi^ossible plans, have shown 
their impossibility. But he is singularly free from envy or jealousy. He has 
himself done the most toward raising those who now come nearest rivaling him 
in reputation. 

On political matters he is ignorant and careless. He has his full share of 
the regular army feeling, which holds it a matter of professional etiquette to 
despise the politicians. Before the war his sympathies were strongly Southern. 
The leading officers of his staff were Illinois Democrats. Since the war his 
feelings have been intensely loyal, but at the same time conservative. His in- 
fluence has been etfectively given for the preservation of strong military rule at 
the South. With the advanced positions of the Eadical Eepublican party he 
has little sympathy. He was fervidly hostile to the French effort at Imperial- 
ism in Mexico, and he would have hailed armed intervention in behalf of the 
struggling Juarists. 

His passion for fast hoi-ses and for billiards survives the war. Smoking he 
will never give up. Fi-om other stimulants he does not always abstain so rig- 
orously as in the days of his poverty in St. Louis. 

Through the war he deserved gi*eat praise for his entire freedom from all 
schemes for personal advancement. Wisely or unwisely, on good plans or bad 
plans, he kept steadily at work for the Cause ; if honors came they were grate- 
fully accepted; but the idea seems never to have occurred to him to go out of 



Ulysses 8. G-eant. 415 

the way to seek them. Since the war he has been a focus for the attention of 
politicians. As early as the middle of 1866, his father had written, in a letter 
given to the newspapers:* 

"The most ultra Kadicals, the worst Copperheads, the desperate Eebels, and the true 
Union men, all say : Give us Grant, we want no other platform than that he has written with hie 
sword. You know enough about Ulysses to know that to accept the Presidency would be to him 
a sacrifice of feeling and personal interest. He could not well stand the trial of being a candi- 
date for public favor; and his present position is every way a much better one than that of Pres- 
ident. But if there should seem to be the same necessity for it two years hence as now, I expect 
he will yield." 

Substantially the same statement has been made by the General himself, in 
reply to the inquiries of partisans. 

••• Letter to E. A. Collins (by him published), Covington, Kentucky, 10th of July, 1866. 



Note. — Since these pages were stereotyped General Grant has become a very prominent 
candidate for the Presidency — being mainly urged by the conservative wing of the Eepublican 
party ; and has been made Secretary of War, ad interim, succeeding Mr. Stanton, who was removed 
by the President. 



William T. Shekman. 417 



LIEUTENANT-GENERAL WM. TECUMSEH SHERMAN. 



I 



• •~|~ AM gratified at your purpose to prepare a record of Ohio's contri- 
butions to the war. The work, however, will necessarily be so 
extended that my own place in it must be very brief. Whatever 
facts you need about me can be readily gleaned from Colonel Bowman's book.'* 
So writes — in a letter now lying before us — the man who conquered Atlanta, and 
marched down to the sea. We do not agree with him. That would be a very 
ill-proportioned account of Ohio's contributions to the war which should allow 
him small space. Whatever may be thought of many parts of his varied career 
there can be no dispute as to the place to which it led. He rightfully divides 
Avith Grant the honor of pre-eminence among all the bi^illiant commanders 
whom the war educated for the country's service. The State that takes pride 
in having given birth to both, does well to reckon them foremost on the long 
roll of her Generals. 

Unlike his great associate, General Sherman conies of a family in which 
culture and social position have been a birthright for many generations. In 
1634 three Shermans, two brothers and a cousin, emigrated from Essex County, 
in England, to the infant colony of Massachusetts Bay. One of these, the 
Honorable Samuel Sherman, settled in Connecticut, where the family remained 
and jsrospered, until, in 1815, the death of the great-grandson of the emigrant, 
a judge of one of the Connecticut courts, compelled his Avidow to seek a cheaper 
living and better chances for her boys in the West. Here one of her sons rose 
in the practice of the law, till, eight years after their arrival,* he became one 
of the Judges of the Supreme Court. But he married young,f had a family 
of eleven children, and spent his income in their support. In 1829 he died very 
suddenly of cholera. 

Of two out of the eleven children thus left without support in the house of 
a bereaved widow at Lancaster, the world has since heard something. The 
eighth of them, then a lad of six or seven, was John Sherman, since Eepresen- 
tative and Senator in Congress, and the sixth, then nine years of age, a bright- 
eyed, red-haired, play-loving urchin, was William Tecumseh Sherman. 

The future General was born in Lancaster, on the 8th of February, 1820. 
The family names had been pretty well exhausted in furnishing forth the five 
who had preceded him, and there was great perplexity in seeking a name at 

^ That is, in 1823. t In his twenty-second year. 

Vol. L— 27. 



418 Ohio in the Wae. 

once suitable and new, for the infant. The father finally decided it. He wanted 
one boy trained for the army; he had himself seen and admired Tecumseh, and 
among military names none was then held in such special esteem about Lancas- 
ter as that of this renowned Indian chieftain (slain in battle but a short time 
before), whose kindness had more than once, within the knowledge of the pio- 
neers of that vicinity, saved the shedding of innocent blood.* Up to the death 
of his father, Tecumseh Sherman led the pleasant life of an active, mischievous, 
warm-tempered boy, surrounded by affectionate brothers and sisters, and watched 
over by a good mother.f He was now to experience the change by which his 
subsequent life was moulded. 

The members of the bar at Lancaster knew very well that Judge Sherman 
had left no adequate provision for his large family, and it was agreed among 
them that some of the children should be educated and supported by the legal 
brethren of the deceased parent. In accordance with this arrangement Hon. 
Thomas Ewing, then in the prime of his reputation as a great lawyer and 
statesman, decided to adopt one of the boys. "I must have the smartest of 
them," so the stories of the timesj tell us that Mr. Swing said to the widow; 
and on the same authority we have it that, after some consultation between the 
mother and the eldest sister, "Cump," at that important pei'iod of his life at 
play in a neighboring sandbank, was selected. 

The next seven years passed in school-boj- life in Lancaster. Young Sher- 
man was fairlj^ adopted into the Swing family, and he soon made his way to all 
their hearts. He was sent to the Snglish department of the village academy, 
where he stood well in his classes, and came to be called a promising boy, 
"There was nothing specially remarkable about him," so writes his foster-father, 
Mr. Swing,|| "excepting that I never knew so j^oung a boy who would do an 
errand so correctly and promptly as he did." And again: "He was transpa- 
rently honest, faithful, and reliable. Studious and correct in his habits, his 
progress in education was steady and substantial." 

And so the boy reached his seventeenth year. Mr. Ewing now had a 
vacancy at West Point in his gift, and he bestowed it upon the child of his old 
friend. Young Sherman was admitted to the academy in June, 1836, and, with 
the exception of a two-months' furlough in the summer of 1838, which he spent 
in a visit to his home at Lancaster, he remained there continuously until his 
graduation, in June, 1840. Starting with a good preliminary education, he had 
maintained a fair, though not first-class, standing to the close. Mr. Ewing 
desired that he should graduate in the Engineer Corps. This, as he himself 
wrote some months before, he was unable to do, but his rank was such as to 
entitle him to enter the artillery. He was sixth in his class. Six forms below 

® This is understood to be the explanation given by Hon. Thomas Ewing. Headley'p Sher- 
man, pp. 17, 18. 

t Miss Mary Hoyt, to whom Judge Sherman was married in 1810, is spoken of as an intelli- 
gent, exemplary woman, a member of the Presbyterian Church, and an affectionate wife and 
mother. 

JHeadley's Sherman, p. 24. I Ibid, p. 25. 



William T. Sherman. 419 

Lim stood George H. Thomas; next below Thomas was E. S. Swell; and among 
other names borne on the roll of that class of 1840, with which the country has 
since become familiar, were Stewart Van Yliet, Bushrod E. Johnson, treorge "W. 
Getty, William Hays, and Thomas Jordan. 

The pleasantest glimpses we get of these four years of cadet life, are in the 
letters of the future Lieutenant-General to the fair companion and playmate of 
his Lancaster home, the daughter of Mr. Ewing, for whom he had already 
formed a strong attachment. These letters are sprightly, vivacious, and a trifle 
eccentric — not at all unlike, in style, those graver epistles, which, at a later 
period, were to draw from the uncomplimentary Secretary of War the compli- 
ment that " Sherman wrote as well as he fought." As might readily be sus- 
pected. Cadet Sherman was not much of a "society man." "We have two or 
three dancing parties each week," he writes in one letter, "at which the gray 
bobtail is a sufficient recommendation for an introduction to any one. You can 
well conceive how the cadets have always had the reputation, and have still, 
here in the East, of being great gallants and ladies' men. God only knows how 
I will sustain that reputation." The army, as he grew ready to enter it, seemed 
very inviting. About a year before his graduation he wrote of himself in this 
characteristic vein : " Bill is very much elated at the idea of getting free of 
West Point next June. He does not intend remaining in the army more than 
■one year, then to resign and study law, probably. No doubt, you admire his 
choice; but to speak plainly and candidly, I would rather be a blacksmith. 
Indeed, the nearer we come to that dreadful epoch, graduation-day, the higher 
opinion I conceive of the duties and life of an officer of the United States army, 
and the more confirmed in the wish of spending my life in the service of my 
country. Think of that!" Nurtured in the Presbyterian teachings of his 
mother till his tenth year; then kept under the influence of Mr. Swing's Eoman 
Catholic family, he had grown, after such changes, a little restive under pro- 
tracted religious exercises : " The church bugle has just blown, and in a moment 
I must put on my side-arms and march to church, to listen to a two hours' 
sermon, with its tw^enty divisions and twenty-one subdivisions; .... but 
I believe it is a general fact that what people are compelled to do they dislike.' 
Then, as in later life, practical matters and details were especially to his 
taste : " The last encampment, taken all in all, I think was the most pleasant 
one I have ever spent, even to me, who did not participg-te in the dances and 
balls given every week by the different classes; besides the duties were of 
altogether a different nature from any of the previous ones, such as acting as 
officers upon guard and at artillery drills, practising at target-firing with long 
twenty-fours and thirty-twos, mortars, howitzers, etc., as also cavalry exercise, 
which has been introduced this year." He was not slow in taking to the knack 
of command : "As to lording it over the plebs, to which you referred, I had 
only one, whom I made, of course, 'tend to a pleb's duty, such as bringing water, 
policing the tent, cleaning my gun and accouterments, and the like, and repaid 
in the usual and cheap coin — advice; and since we have commenced studying, 
I make him bone, and explain to him the difficult parts of Algebra and tho 



420 Ohio in the Wae. 

French Grrammar, since he is a good one and fine fellow; but should he not 
cany himself straight, I should have him found in Januar}^, and sent off, that 
being the usual way in such cases, and then take his bed, table, and chair, to pay 
for the Christmas spree." Imagine how greedily these details of her heai't's 
hero were devoured by the fair Miss Ellen, in whose eyes West Point, with all 
its advantages, could scarcely be good enough for the wonderful lad. 

He did not fail to show his confiding playmate that he had come to the 
dignity of doing his own thinking. How amusingly characteristic is it to find 
this unfledged stripling of West Point rebuking, with the solemn gravity of 
one who had fathomed the whole case, the course of the Whig party, of which 
his foster-father was then a conspicuous leader, and the confidence with Avhich 
he predicts its defeat in the famous Harrison campaign. " You, no doubt, are 
not only firmly impressed, but absolutely certain that General Harrison will be 
our next President. For my part, though, of course, but a ' superficial observer,' 
I do not think there is the least hope of such a change, since his friends have 
thought proper to envelop his name with log-cabins, gingerbread, hard-cider, 
and such humbugging, the sole object of which plainly is to deceive and mislead 
his ignorant and prejudiced, though honest, fellow-citizens ; whilst his qualifica- 
tions, his honesty, his merits, and services, are merely alluded to ! " More laugh- 
able still is the solemn air with which the precocious youth discusses, and 
patronizingly, yet with due caution and reserve, approves the qualifications of 
the Board of Yisitors at the annual examination: "There is but little doubt 
of its being nearly as well selected as circumstances would admit of Party 
seems to have had no influence whatever, and, for my part, I am very glad of 
it. I hope that our army, navy, or the Military Academy, may never be affected 
by the party rancor which has for some time past, and does now, so materially 
injure other institutions!" The grammar may be a little halting, but is it not 
plain that here is a youth little likely to be ever much retarded by any doubts 
as to the wisdom of his own opinions, or as to his ample facilities for forming 
correct judgments? Nor was he at all disposed to hide his academic standing 
under a bushel : "I presume you have seen the register of cadets for the last 
year," he writes to Miss Ellen, "and remarked that I still maintain a good stand 
in my class; and if it were not for that column of demerits it would be still 
better, for they are combined with proficiency in study to make out the standing 
in general merit. In fact, this year as well as the last, in studies alone, I have 
been among the stars." And here, to close these extracts, is a glimpse of the 
young cadet's ideas for his future, as graduation-day approached: "I fear I 
have a difficult part to act for the next three years, because I am almost confi- 
dent that your father's wishes and intentions will clash with my inclinations. 
In the first place, I think, he wishes me to strive and graduate in the Engineer 
Corps. This I can't do. Next to resign and become a civil engineer. . . . 
Whilst I propose and intend to go into the infantry, be stationed in the Far 
West, out of the reach of what is termed civilization, and there remain as long 
as possible." * 

*Sherman and his Campaigns (Bowman and Irwin), pp. 11, 12, 13. 



William T. Sheeman. 421 

The assignment of the Bx-evet Second-Lieutenant was not quite in aceoi'd- 
ance with these anticipations of the Cadet. He was not, indeed, able to enter 
the engineers, but his standing fully warranted admission to the artillery, and 
the influence of his guardian was such that, in those days of slow promotion, 
he rose, in a little over a year, to the rank of First-Lieutenant. Until March, 
1S42, he served in Florida, mostly on garrison-duty, although he participated 
in several expeditions against the Seminoles. Even thus early he developed 
some signs of the theory of war which he has since made so famous. He would 
have no truces or parleys with the Indians; he would exterminate all who 
resisted and drive from the country all who submitted; and so would end the 
war in a single campaign.* 

He easil}' fell, for a little while, into the languid life of the region. Writ- 
ing from Fort Pierce, in East Florida, in 1841, he says: "Books we have few; 
but it is no use — we can not read any but the lightest trash; and even the 
newspaj)ers, which 3-ou would suppose we would devour, require a greater 
effort of mind to search than we jjossess. We attribute it to the climate, 
and bring up these lazy native Minorcans as examples, and are satisfied. Yet, 
of course, we must do something, however little. . . . The Major and I 
have a parcel of chickens in which we have, by competition, taken enough 
interest to take up a few minutes of the day; besides, I have a little fawn to 
play with, and crows, a crane, etc., and if you were to enter my room you 
would doubt whether it was the abode of man or beasts. In one corner is a 
hen, setting; in another some crows; roosted on bushes; the other is a little 
bed of bushes for the little fawn; whilst in the fourth is my bucket, wash- 
basin, glass, etc. So you see it is three to one." So, again, he giv^es us this 
pleasant picture: "I've got more pets now than any bachelor in the country — 
innumerable chickens, tame pigeons, white rabbits, and a full-blooded Indian 
pony — rather small matters for a man to deal with, you doubtless think, 
but it is far better to spend time in trifles, such as these, than in drinking or 
gambling." 

He still clung to his fancy for life on the Western frontier: "We hear that 
the ncAv Secretary of War intends proposing to the next Congress to raise two 
rifle regiments for the Western service. As you are at Washington I presume 
you can learn whether it is so or not, for I should like to go in such a regiment, 
if stationed in the for West; not that I am in the least displeased with my 
present berth, but when the regiment goes North it will in all likelihood be sta- 
tioned in the vicinity of some city, from which God spare me." Already" he 
prided himself on his downright way of saying things. "If you have any 
regard for my feelings," he exclaims in one of his Florida letters, "don't say 
the word 'insinuation' again. You may abuse me as much as you please; but 
I'd prefer, of the two, to be accused of telling a direct falsehood than stating 
an}' thing evasively or underhand; and if I have ever been guilty of such a 
thing it was unintentionally." 

The Florida life ended in March, 1842, when Lieutenant Sherman's com- 

*■ Sherman and his Campaigns (Bowman and Irwin), p. 14. 



422 Ohio in the Wae. 

pany was removed to Fort Morgan, at the entrance to Mobile Bay. In midsum- 
mer of the same year it was brought still nearer the detested " fashionables," 
being transferred to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston Harbor, where the time passed 
in an agreeable round of hunting, fishing, and enjoyment of the hospitalities 
of the aristocratic Charlestonians, to whose selectest society the uniform of 
the army or navy was always an open sesame. His heart, 'however, resisted all 
the fascinations to which it was here exposed; and, true to his early attach- 
ment, he procured, in the fall of 1843, a four months' furlough for a visit to the 
family of his guardian, during which he became formally engaged to Miss Ellen 
Ewing. 

He was next assigned to duty on a board of officers, appointed to examine 
the claims of Georgia and Alabama militia for horses lost in the Seminole "War. 
Meanwhile the restless young officer was busy studying the country, from a 
professional stand-point. Nothing could more strikingly exhibit the foundations 
of that wonderful knowledge of the topography and resources of the South 
which was afterward to prove so valuable, than this scrap of a letter to Phile- 
mon Ewing, written while on duty with the Board of Claims; "Every day I 
feel more and more the need of an atlas, such as your father has at home; and as- 
the knowledge of geography, in its minutest details, is essential to a true mili- 
tary education, the idle time necessarily^ spent here might be properly devoted 
to it. I wish, therefore, you would procure for me the best geography and atlas 
(not school) extant." Presently we find him reaching out after other matters. 
"Since my return," he writes from Fort Moultrie, after the adjournment of the 
Board, "I have not been running about in the city or the island, as hereto- 
fore, but have endeavored to interest myself in Blackstone. I have read all 
four volumes, Starkie on Evidence, and other books, semi-legal and serai-histor- 
ical, and would be obliged if you would give me a list of such books as you 
were required to read, not including your local or State law. I intend to read 
the second and third volumes of Blackstone again; also Kent's Commentaries, 
which seem, as far as I am capable of judging, to be the basis of the common law 
practice. This course of study I have adopted from feeling the want of it in 
the duties to which I was lately assigned. . . . I have no idea of making 
the law a profession; but as an officer of the army it is my duty and interest 
to be prepared for any situation that fortune or luck may offer. It is for this 
alone that I prepare, and not for professional practice."* He was indeed to 
prove, in his after life, that he was incapable of successful "professional prac- 
tice." 

Then followed the usual routine of army life — detached service for a little 
time at the Augusta Arsenal, court-martial service at Wilmington, and finally, 
when the Mexican war broke out, recruiting service at Pittsburg. At last his 
repeated requests for active service received the attention of the War Depart- 
ment, but it did not appear that the impression he had made upon those con- 
trolling the army was strong enough to secure an order to the seat of war. Ho 
was, however, sent around the Cape, and up the west coast of South America. 

* Sherman and his Campaigns, pp. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. 



William T. SnExtMAN. 423 

to California, where presently he became aid-de-eainp to General Persifer F. 
Smith, and by-and-by Acting Assistant Adjutant-General to Stephen W. Kear- 
ney. He saw no active service Avhatever, but he discharged the clerical duties 
of his position with such promptness and accuracy as to secure the favorable 
notice of his superiors. 

In 1850 he returned to "the States," and on 1st May his long engagement 
was closed by his marriage to Miss Ellen Ewing, at the residence of her father, 
then Secretary of the Interior. Among the guests Avho graced the wedding 
were Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Zachary Taylor. He was soon sent to 
garrison-duty at Jefferson barracks, Missouri, and shortly afterward, with the 
brevet of Captain "for meritorious services in California during the war with 
Mexico," was made Commissary, and sent, first to St. Louis, and then to New 
Orleans. 

Captain Sherman had thus been in the army thirteen years, and in all that 
time had seen no fighting save some paltry Indian skirmishes in Florida. Pro- 
motion seemed slow; he now had a wife to support; his commissary's expe- 
rience had thrown him among business men, and had given them an idea of his 
capacity. He was offered, by a St. Louis house, a position in San Francisco, to 
manage a branch bank which they were about to establish there. He at once 
accepted the offer; on the 6th of September, 1853, resigned his commission, and 
before the end of the year was established in San Francisco, with the expecta- 
tion of making his home for life on the Pacific coast. 

From 1853 to 1857 our retired artillery captain remained in business in 
San Francisco, struggling hard to make a success out of his new way of life. 
He rose into some esteem among the Californians, and attained the empty dig- 
nity of a Major-General of the California militia.* He was not esteemed a 
great financier, and some of his ways of doing things exhibited more strongly 
the straightforward bluntness of the camps than the finesse of a dextrous finan- 
cier. But his business integrity was unquestioned. At last, however, it became 
necessary to give up his banking experiment. Toward the close of 1857 he 
essayed a similar business in New York ; but next spring he decided that it was 
time to try something else. The young Ewings, his brothers-in-law, were now 
establishing themselves in Kansas, and Sherman was very glad to fall back on 
his old Fort Moultrie law-reading, and interest himself in their professional 
practice. For two years he strove to be a lawyerf — with indifferent success, if 
the reminiscences of the Leavenworth newspapers may be trusted. While the 
Ewings did the pleadings and the outside work, the restless, nervous, eccentric 
office-partner did well enough. If he was not particularly valuable, he at least 
did no harm. Citizens knew little of him, and while his brothers-in-law rapidly 
rose to stand among the foremost leaders in the law and the politics of the 
young State, Sherman gained no influence and had no prominence. At last the 

* MS. Mem. Military Career, furnished by Sherman to War Dep't, and on file among rolls 
of Adjutant-General's office. tibid. 



424 Ohio in the War. 

play came to an end. "It happened one day" — so a Leavenworth newspaper 
tells us — "that Sherman was compelled to appear before the Probate Judge, 
Gardner, we believe. The other partners were busy ; and so Sherman, with his 
authorities and his case all mapped out, proceeded to court. He returned in a 
rage, two hours after. Something had gone wrong. He had been pettifogged 
out of the case by a sharp, petty attorney opposed to him, in a way which was 
disgusting to his intellect and his convictions. His amour propre was hurt, and 
he declared that he would have nothing to do with the law in Kansas. That 
afternoon the business was closed, partnership dissolved, and in a very shori 
time Sherman was on his way to a more congenial clime and occupation."* 

Doubtless disgust with the unpleasant details of legal practice in a frontier 
town had much to do with the sudden abandonment of the law; but it is not 
improbable that his decision was hastened by a flattering offer which reached 
him at this opportune season. Louisiana was establishing a "State Seminary of 
Learning and Military Academy." The professed object of the institution was 
to train up the youth of the State to the knowledge of arms, so that, in the 
event of negro insurrections, or of trouble from the Indians on the border, an 
instructed body of officers might be ready at once to place the community in a 
position of defense. Sherman had been stationed at New Orleans during a par< 
of his army life, and nearly his whole term of service had been passed in the 
South. His political opinions were known to be strongly Southern ; he was 
regarded as decidedly pro-slavery; and it was quite natural, thei-efore, that, in 
casting about for a Superintendent for their new institution, the authorities should 
think of him. He was tendered the position of Superintendent, and Professor 
of Engineering, Architecture, and Drawing, with an annual salary of five thou- 
sand dollars. He promptly accepted, and remained at this post through the 
remainder of 1859 and until 18th January, 1861. A lurking suspicion of inse- 
curity, however, accompanied him. The air was already alive with the portents 
of civil strife. Strong as were Captain Sherman's sympathies with the slave- 
holders in their opposition to the abolition excitement, it would seem that from 
the outset he had foreseen the possibility of their reaching a point to which he 
would not accompany them. In the midst of this uncertainty he decided it best 
not to remove his family to Louisiana. 

As the excitement increased, every effort was made to win the able Super- 
intendent. He was found strikinglj^ efficient in the duties to which the}' luid 
called him, and his adhesion to their cause was, therefore, all the more desired. 
But he met all arguments in favor of armed resistance to any decision of the 
National authorities with the unwavering dictum, that it was the duty of a sol- 
dier to fight for, never against, the flag and the government to which he had 
sworn allegiance. 

* Leavenworth Conservative. On the same authority we have this : " Prior to entering upon 
the practice of law in Leavenworth he lived for some time at Topeka, upon a farm of one hundred 
and sixty acres, which we believe he still owns. His neighbors tell of his abrupt manner, 
reserved yet forcible speech and character." And it also tells us that " an outlying part of our 
city plat is marked on the maps as 'Sherman's Addition.'" 



William T. Sherman. 425 

The progress of events cut short the debate. The South rang with prepara- 
tions to secede from the Union, to the chief executive office of which Abraham 
Lincoln was about tS'be admitted. Captain Sherman's course was clear and 
unshrinking. No patriot — most of all, no Ohioan — can read his letter of resig- 
nation without a thrill of honest pride in his sturdy manhood and faithful 
loyalty : 

" To the Governor of the State of Louisiana : 

"SiK — ^As 1 occupy a quasi military position under this State, I deem it proper to acquaint 
v^ou that I accepted such a position when Louisiana was a State in the Union, and when the motto 
of the Seminary, inserted in marble over the main door, was : 'By the liberality of the General 
Government of the United States ; The Union — Esto Perpetua.'' 

"Kecent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana 
withdraws from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my allegiance to the old Constitution as 
long as a fragment of it survives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of ihe 

word I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as Superintendent the moment 

the State determines to secede ; for on no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought 
hostile to or in defiance of the old Government of the United States." 

Capt-ain Sherman at once returned to St. Louis, and, entering into street- 
railroad speculations in that city, presently became President of the Fifth-street 
line. In this position the war found him. He was now in his forty-second 
year. Thus far his career in life had scarcely been what one who should reckon 
his original promise, and the special social and political influences that were 
always combined in his favor, would have expected. His thirteen years of 
army life had brought no distinction. McClellan, Fremont, Halleck, Hooker, 
Eosecrans, and a score of the other young retired officers of the army, were re- 
membered as brilliant soldiers, according to the standai'd of those old army days. 
Sherman had left no name. The eight years of civil life that followed had 
added little to his fortune and nothing to his fame. He was a tolerable bank 
agent and unpractical lawyer. But the heart of the man was sound to the 
core; and his impulsive abandonment of his position in Louisiana did more 
than all his life thus far to fix him in men's minds. He was soon to enter 
a wider career, but the days of his success were still distant, and a severe 
probation yet awaited him. 

About the time of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration the President of the Fifth- 
Street Eailroad went to Washington. His younger brother, Hon. John Sher- 
man, had just been elected to represent their native State in the United States 
Senate, and this, couj)led with his prominence in the Speakership contest, some 
years before, betokened an influence that might be beneficial. Captain Sher- 
man was ready for almost anything. He talked freely, drew largely on his 
observations in the South, assured the Republicans they would have war, and a 
bloody war, went to Mr. Lincoln to try and impress him with the danger, and 
to volunteer his sei-vices in any capacity. "We shall not need many men like 
you," said the hopeful patriot; "the aff'air will soon blow over." But the Cap- 
tain's social position, as the son-in-law of so distinguished a statesman and 



426 Ohio in the Wak. 

lawyer as Mr. Ewing, and the brother of a Senator, secured him some consider- 
ation. He applied for the chief clerkship in the War Department and hi& 
influence, political and military, was such as to secure strong backing ; but the 
place was given to another. Then, when Jos. E. Johnston resigned the Quar- 
tei-master-G-eneralship to enter his career in the Eebel army, Captain Sherman 
sought this vacancy, but failed again.* 

When the call for seventy-five thousand volunteers for three months was 
issued, our confident Captain at once denounced it as unwise. He was told that 
if he would go home to Ohio he could probabl}^ get the command of one of the 
regiments; but he would have nothing to do with such folly. "You might as 
well attempt to put out the flames of a burning house with a squirt-gun." 
"You are sleeping on a volcano." "You want to organize the whole military 
power of the North at once for a desperate struggle." "You don't know anj^- 
thing about this people. Why, if we should have a reverse beyond the Po- 
tomac, the very women of this city w'ould cut the throats of our wounded with 
case-knives." t Such were the energetic sayings with which he won, for a time, 
the character of an alarmist. At last, disgusted with his failure to impress his 
ideas upon the authorities, or to secure a satisfactory position, he went back to 
his street railroad in St. Louis. 

But his thoughtful brother did not neglect his interests. Presently it was 
decided to add eleven regiments to the regular army. Application was at once 
made for a position for Captain Sherman in this new force, and so vigorously . 
and influentially was the case presented, that early in June the Senator tele- 
graphed him to return to Washington, and shortly after his arrival he was 
commissioned Colonel of the Thirteenth (new) Eegular Infantry. Officers at 
all instructed in the minutiae of military matters were just then greatly needed 
to aid in reducing the shapeless masses of militia to consistency, and the new 
Colonel was ordered at once to report for duty at General Scott's head-quarters. 
A few days later, Scott sent him out to take command of a fort. Here he 
remained till McDowell's movement on Manassas was organized, when his West 
Point education secured him the command of a brigade. 

The ensuing battle of Bull Eun was Colonel Sherman's first engagement. 
His behavior was cooler than they would have imagined who should judge only 
from his nervous excitability of character. Coming into the action about half- 
past twelve, he found the enemy retreating, and advanced for over a mile with 
his brigade in line of battle. Then, as the fire became severe, he protected 
them a little along the line of a sunken road, till ordered to move them up to 
the attack. One regiment after another was then put in by itself, only to be 
driven back in disorder. The brigade was beaten in detail, but not without 
considerable loss. Presently the panic began, and Sherman's command yielded 
to its full force. He himself reported their retreat as " disorderl}^ in the 
extreme." But his own conduct had been such as to mark him out as one of 

* Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 24. 

t This last remark was made to Murat Halstead, Esq., the editor of the Cincinnati Com- 
mercial. 



i 



William T. Sherman. 427 

the raw officers, essaying war for the first time, who might yet come to some- 
thing. Such was the impression of the Ohio Congressmen ; and, at the suggestion 
of his brother, they united in a request for his appointment to the rank of 
Brigadier-General. On the 3d of August the commission was issued.* The 
new General was unpopular. He had curtly and nervously told the truth about 
the panic in his own command as well as among the rest of the runaways. 
Never at all bashful about expressing his opinions, the prevailing excitement 
gave him unusual freedom of utterance; and he now criticised blundei'S with 
the absolutism of a professor and the zeal of a novice. But his political in- 
fluence shielded him from danger. 

About the middle of August General Robert Anderson, given command 
of the Department of Kentuck}^ for his defense of Fort Sumter, asked for Sher- 
man, Burnside, Thomas, and Buell, to serve under him; and toward the last of 
the month Sherman was sent. According to his testimony to the Committee on 
the Conduct of the War, he "expi'essed to General Anderson and to the Presi- 
dent that he did not wish to be placed in any conspicuous position, but would 
attempt any amount of work."f- Presently, on Anderson's retiring because of 
ill health, Sherman rose by seniority to the control of the Department — much 
against his own wishes, if we may trust the same testimony; for he tells us 
that he "remonstrated against being placed in chief command, and, consider- 
ing the President pledged not to put him in any prominent command, urged it 
with earnestness."! For a course so unusual in a man so ambitious. General 
Sherman has assigned no reasons. We may well believe, however, that he real- 
ized his limited knowledge of practical war, and sagaciously dreaded becoming 
prominent before he had time to learn in the school of experience. 

" Paint me as I am," was the stern command of a historic Soldier to the 
artist who sketched his portrait; "put in every scar and wrinkle." The great 
soldier, whose career we now trace, to be truly great, should emulate the wis- 
dom of the Lord Protector. In that case we should have none of the disin- 
genuous subterfuges with which it has been sought to gloze over Sherman's utter 
failure in Kentucky. 

He was inexperienced in war. He was profoundly alive to the terrible 
earnestness of the South. In the fervor of his intelligent opposition to the 
'• sixty-days" nonsense, he went, like most incautious men of high nervous organ- 
izations, to the opposite extreme. || To his excited vision, the South was a giant 
armed cap-a-pie; the North, a stolid mass, trusting to raw militia for the conduct 
of a gigantic war. No story of Southern resources or reckoning of Rebel armies 
was too gross for his belief; no depreciation of his personal command could 

* Like many others issued about this period, it was dated back to 17th May. 

t Eeport of 1867, Vol. I, p. 4. t Ibid. 

II And from this, in spite of the lessons of the war, he never recovered. As late as 25th 
October, 1864, after the fall of Atlanta, after Grant had pushed Lee into Petersburg, and had 
written that the Rebels were then robbing the cradle and the grave to keep up their armies, and 
when he himself was about to launch his army through Georgia to the sea, he wrote to the Sec- 
retary of War (Final Report Com. Con. War, Vol. I, p. 240) that "the contest was but fairlj 
begun." 



428 Ohio in the War. 

come up to his own conviction of its unfitness to cope with the tremendous 
powers of his antagonist. General Buckner had led into Kentucky aEebel force 
numbering barely four thousand, had with this paltry detachment menaced 
Louisville, and had finally established himself in fortifications at Bowling 
Green. By the 15th of October he was able to increase his strength to twelve 
thousand. At this average it remained till months after Sherman's departure 
from Kentucky.* But long before this, Sherman had at Camp Nevin, facing 
Buckner, three brigades of four full regiments each, besides a column of nine 
thousand at Camp Dick Eobinson under General Thomas, and scattere 1 forces 
in Louisville and along tlie line of the railroad! Yet, with such resources, he 
declared Louisville itself to be in danger, burdened the telegraph with petitions 
for re-enforcement to save him from being driven across the Ohio, and at one 
time actually proposed that the troojDS facing Buckner should burn their bag- 
gage and retreat on Louisville. Excited by these visions of danger, and worn 
out with the labor of his Department, his nervousness increased upon him. He 
talked extravagantly, and made little secret of his fears. Eye-witnesses spoke 
of him as a man haggard with work, and yet so excited that he " scarcely knew 
what he was about. "f 

Arrangements were already in progress for raising the force in Kentucky 
to an army of sixty or seventy thousand strong, but Sherman's exaggerated dis- 
patches had caused some apprehension as to the wisdom of entrusting so great a 
column to such a commander. Accordingly, when the Secretary of War. in a tour 
of inspection westward, about this time, reached Louisville, he asked General 
Shei'man what his views really were as to the wants of his Department. "How 
many men do you need?" "Two hundred thousand!" was the prompt and 
emphatic reply .| To us, contemj^lating this strange answer in the light of Sid- 

* Pollard says: "In spite of the victory at Belmont, our situation in Kentucky was one of 
extreme weakness, and entirely at the mercy of the enemy, if he had not been imposed upon by 
false representations of the number of our forces at Bowling Green. About the middle of Sep- 
tember General Buckner advanced with a small force of about four thousand men, which was 
increased by 15th October to twelve thousand; and though other accessions of force were 
received, it continued at about the same strength till the end of November. The enemy's force 
was then reported to the War Department at fifty thousand," . Sidney .Johnston's Letter to Jeff. 
Davis, after the surrender of Fort Donelson, gives the same figures. 

tMr. F. B. Plymplon, one of the editors of the Cincinnati Commercial, had an amus- 
ing experience with General Sherman during the height of his alarm about the Kebel strength 
and purpose. He waited on the General to inform him that he had come down to write what was 
to be told about the army. The General, who was at a small railroad station near Muldraugh's 
Hill, broke out into the most violent and extravagant abuse, cursing and swearing like a madman. 
Presently he commenced charging up and down the platform, his saber rattling along behind 
him. Every time he passed Mr. Plympton he discharged at him a volley of fresh oaths, each 
winding up with the renewed order to get back to Louisville on the first train if he had any 
i-egard for his personal safety. Plympton bore the matter philosophically. Sherman continued 
prancing up and down the platform, gesticulating, swearing, and working himself into a very 
ecstasy of rage. All of a sudden he stopped opposite Plympton: "If you want to get a real 
good dinner, the very best that can be had anywhere about here, just step over to that house 
which you see yonder !" This was said in the kindest and most friendly manner possible. Then, 
with a return to the old tone: "But be d d sure you take that first train back to Louisville!" 

Jin this statement I follow the narrative of Adjutant-General Thomas, who was present at 



William T. Sherman. 429 

ney Johnston's declaration that his force at Bowling G-reen numbered twelve 
thousand, and of his naive statement to Mr. Davis that he "magnified his forces 
to the enemy, but disclosed his true strength to the department,"* it is only 
doubtful whether Sherman's opinion should furnish cause more for amazement 
or for amusement. But to the Secretary of War and the Adjutant- General it 
was a very sober subject. Here was an untried commander, nervous, palpably 
under high excitement, having, according to concurrent testimony, only a small 
force opposed to him, but declaring that he needed two hundred thousand men 
straightway, when the entire available force then in camps at the IS'orth did 
not muster half so many. Either those controlling the business of the war 
were grossly mistaken in their comprehension of the requirements, or G-eneral 
Sherman was. The result was natural. General Sherman was relieved from 
command and sent to Benton Barracks, Missouri, to drill raw recruits. In this 
humble sphere he was kept at Avork until the spring of 1862 ; while the re-en- 
forcements that had been designed for him were confided to the leadership of 
his successor. A force at no time so great as two hundred thousand was sub- 
sequently found, under such efficient handling as General Sherman himself 
largely aided to give it, sufficient to drive the enemy to the Gulf. 

Meantime, with the rawness of our eai^ly essays at the management of a 
war, Adjutaait-Genei-al Thomas had rushed into print with his sensationally- 
written report, embracing, among many other secrets, an account of the strange 
demand which had preceded Sherman's sudden removal. The country was 
indignant. Presently a leading journal of Cincinnati, f in solemn seriousness 
on authority that it believed to be unquestionable, and Avith a kindly desire tc 
do justice to Sherman, by enabling the country to understand the causes of his 
strange action, came to the rescue with an editorial explanation of the mystery. 
In the light of subsequent history it becomes pleasant reading : 

"The painful intelligence reaches us in such form that we are not at liberty to discredit it, 
that General W. T. Sherman, late commander of the Department of the Cumberland, is insane/ 
It appears that he was at times, when commanding in Kentucky, stark mad. We learn that he 
at one time telegraphed to the War Department three times in one day for permission to evac- 
uate Kentucky and retreat into Indiana. He also, on several occasions, frightened the leading 
Union men of Louisville almost out of their wits by the most astounding representations of the 
overwhelming force of Buckner, and the assertion that Louisville could not he defended. The 
retreat from Cumberland Gap was one of his mad freaks. When relieved from the command in 
Kentucky he was sent to Missouri and placed at the head of a brigade at Sedalia, where the 

the interview. A biography of General Sherman, prepared under his eye, has since explained 
that he said ; " Sixty thousand to drive the enemy out of Kentucky, two hundred thousand to 
finish the war in this section." But inasmuch as sixty thousand would have been a very absurd 
number to insist upon for driving out Buckner's twelve thousand at Bowling Green and the 
small force under Zollicoffer, which Thomas's little column subsequently defeated so handsomely 
at Mill Springs, the explanation (which at any rate looks strikingly like an after-thought) does 
not greatly mend the matter. See post, Life of Buell. 

* Letter of General Sidney Johnston to President Davis, 18th March, 1862 — furnished Con- 
federate Congress, and published in Report Spec. Com. on Causes of Disasters at Fortf Henrj 
and Donelson, pp. 171, 172. 

t Cincinnati Daily Commercial, December, 1861. 



430 Opiio in the Wak. 

shocking fact that he was a madman was developed, by orders that his subordinates knew to be 
preposterous, and refused to obey. He has, of course, been relieved altogether from command. 
The harsh criticisms which have been lavished upon this gentleman, provoked by his strange 
conduct, will now give way to feelings of the deepest sympathy for him in his great calamity. It 
seems providential that the country has not to mourn the loss of an army through the loss of the 
mind of a General into whose hands were committed the vast responsibilities of the command in 
Kentucky." * 

The country at once accepted the explanation ; and though General Sher- 
man's relatives promiDtly contradicted it,f his actual insanity was doubted by 
few, save the army officers who surrounded him, till, in the spring of 1862, 
General Halleck decided to try him on more active duty than Benton Barracks 
afforded. When Grant went up to Fort Donelson it was important that there 
should be an instructed officer at Paducah to supervise the forwarding of troops 
and supplies. With this task Sherman was intrusted. J All winter he had been 
restless and chafing; his boundless activity now found scope, and he proved so 
energetic and useful that Halleck, who had known him in California, and, 
besides, had a strong penchant for West Pointers, determined to try him further. 
The expedition up the Tennessee was soon on foot, and Sherman was assigned 
to the command of a division in it. He was boiling over with energy, and his 
wide theoretical acquaintance with military matters was soon found to be re-en- 
forced by a remarkable capacity for learning from every day's experience. In 
short, he so handled his troops that in a little time Chas. F. Smith, having no 
other West Pointer (save Hurlbut, who need scarcely be counted) among his Di- 
vision Generals, came to rely chiefly on Sherman, and to give him the lead. On 

■•■• The facts on which this noted article was based were furnished by Mr. Henri Villard, 
a well-known and trustworthy journalist, connected with the Eastern press, and also with the 
Commercial. He considered them of so much importance that he made a trip from Louisville 
to Cincinnati expressly to communicate them in person. He added that George D. Prentice, Hon. 
James Guthrie, Hon. James Speed, and other prominent Unionists of Louisville, had been tele- 
graphing to the War Department concerning the danger, before the removal of General Sher- 
man. Mr. Halstead accepted the statement thus fortified by direct and circumstantial testimony 
as conclusive. It seemed to him a kindness to General Sherman that the country should be 
enabled to know the real secret of his strange sayings and doings, as well as the enormous dan- 
ger from which it has just escaped, in having so important a command controlled by a stark, 
raving madman. When General Sherman first saw the article he was at Lancaster, on a visit to 
his family. He laid down the paper, and, in his quick, nervous way, exclaimed : " Well, now, I 
should n't be surprised if they would fasten that on me. It 's the hardest thing in the world for 
a man to prove himself sane, especially when many people think his ideas wild." His family and 
friends, who were greatly enraged, at once attributed the statement to General McClellan. No 
amount of reasoning on the part of Mr. Halstead could convince them that the General then 
at the head of the army had nothing to do with the origin of the Commercial's article. Some 
other facts (known or suspected, doubtless, by Sherman's family) will serve to show the basis ibr 
their suspicions. Colonel Thomas M. Key, the well-known Judge-Advocate and confidential ad- 
viser on General McClellan's staff", was actually sent to see Sherman's condition. He returned 
with the report that, so far as he could judge, Sherman was not sufficiently master of his judgment 
to be intrusted with the command of an army and a great department. It may not be improper 
to add that Colonel Key long continued to entertain the same opinion, and that very many gentle- 
:men who had seen much of Sherman during his stay at Louisville agreed with him. 

t First contradicted by P. B. Ewing. in Cincinnati Commercial, 12th December, 186L 

t February 17, 1862. 



William T. Sheeman. 431 

Grant's arrival to take command in Smith's place, he found Sherman in the 
advance at the fateful encampment at Pittsburg Landing. When Grant, a raw, 
uninformed boy, entered West Point, Sherman was in his last year there, was 
well known and highly ranked. Subsequent acquaintance had led Grant to 
keep up the old West Point estimate of his capacity, and so he too came to 
repose a large share of confidence in the ardent, energetic, hopeful Division 
General on the front line. 

The Eebels advanced, undiscovered, from Corinth on Thursday, 3d April. 
All day Friday they marched, or floundered, through the rain-storm ; all day 
Saturday they were in motion on Sherman's front. But, though there had been 
a cavalry skirmish or two, the army lay down to rest on Saturday night with- 
out a conception of the enemy that was then lying silent in the woods at its 
picket-line, and listening to its tattoo. General Sherman was approached by 
one or two uneasy ofiicers, who reported what they thought signs of an impend- 
ing attack, but he was incredulous,* and took no sj)ecial precautions. On Sun- 
day morning the storm burst. 

With three of his brigades, Hildebrand's, Buckland's, and McDowell's 
(posted in the order we hav^e named them, Hildebrand having the left), Sherman 
held the right of the irregular, ill-defined line. His remaining brigade he had 
suftered to remain encamped miles away, on the extreme left of the National 
army, and with this there was no possibility of his holding any communication. 
At the first sound of attack Sherman was prompt in ordering out his command, 
spending for aid, and notifying the other division commanders that the enemy 
Avas upon him in force. The enemy, however, made that announcement before 
him. Sherman's left soon broke, in confusion, under the unexpected onset. 
Waterhouse's battery was lost. The flank was threatened, and presently the 
whole line fell back to a new position. It was hardly taken till another battery 
was lost. The flank was again exposed, and the division — now reduced to the 
Iragments of two brigades — again fell back, seeking a position where it could 
support McClernand's right. Here Sherman held his ground till some time in 
the afternoon, when he was once more pressed back. This time he selected a 
line covering the Snake Creek bridge, by which Lew. Wallace was expected to 

■*Much has been written, ^sro and con, on the question whether or not the National army was 
Burprised at Pittsburg Landing. Between Lieutenant-Governor Stanton, of Ohio, and General 
Sherman, an especially acrimonious discussion sprang up, which General Sherman's father-in- 
law afterward continued with all his lawyer-like ability. There is no need to add to the dispute, 
and General Sherman's relatives do him no kindness in keeping it up. I do not cite authorities 
to sustain the view given in the text, because I should as soon think of citing authorities to prove 
the fact that General McDowell retreated from the first Bull Kun. But, to show that General 
Sherman himself did not always express the views advanced by and for him in this discussion, I 
may mention that, after the battle, in conversation with General E. W. Johnston, of Buell's army, 
whom he was entertaining in his tent, he said: "I had no idea of being attacked— did not 
believe it was a serious attack even after the firing began, till I saw the masses of their infantry 
bursting out of those woods down there just in front of us." The Adjutant-General on General 
Johnston's staflf, Lieutenant (Eev.) W. C. Turner (of the N. S. Presbyterian Church), was present 
with his chief at this conversation, has a distinct recollection of it, and certifies to the accuracy of 
the above statement. 



432 Ohio in the Wae. 

an-ive, and here the shattered remnants of his division bivouacked in line of 
battle, while BuelFs fresh army was marching in to re-form and extend the 
front. On the next day Sherman gathered together what fragments of his reg- 
iments he could, and pressed hard upon the enem}^, but his force was reduced to 
such an extent that it no longer formed a considerable element in the contest. 

Throughout the battle, but specially on the first day. General Sherman ex- 
posed himself recklessly, and set the example — then much needed — of the closest 
supervision by officers of their commands in action. His conduct did much to 
check the unseemly panic, and his unyielding tenacity went largely to pre- 
vent an abandonment of the field under the shock of the first disaster, and to 
brace up the faltering purpose of officers and men through all the misfortunes 
of that gloomy day. He was slightly wounded in the hand, and before the 
action ended three horses had been shot under him. So much was his gallant 
conduct in the field considered to have aided in the final success, that General 
Halleck reported it to the Government as the unanimous opinion of the officers 
concerned, that "General Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th 
and contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7th." He accordingly 
recommended his promotion to a Major-Generalship of Volunteers, and the com- 
mission was speedily issued. 

For most of the blunders of Pittsbui-g Landing Sherman could not have 
been held responsible, had he not chosen to make himself so. He was only a 
subordinate officer, greatly trusted indeed by his chief, but at no time in com- 
mand of the camp. He should certainly have kept his division together; and it 
must over seem inconceivable to those not actual witnesses to the fact, that an 
officer, Avith military education, and professing to understand war and war's con- 
ditions, should have lain for weeks in the vicinity of an enemy he believed to 
outnumber him, without a spadeful of earth thrown up for defense, without 
even an obstruction of fallen timber, and, finally, without pickets a mile beyond 
his own tent! These, however, were matters which the commanding General 
should have enjoined.* But, with that disposition — boi*n of the morbid vanity, 
which we shall more than once observe in his future careei' — to accept unneces- 
sary responsibilities, and to deny that he has ever made a blunder, General Sher- 
man has since chosen to vindicate the management of affairs before the battle.f 
His true friends can not but regret so unwise a step; and no degree of admira- 
tion for the brilliant genius which he subsequentl}' displaj-ed, can blind impar- 
tial observers to the criminal foolhardiness and blundering which made the first 
day of Pittsburg Landing a slaughter, and well-nigh an irreparable calamity. 

"It was necessar}^ that a combat, fierce and bitter, to test the manhood of 
the two armies, should come off, and that was as good a place as any. It was 
not then a question of military skill and strategy, but of courage and pluck." 
When the military student of another generation comes to read such words from 
the man who took Atlanta, in apology for neglect of pickets, lack of any regu- 

* For a fuller statement of the amazing carelessness and neglect at Pittsburg Landing, prior 
to the battle, see ante, Life of Grant. 

tin his letter to U. S. Service Magazine on Pittsburg Landing, and in earlier publications. 



William T. Sherman. 433 

lar formation of line, and absence of the slightest defensive woi-ks, against a foe 
supposed to be superior, he will find it as difficult to believe that the Lieutenant- 
General Sherman of histor}- wrote the excuse as that he was guilt}- of the 
blunders. 

Under General Halleck's personal management the armj^ now jjassed from 
the extreme of rashness and neglect to the extreme of timid overcaution. It 
advanced upon Corinth at a snail's pace, stopping to construct long lines of for- 
tifications after every trivial movement, till the whole distance between Corinth 
and the Landing became an interminable succession of redoubts and rifle-pits. 
Genei-al Sherman,, fully awakened from the contempt of the enemy which can 
alone explain the neglect to prepare for him before the fatal Sunday morning 
of the attack, was now fully ready to second all the cautious devices of the new 
commander. General Halleck's high opinion of his conduct in the battle natu- 
rally led to his giving him an important position, and it so fell out that on the 
right, to which Sherman was thus assigned, occurred the only skirmishes of im- 
portance that marred the peaceful monotony of the methodical advance.* These 
were two in number. In each General Sherman's dispositions were excellent, 
and his success complete. The first was to drive the enemy from Eussell's 
House, and the high hill on which it stood, about a mile and a quarter from the 
outer intrenchments at Corinth. For this purpose Sherman sent General Mor- 
gan L. Smith's brigade directly against the position, while, on either hand, 
another brigade threatened the flank. A few shots from Smith's batteries drove 
the enemy, and Sherman hastened to fortifj- the hill thus won. His entire loss 
was only ten killed and thirty-one wounded. Ten days later Halleck ordered 
another advance, to drive the Eebels from a ridge on Sherman's new front, and 
to demonstrate against Corinth. Sherman promptly formed a line of his own 
division (now reduced to three brigades) and of another brigade summoned 
from the reserve. The troojjs advanced silentl}- and Avith great caution. The 
artillery demolished a house from which the enemy's sharpshooters had given 
annoyance; then, at the signal of a single shot, the whole line dashed across the 
intervening space, carried the ground, and with trifling loss established them^ 
.selves, under cover of a dense wood, within thirteen hundred yards of the 
enemy's main fortifications. The Eebels presently rallied and essayed a coun- 
ter-attack, but they were repulsed by the picket-line — which, thanl^s to the 
lessons of Pittsbui'g Landing, was now amply strong and well-placed. Two 
days later the enemy evacuated Corinth. By seven o'clock in the morning 
Sherman was in the town with the bulk of his division. So marked was the 
improvement already made in the important matter of watching the enemy ! 

Throughout these siege-operations, as the commanding General chose to 
style them, General Sherman, though in a purely- subordinate position, Avas 
active, cautious and energetic, and his services were highly appreciated b}' 

*0f course the reader will understand that General Pope'.s battle of Farmington, on the 
extreme left, is not included in this remark. It is swelled for beyond the importance of a mere 
Bkirmish. 

Vol. I.— 28. 



43-4 Ohio in the War. 

Halleck. But it is more important to observe that, although Grant was in a 
state of quasi disgrace, Sherman kept up his old cordial relations with him, and 
was at pains to express his sympathy. He was not to wait long for his reward. 
But the rawness of our rapidly-learning Genei-al was still as apparent as 
the absolute confidence with which he volunteered opinions outside of his own 
sphere. One can scarcely read now, without a smile, the language in which he 
chose to announce the result. " The evacuation of Corinth," he declares, . . . 
" was a clear back-down from the high and arrogant tone heretofore assumed by 
the Eebels. . . . It is a victory as brilliant and important as any recorded in 
history.'' This is not the language of a great General, or even of a military 
student — it is the bombast of a college sophomore. School-bo}^ exaggeration, 
indeed, rarely makes itself so absurd as to style such performance as that at 
Corinth a victory as brilliant as any recorded in history. It was a victory 
without fighting, in which over a hundred thousand men spent two months in 
driving forty-seven thousand out of woi*ks which Sherman himself pronounced 
''poor and indiffei-ent!* But it may be readily inferred that such extravagan- 
cies of laudation were expected to be highly gratifying to the hero of this great 
victory, the redoubtable General-in-Command. who was soon to rise to still 
higher rank, to the country's injury. 

Sherman was now ordered westward along the Memphis and Charleston 
Eailroad; and after Halleck's transfer as General-in-Chief to Washington, Grant, 
on resuming command, at once sent him to Memphis to take charge of the dis- 
trict. Here he spent (with unimportant exceptions) the remainder of 1862, 
engrossed in the civil duties of his command. He adopted vigorous measures of 
retaliation for guerrilla outrages, and for firing on steamboats; kej)t a vigilant 
watch on the spies with whom Memphis swarmed, and did his best to prevent 
any trade beyond the lines, particularly in cotton. Most of these measures 
originated with Gi-ant, but Sherman threw great energy into their execution. 
The Government countermanded his orders about cotton, to his great chagrin. 
In the fall he aided Grant's advance against the line of the Tallahatchie by-co- 
operative movements on flank and rear, which were well-timed and entii-ely 
successful. Then, under Grant's orders, he prepared his expedition " to proceed 
to Vicksburg and reduce it,"f while Grant himself was advancing upon the ene- 
my's main force via H0II3' S2)rings. 

Most unfortunately Sherman was not advised of the disaster at Holly 
Springs, which ended Grant's movement; and the very next daj- he started, in 
the full confidence that he should find but an easy task before him at the front 
of Vicksburg, while Grant was thundering on its i*ear. His fall and winter's 
campaign upon the traders had greatly embittered him, and his orders, on 
setting out, were mainly directed against them. No citizens were, on any pre- 

* Sherman's Official Eeport Advance on Corinth. I have followed above the Rebel official 
statement of their strength. The estimate made by our own officers was some eighteen thousand 
more. 

t The language of Grant's order. 



William T. Sherman. 435 

text, or for tiny purpose, to accompany the expedition. If any cotton was by 
any body put on board the transports, it was to be confiscated. If any mem 
bers of the press were found they were to be treated as spies. If any other 
citizens were found they were to be conscripted into the army, or forced to work 
without pay as deck-hands on the transports.* The fretful and arbitrary tone 
of these orders made an unfavorable impression at the time; and after the expe- 
dition was over, led to the bitter taunt that as the General had directed his 
thoughts mainly to warfare upon our own citizens, so he was more successful 
in that than in his efforts against the enemy. The sneer was unjust, but he 
had given occasion for it. 

On arriving before Vicksburg, on Christmas-Eve, Sherman first proceeded 
to break up the Vicksburg and Texas Eailroad; then moved on transports up 
the old mouth of the Yazoo, and by noon of the 27th had his whole command 
of four divisions, and forty-two thousand men,t disembarked on its south side, 
near the mouth of Chickasaw Bayou, the boggy stream permeating the swamp 
thence down to Vicksburg, which rendered the approach to the flank of the 
enemy's works so difficult. Above its eastern bank frowned the Kebel fortifica- 
tions. It was his first effort at directing* more than a single division in action; 
but Sherman's dispositions soon showed that in the last year he had been rapidly 
learning his business. He at first decided to move three of his divisions up the 
•bayou by various routes, under cover of the swamp on the side farthest from 
the enemy, to the points where he proposed to deliver the attack, while a single 
division should move in the same direction on the enemy's side of the bayou. 
The heads of columns soon drove in the enemy's pickets, and found ground of 
the utmost difficulty before them. Steele, who was moving on the enemy's side 
of the bayou, presently reported that his path led along a corduroy causeway, 
raked by both enfilading and cross-fire from the enemy's batteries; and Sherman 
decided to withdraw him to the other side. Meantime, the other three divisions 
had, with many difficulties, toiled through the swamp till they had reached the 
points at which it was proposed to cross. In front of them was the uncertain 
bayou, with its boggy banks; above that rose the high bluffs, marked from base 
to summit with the enemy's rifle-pits and parapets; while along the base of the 
bluff ran an excellent road, by which the Eebels could rapidly concentrate at 
any threatened point. Their force, though considerably increased during the 
delay in Sherman's movements after his arrival, was still greatly inferior; but 
it occupied a position well-nigh impregnable. 

This position, however, Sherman now decided to assault. Morgan's division, 
re-enforced by Blair's and Thayer's brigades, was to attack on the left; while 
A. J. Smith, farther up the bayou, with more difficult ground before him, was to 
secure a lodgment with two divisions on the steep bluff that here rose from the 
bank, and prevent the enem}^ from concentrating on Morgan. 

* Sherman and his Campaigns, pp. 80, 81. 

t A. ,J. Smith's, Morgan L. Smith's, and George W. Morgan's divisions, numbered, in the 
aggregate, thirty thousand and sixty-eight. Frederick Steele's numbered twelve thou.sand three 
hundred and ten. 



436 Ohio in the War 

Of Smith's assault the Rebel report briefly tells the story: "When within 
four hundred yards our infantry opened — the enemy coming to within one hun- 
dred and fifty yards of my lines. Here our fire was so terrible that they broke, 
but in a few minutes rallied again, sending a force to my left, to turn my left 
flank. This was soon met and handsomely repulsed. The force in my front 
was also repulsed. Our fire was so severe that the enemy laid down to receive 
it. Seeing their confusion the Twenty-Sixth Louisiana, and a part of the Sev- 
enteenth, were marched on the field, and under their cover, twenty-one commis- 
sioned ofiicers and three hundred and eleven privates, with four colors, and five 
hundred stand of arms, were captured. The enemy left in great confusion, 
leaving their dead on the field."* 

Meantime, on the right, two companies had been sent over in advance to 
dig away a path in the steep bluif, so that the column could ascend. They 
rushed gallantly across, and, under cover of the bank, commenced digging— so 
close to the enemy that the Eebels above reached down their muskets, firing 
vertically at them from the top of the same bank. But the movement had been 
too much delayed ; Morgan was already repulsed before this column was ready 
to cross, and Sherman ordered an abandonment of the efi'ort. The brave fellows 
under the bayou bluff" were accordingly withdrawn, at nightfall, under cover of 
the darkness. 

Less than an hour's fighting had settled the matter. General Sherman 
now realized — at the fruitless cost of nineteen hundred and twenty-nine sol- 
diers (against a Eebel loss of two hundred and nine) — that the position was 
impregnable. Unwilling, however, to confess the total failure of his expedi- 
tion, he cast about for some further means of at least planting his army in 
a position to menace the Rebel fortifications. With this view he proposed to 
Admiral Porter, commanding the accompanying gunboat fleet, to cover the 
landing of a force of ten thousand picked troops up the Yazoo, at the point 
where the extremity of the Rebel line touched that stream. While this body 
should essay to turn the line here, he would occupy the enemy's attention 
at the old points. Then, the works being turned, he would hasten up with 
the rest of his army. The troops were sent, but on the first night Admiral 
Porter found the fog too dense to move; on the second he found the moonlight 
almost as bright as day, and, therefore, decided the efi'ort too hazardous. Thus 
baffled again, thei-e was nothing left for Sherman but to withdraw — the ground 
on which he was encamped being swampy, and liable to overflow after any 
heavy rain, while behind him there were only more swamps and the rising 
Mississippi, and in front the triumphant enemy. He accordingly decided to 
move up the river to Milliken's Bend. 

The Administration had not yet fully returned to the confidence in Sher- 
man which he had lost in Kentucky, and at this juncture it decided that for the 
effort down the Mississippi a moi-e capable commander was required. The Pres- 
ident accordingly selected John A. McClernand, by whom Sherman was met as he 
reached the mouth of the Yazoo again. 

^Official Eeport of Rebel General S. D. Lee. 



William T. Sherman. 437 

The fiiilure before Vieksburg was harshly judged by the public, aud Sher- 
man remained unpopular and distrusted. Yet it is now evident, as Grant him- 
self soon after cheerfully testified, that Sherman had done all that was possible. 
His only error — if there was error at all — consisted in making an attack on 
impregnable positions. Yet his orders, binding him up to the "reduction of 
Vieksburg," could hardly have been considered satisfied without an effort against 
the enemy. 

On the arrival at Milliken's Bend Sherman issued a farewell order to the 
army, of which McClernand now assumed command. It was not difficult to see 
that he was chagrined. " A new commander," he said, " is now here to lead you. 
He is chosen by the President of the United States, who .... has the 
undoubted right to select his own agents."* Sherman was now reduced to the 
command of two divisions. With these he accompanied the rest of the army 
which he had lately commanded, on McClernand's expedition up the Arkansas 
Eiver to Arkansas Post. In the investment he was given the advance. He 
promptly passed around the rear of the fort, and rested his right on the river 
above it. As soon as the gunboats opened fire Sherman opened also, and after 
about fifteen minutes' bombardment, to which he received no reply from the 
€nemy, he gave the signal for assault. The troops dashed forward gallantly, 
but were speedily entangled in the rough ground and obstructions on the enemy's 
front. They maintained their position and advanced slowly, till the enemy, 
overpowered by the gunboat fire, raised the white flag. In this affair Sherman 
lost seventy-nine killed and four hundred and forty wounded. McClernand 
oflScially spoke of him as "exhibiting his usual activity and enterprise." 

Grant himself having now gone down the river, that remarkable series of 
devices w^as begun, by which it was sought to evade the difficulties of the 
Vieksburg problem. Sherman had no special share in any of them save the 
effort to burst into the Yazoo by means of the Sunflower, and the bayous through 
which that stream has its uncertain connection with the Mississippi. In this he 
was ordered to accompany the gunboats, and seize some point on the Yazoo 
from which operations could be directed against Haines's Bluff. He set out at 
once with a single regiment and a detachment of pioneers, leaving the rest of 
his troops to follow. They aided the gunboats to open the bayous, followed in 
transports as long as transports found the route practicable, then changed to 
coal-barges, and were drawn along by a little steam-tug, marched wherever 
the boggy roads were not completely overflowed, and finally, the gunboats, 
being hemmed in by fallen timber, and attacked by the enemy with infantry 
and artillery, made forced marches through the swamps — in one case even 
I groping their uncertain way by candle-light through a canebrake — and finally 
got up just in time to save Admiral Porter from being surrounded. The energy 
with which the troops were pushed forward was admirable; and Porter cheer- 
fully testified that " no other General could have done better or as well as 

•^ He went on, however, to cover up this feeling by urging cheerful obedience to McClernand, 
and saying there was glory enough in store for all. 



438 Ohio in the Wak. 

Sherman." But the movement was abandoned when almost within sight of 
the Yazoo. 

Meanwhile the puzzled General who directed these various operations was 
at his wits' end ; and numerous were the discussions as to what could be done to 
plant the army in striking distance of the long-sought stronghold. In these, 
Admiral Porter and General Sherman were his most frequent and confidential 
counselors. Finally General Sherman submitted his written plan, a couple of 
weeks before Grant's final policy of running the batteries and marching up from 
the south was adopted. He regarded the army as already far in advance of the 
other grand armies, would make sundry movements in Arkansas, and then 
would "move the main army back to the Tallahatchie, secure and re-open the 
road back to Memphis," and adopt "the line of the Yallabusha as the base from 
which to operate against the points where the Mississippi Central crosses Big 
Black above Canton, and lastly where the Yicksburg and Jackson Eailroad 
crosses the same river. The capture of Yicksburg would result." And finally 
he "would leave in this vicinity (i. e.. on the river in front of or near Yicks- 
burg) a force not to exceed ten thousand men, with only enough steamboats to 
transport them to any desired point.* In effect, he would have returned the 
army to Memphis and started over again on substantially the same route which 
Grant had attempted before, and from which the Holly Springs disaster had 
thrown him back. That this was sound strategy can not be doubted ; that it 
was a bold proposition, coming from a General already sufficiently unpopular at 
the North, and to one already maturing a totally different plan, need hardly be 
enforced. 

All this while the people regarded Sherman with distrust, tempered with 
dislike. He was looked upon as an unlucky if not an incapable commander j 
his brusque expressions of enmity to the party that controlled the Government 
were quoted to his disadvantage ;t his talk against anti-slavery men and meas- 
ures gave deep offense ; and in some quarters slanderous doubts were even 
hinted as to his fidelity to the cause — mainly originating in his warm expres- 
sions of regard for old friends then in the Confederate service. His warfare 
with the newspaper press, into which he had himself at the outset infused a 
needless bitterness, raised up enemies for him where he should have had the 
warmest of friends, and led to the most unfavorable constructions of every- 
thing in which he was concerned. But the confidence and friendship of Grant 
were unshaken. 

Sherman was now assigned the left of the army in the movements by 
which Grant finally proposed to vault to the rear of Yicksburg. He was left 
behind when the rest of the army moved down to Bruinsburg ; and when the 

* Sherman and his Campaigns, pp. 129, 130. 

T One of the strangest of these expressions was made during the advance on Corinth. 
Sherman and a brother ofl&cer of equal rank were being introduced. " I am very glad to meet 
you," said the other General; "I know Senator Sherman very well, and I believe he is your 

brother.'" "Yes," replied Sherman, "I have a brother Avho is one of the d d Abolitionists 

that have been getting up this war." Of course the reader will understand that I print this 
statement only on the direct personal authority of the General to whom the remark was made. 



William T. Sherman. 439 

crossing was to be effected he wus ordered to make a feint above Vicksburg- (on 
the batteries at Haines's Bluff), to prevent the eneni}- from suspecting the real 
nature of the movement below or concentrating to oppose it. "I hate to ask 
you to do it," said Grant, " because the fervor of the North will accuse 3'ou of 
being rebellious again."* The time, however, was at last approaching when 
the fervor of the North was likely to assume a different direction in Shern^an's 
behalf. He ran up to Haines's Bluff, disembarked under cover of a heavy gun- 
boat fire, and so demonstrated as to keep the enemy in momentary ariticipation 
of an attack, till there was reason to suppose that the crisis below was passed. 
The whole operation was skillfvilly and handsomely performed. Then hastening 
after Grant, with his command he crossed the Mississippi below, and cauglit up 
with the army on the evening of the 8th of May, just in time to participate in 
the general advance already ordered. In this, Sherman (with McClernand) 
hugged close the eastern bank of the Big Black, while McPherson was pushed 
far out to the eastward, to strike Jackson, forty-seven miles due east I'rom 
Vicksburg. Then, as McPherson seemed likely to encounter unexpected resist- 
ance, Sherman and McClernand were ordered over to his aid. They moved 
rapidly and in concert; and, with McClernand lying in reserve in the vicinity, 
Sherman moved forward and attacked the enemy on the Mississippi Springs 
Eoad, while McPherson, further to the southward, was engaging the bulk of 
his forces on the road to Canton. Some sharp skirmishing resulted ; then a reg- 
iment, sent out to feel one of the enemy's flanks, reported the works there de- 
serted. The troojis were at once led into Jackson by that route, and the enemy 
fled northward. Sherman took two hundred and fifty prisoners, eighteen guns, 
and much ammunition and public stores. 

While now McClernand and the other forces turned their faces west- 
ward, and had straight before them their goal, the doomed city of Vicks- 
burg, Sherman was left to destroy railroads, arsenals, and other public projjcrty. 
A church and some private buildings were despoiled in the confusion, but 
without Sherman's sanction. From the field of Champion Hills Grant sent 
back a message for Sherman to hasten forward, but the advance swept 
everything before it, till the Big Black was reached. Here Sherman crossed 
with a pontoon train, and pushing rapidly forward on the right, interposed 
between the enemy's posts on the Yazoo and the defenses of Vicksburg. 
From that moment the whole operation was a success, and the fall of Vicks- 
burg but a question of time. The Haines's Bluff' defenses were hastily 
evacuated, Sherman opened communications with the fleet, and the army was 
again supplied with rations. 

The next day Sherman participated in the assault. Several of his regi- 
ments gained the exterior slope of the enemy's works, but they Avere unable to 
advance further, and, under cover of the darkness, they were drawn back a 
little. Two daj's later another assault along the whole line was ordered. Sher- 
man's corps, with its storming parties marching by the flank, succeeded again 
in planting colors at various points on the outer sloj)e of the parapet. Word 

* Sherman's speech at the St. Louis banquet in liis honor. 



440 Ohio in the War. 

being brought that McCleraand had effected a lodgment within the works 
opposite his part of the line, Sherman ordered another assault, which onlj^ led 
to the planting of more colors on the outer parapets, and the burrowing beside 
them of more men in the earth, to protect themselves from the terrific fire of 
the garrison. Under cover of night they were again withdrawn — Grant hav- 
ing by this time reached the wise conclusion that the works were too strong for 
direct assault. Sherman then settled down to the prosecution of his share in 
the siege.* 

By the 25th June the works were so strengthened that smaller numbers 
served for the investment, and Sherman was accordingly detached, with some- 
what increased command to watch Johnston, who had now gathered together a 
small force, and was maneuvering for the relief of the beleaguered city. "You 
must whip Johnston at least fifteen miles from here," wrote Grant. Hardly 
had Vicksburg surrendered, when, under Grant's orders, Sherman advanced 
against Johnston, pushing him back toward Jackson. The weather was in- 
tensely hot, the roads were very dusty, and the troops were not even per- 
mitted before starting on their toilsome march, to enter the stronghold they 
had aided to conquer. " Though personal curiosity," writes Sherman to his 
friend. Admiral Porter, '-would tempt me to go and see the frowning batte- 
ries and sunken pits that have defied us so long, and sent to their silent 
graves so many of our early comrades in this enterprise, I feel that other tasks 
lie before me, and time must not be lost. Without casting anchor, and in spite 
of the heat and dust and the drouth, I must again into the bowels of the land, 
to make the conquest of Vicksburg fulfill all the conditions it should in the 
progress of this war." 

On 9th July Sherman appeared before Jackson, and by the 12th had all his 
troops up and in position, and was skirmishing vigorously. His ammunition 
was delayed, and while he was w%aiting for it Johnston destroyed his stores and 
retreated. Our loss Avas about a thousand. Johnston's was about six hundred 
killed and wounded, and seven hundred and sixty-four prisoners. The retreat- 
ing force was harassed for some distance, all the railroads centering in Jackson 
were broken up, and then Sherman, leaving a garrison in the town, drew back 
to the line of the Big Black. 

Grant fitly summed up Sherman's handsome conduct in this campaign: 
"His demonstration at Haines's Bluff" in April, to hold the enemy about Vicks- 
burg, while the army was securing a foothold east* of the Mississippi ; his rapid 
marches to join the army afterward ; his management at Jackson in the first 
attack; his almost unequaled march from Jackson to Bridgeport and passage of 
the Black River, .... attest his great merit as a soldier."* 

The period of comparative leisure that followed enabled General Sherman 
to attend to some minor duties. A very pleasing evidence of his admiration for 
spirited behavior, and his sympathy for the friendless, was exhibited in a 
letter to the Secretary of War : " I take the liberty of asking that something be 

* Grant's Official Report, Vicksburg. 



William T. Sherman. 441 

done for a young lad named Orion P. Howe, of Waukegan, Illinois. He is too 
young for West Point, but would be the very thing for a midshipman. When 
the assault at Vicksburg was at its height, on the 19th of May, and I was on 
foot, near the road which formed the line of attack, this young lad came up to 
me, wounded and bleeding, with a good healthy boy's cry: 'General Sherman, 
send some cartridges to Colonel Walmbourg; the men are all out.' 'What is 
the matter, my boy?' 'They shot me in the leg, but I can go to the hospital ; 
send the cartridges right away.' Even where we stood the shot fell thick, and 
I told him to go to the rear at once, I would attend to the cartridges; and off 
he limped. Just before he disappeared over the hill, he tui-ned and called as 
loud as he could : ' Caliber fifty-four.' . . . What arrested my attention then 
^vas, and what renews my memory of the fact now is, that one so young, carry- 
ing a musket-ball wound through his leg, should have found his way to me on 
that fatal spot, and delivered his message, not forgetting the very important 
part, even, of the caliber of the musket, which, you know, is an unusual one. 
I'll warrant that the boy has in him the elements of a man, and I commend him 
to the Government as one worthy the fostering care of some one of its National 
institutions." 

A few days after this letter was written, General Sherman received a com- 
mission as Brigadier-General in the regular army. He was not mistaken in 
attributing his promotion to the friendly influence of Grant, to whom he wrote: 
"I value the commission far less than the fact that it will associate my name 
with yours and McPherson's, in opening the Mississippi. . . I beg to assure 
you of my deep personal attachment, and to express the hope that the chances 
of war will leave me to serve near and under you till the dawn of that peace 
for which we are contending." It was not unnatural — most "men having a 
good deal of human nature in them" — that such deferential language to his supe- 
rior officer should increase the good opinion entertained of Sherman at head- 
quarters. 

His restless mind was never satisfied with the mere details of the business 
pressing upon it. Through the summer he addressed the Governor of Ohio, 
urging a new plan of recruiting. With rare foresight he struck at the inherent 
vice of the existing system, in expressing his "earnest hope that the strength 
of our people will not again be wasted by the organization of new regiments, 
while we have in the field skeleton regiments, with officers, non-commissioned 
officers and men, who only need numbers to make a magnificent army. . . The 
mass of men called for should all be privates, and sent so as to make every reg- 
iment in the field equal to one thousand men. . . Ohio has in the field one hun- 
dred and twenty-six regiments, whose officers now are qualified, and the men of 
which would give tone and character to the new recruits. To fill these regi- 
ments will require fifty thousand recruits. . . I therefore hope and pray that 
you will use your influence against any more new regiments, and consolidation 
of old ones, but fill up all the old ones to a full standard." No wiser policy of 
recruiting was presented to the Government through the war. Fortunate 



442 Ohio in the War. 

indeed would it have been for the country had this recommendation of General 
Sherman's been adopted. 

In such discussions of the general war policy, in elaborate letters urging 
these views, in the miscellaneous work of the corps, and in a visit from his wife 
and family that was to have a very sad ending, the summer passed away. 

At last the Government awoke to the critical position of Eosecrans. 
While Grant's great army was doing nothing to engage the enemy in the West, 
while the army of the Potomac was equally inactive at the East, Eosecrans, 
with inadequate force, was penetrating to the vital and jealously -guarded strong- 
hold of Chattanooga. Unable to make head against Grant, Johnston's forces 
were at liberty to hasten against Eosecrans ; not occupied in Virginia, Lee was 
at liberty to send Longstreet to help check the perilous advance of the venture- 
some "Dutch General." Finally, on the 13th of September, orders were sent 
to Sherman to forward all available forces to Corinth and Tuscumbia, to co-op- 
erate with Eosecrans. For some reason that has never been explained, Sherman 
did nothing.* At last, on the 22d, Grant telegraphed, requiring one division for 
Eosecrans's aid to be forthwith forwarded to Memphis. Two days later he was 
ordered to follow with his whole corps. It was not till the 27th that he was 
able to procure steamboat transportation, and even then the delays were so great 
that the corps did not all arrive at Memphis until October 4th. Thence the 
troops were to march eastwardly along the line of the Memphis and Charleston 
Eailroad, which connects Memphis and Chattanooga. 

While supervising the preparations for this march, Sherman was bowed 
down by the burden of a great grief. His own touching words to the com- 
manding officer of his old regiment shall tell the sad story : 

" I can not sleep to-night, till I record an expression of the deep feelings of my heart to 
you, and to the officers and soldiers of the battalion, for their kind behavior to my poor child. 
.... Consistent with a sense of duty to my profession and office, I could not leave my post, 
and so I sent for my family to come to me in that fatal climate, and in that sickly period of the 
year; and behold the result ! The child that bore my name, and in wliose future I reposed with 
more confidence than I did in my own plans of life, now floats a mere corpse, seeking a grave in 
a distant land, with a weeping mother, brother, and sisters clustered about him. , . . But 
my poor Willy was, or thought he was, a Sergeant of the Thirteenth. I have seen his eye 
brighten and his heart beat as he beheld the battalion under arms, and asked me if they were 
not real soldiers. Child as he was, he had the enthusiasm, the pure love of truth, honor, and 
love of country, which should animate all soldiers. God only knows why he should die thus 
young. . . Please convey to the battalion my heartfelt thanks, and assure each and all that 
if, in after years, they call on me or mine, and mention that they were of the Thirteenth Regu- 
lars when poor Willy was a Sergeant, they will have a key to the affections of my family that 
will open all it has — that we will share with them our last blanket, our last crust." 

Unfortunately General Sherman decided to repair the Memphis and 
Charleston Eailroad as he advanced eastwardly along it, in the direction of 
Eosecrans's position. It would seem that he still had no adequate conception 
of the peril at Chattanooga, or that he did not conceive himself bound to 

■■•■ "For some reason that has never been explained." That is, unless the explanation in Gen- 
eral Halleck's Annual Report to the Secretary of War (Ex. Doc, Vol. V, 1863-4) be considered 
sufficient. He says: "The dispatches of the 13th to Grant and Sherman did not reach them 



William T. Sherman. 443 

strenuous efforts for relief. It was the 11th of October before he left Memphis 
to obey the order first issued, 13th of September. At Collierville his train 
plunged fairly into a fight raging about the station. The Rebel General Chal- 
mers, with three thousand cavalry, was attacking it. Sherman's body-guard, 
under his own eye, rushed to the rescue, and the assailants were driven off. The 
next day he reached Corinth, and pushed on his advance to luka. Building 
railroads instead of marching to the relief of the beleaguered army in Chatta- 
nooga, it was not until the 27th of October that he left luka, under orders has- 
tily sent by courier across the country from Grant, to droj) all railroad work, 
and hurry his army forward as fast as their legs could carry them. It was now 
ibrty-four days since the first issue of the order for the march, and the troops 
had yet accomplished scarcely'' one-third of the distance between Memphis and 
Chattanooga. In eighteen days more General Sherman rode into Chattanooga, 
and reported to Grant for orders. There had been some sharp skirmishing with 
the Rebel cavahy that hung upon the front and flanks, and much trouble in 
crossing streams from the destruction of bridges and lack of pontoons. 

The delays in the early part of this mai'ch have been sharply criticised in 
some quarters, and it must be confessed that it did not exhibit the celerity that 
:i full appreciation of the crisis and a cordial desire to relieve Rosecrans would 
have dictated.* But it is to be remembered that General Sherman's whole 
career has sufficiently shown that lack of enei'gy was never one of his failings; 
that the difficulties of the march were considerable; that it was well managed 
throughout, and that the latter part of it was so rapid and skillful as to merit 
the highest praise. 

General Grant had been on the point of making the attack without Sher- 
man — so great was his anxiety to dislodge the enemy from Mission Ridge and 
Lookout Mountain, and to dispatch a force to raise the siege of Knoxville. He 
now explained his plans to Sherman, who at once sprang into a skiff, rowed liim- 

until some days after their dates." " Some days" is a phrase tliat seems scarcely to cover a delay 
of nine days ; nor does it seem probable that nine days could be spent in forwarding a dis- 
patch from Memphis (to which point Halleck had telegraphic communication) over the short 
river stretch to Vicksburg. As this matter has given rise to a good deal of dispute, I subjoin 
Hallec'.c's order: 

"Head-Quarters of the Army, )^ 
"Washington, D. C, 13th September, 1863. J 
^' Major- General Orant, or Major- Genei-al Sherman, Vicksburg: 

"It is quite possible that Bragg and Johnston will move through Northern Alabama to the 
Tennessee River, to turn General Ro.secrans's right, and cut off his communications. All of 
General Grant's available forces should be sent to Memphis, thence to Corinth and Tuscumbia, 
to co-operate with Rosecrans, should the Rebels attempt that movement. 

"H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chief." 

* Colonel Bowman, after saying that at Memphis Shermnn received Halleck's order to 
march, and to report to Rosecrans, adds: "He was substantially to follow the railway eastwardly, 
repairing it as he moved, looking to his own lines for supplies." General Halleck, however, 
makes no mention of such orders, and the tone of his report indicates great anxiety for haste in 
the movement. No apprehension about supplies at the end of the march need have been enter- 
tained, for the railroad was unobstructed as far as Bridgeport, and, as was afterward proved, wan 
capable of supplying far larger armies than were now dependent upon it. 



444 Ohio in the Wak. 

self down to Bridgei^ort, where his columns were arriving, and hastened them 
forward. When they reached the ground the other troops were all in position, 
the pontoons were ready, and the movement was at once begun. Sherman 
passed behind Chattanooga on the north side, having been compelled in the 
haste to leave one division with Hooker, below, moved down to the river secretly 
on the night of the 23d, by daylight on the 24th had two divisions across, and 
rifle-pits dug to protect them, and by one o'clock was ready with his whole 
force for the advance. Moving up in echelon^ with skirmishers well to the front, 
they reached the base of the ridge in safety, completely protected from the 
enemy's observation by the mist and fog. The heads of columns were fairly on 
the top before the enemy discovered the movement and ojsened with artiller3^ 
Nothing, however, but some exchanges of artillery-firing and skirmishing 
occurred through the afternoon, and during the night the positions were for- 
tified. 

In front of Sherman now lay a crest of the Mission Eidge, wooded on the 
eastern side, partially cleared on the western, and occupied by the enemy. 
Beyond this was a higher eminence, whence the enemy's artillery played over 
the whole field in dispute. By daylight Sherman was out, trying to gain an 
idea of the position, and by sunrise he had his troops in motion. General Corse 
was to attack from the center, Morgan L. Smith on the left, and Colonel Loomis 
on the right. Corse met heavy resistance, and made little progress. About ten 
o'clock he was severely wounded and carried from the field, while Colonel Walcutt 
succeeded to the command. Smith fared better on the left, and Loomis got far 
enough on the right to effect a serious diversion in favor of the center column 
of attack. But the day was clear, and across the heights long columns of the 
enemy could be seen streaming toward the point of the ridge where Sherman's 
attack was progressing. Unsuspicious of the danger that la}- threatening hia 
center and left, the enemy was concentrating on his right to overpower Sher- 
man. The case looked critical. Ee-enforcements were thrown forwai-d to aid 
Walcutt in the center; but the crest where he fought was narrow, and already 
thronged with troops. The new arrivals were thus crowded over to the west 
side of the ridge, which, as has been seen, was cleared of timber. Here they 
soon became exposed to a terrific fire, and were presently hurled back in much 
disorder. But the key -point on the crest was held. 

At last the white fringe of smoke that rose from Thomas's line, told that 
the attack on the center had begun. Thenceforward Bragg found enough to do 
without further concentration on Sherman. Darkness soon closed the carnage; 
and after nightfall Sherman had the satisfaction of learning that, though he had 
not gained the objective jDoint of his assault, and had indeed been terribl}' jDun- 
ished in holding his positions, he had so weakened the enemy's lines on the 
center that magnificent victory had come with the setting sun. His was not the 
most brilliant, but it was far from being the least useful part in the great battle. 
He pushed forward his reserve in the pursuit, captured some stores and artillery, 
then turned to the eastward to make room for Hooker's column, which contin- 



William T. Sherman. 443 

aed the pursuit, while Sherman broke up the communications between Bragg 
and Longstreet. 

Then, Grant having been dissatisfied with the reception by another officer 
of his order to march to Knoxville to Burnside's relief, fell back on Sherman, on 
whose zeal and energy he knew he could safely reckon. Wearied as the men 
w-ere with the hurried march to Chattanooga, and the bloody battle that had 
immediately followed,* Sherman at once put them in motion, and had them 
re-enforced by Gordon Granger's command. On the 29th of November, in 
intensely cold weather, the movement began. By 3d December Sherman com- 
municated with Burnside ; by the 5th the heads of columns, after much delay 
from difficulty in crossing streams, met within striking distance of Knoxville. 
But here a messenger arrived announcing that Longstreet, warned by their 
advance, was already in full retreat. The column then turned southward, and 
in leisurely marches returned to the Hiawassee Vallej', Sherman himself keep- 
ing on the alert for possibilities of striking Longstreet, and once or twice 
diverting portions of his force in ineffectual attempts to capture wagon-trains 
or detachments. 

The troops who had now been in constant motion from the time they left 
their camps on the Big Black, near Vicksburg, required rest. The indefot- 
igable commander, however, seemed to need none, and he at once set out 
for Memphis and Yicksburg, to inspect the department which had been 
assigned to him while he was on the march to Chattanooga. Some three 
weeks were given to this work, and, meanwhile, an important expedition was 
organizing. Of the sjDirit in which, through these busy weeks, the General 
issued instructions as to their civil duties, to his subordinates, this, fron^ his 
letter to the commanding officer at Huntsvillo, must serve as an illustration : 
. " If the people of Huntsville think diiferently let them 
persist in war three years longer, and they will not be consulted. Three 
years ago, by a little reflection and patience, thej^ could have had a hundred 
years of peace and prosperit}^, but they preferred war. Yery well. Last year 
they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late ; all the power of earth 
can not restore to them their slaves any more than their dead grandflithers. 
Next year their lands will be taken — for in war we can take them, and 
rightfully, too — and in another yenv they may beg in vain for their lives. A 
people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the 
consequences. Many, many people, with less pertinacity than the South, have 
been wiped out of national existence." 

By the 3d of February Sherman was ready for his new movement. It 
seemed to him that the free navigation of the Mississippi Eiver could be 
best guarded by destroying the lines of railroad by which the Eebels were 
able to approach it at any point, at will, and then by the establishment of 
small posts in the interior to keep the guerrillas away from the banks. 
With this view, he proposed to move out with a strong column due east from 

*Tlie losses of Slierman's corps in the battle and brief pursuit, were two hundred and fifty- 
eight killed, twelve hundred and fifty-seven wounded, and two hundred and eleven missing. 



446 Ohio in the War. 

Vicksburg across the State of Mississippi to the important railroad center ot 
Meridian, Avhere a cavaliy force, moving from Memphis out to and down 
the Mobile and Ohio Eailroad, should meet him. General William Sooy 
Smith was assigned to this latter duty. Sherman himself took the field with 
the Yicksburg column, composed of two divisions from McPhersons corps, and 
two from Hurlbut's, with Colonel Winslow's brigade of cavalry. With this 
formidable force he plunged into the country, and disappeared from the 
public eye. The novelty and mystery- of the movement piqued curiosity, 
and great expectations were cherished as to the results at which Sherman 
was supposed to be aiming. When, after a month's absence, the missing army 
emerged again, having simply, in the words of its leader, accomplished '• a 
big raid," there was general disappointment. The expedition had, however, 
cut the enemy's communications at Meridian, destroyed long stretches of 
the railroads, depots, arsenals, public stores, and spread among the people 
of Mississippi a general sense of danger, and of the weakness of their cause. 
More might, perhaps, have been accomplished but for the failure of the Mem- 
phis cavahy column to join the expedition at Meridian.* Meanwhile, it was 
no'teworthy that throughout the great march the General had handled his army 
with as much ease as if it were but a regiment, and had learned the art of 
subsisting an army in the enemy's country without a base and without a 
supply -train. 

Thus far we have traced the progress of General Sherman, through many 
checkered scenes, to the point from which his successful career begins. Hitherto 
he has been mainly in subordinate positions, and his few independent commands 
have not enlarged his fame. His career in Kentucky was a failure. With the 
same harsh judgment which the Government repeatedly visited upon others in 
similar plight, he would never again have been assigned to active service. l! 
to any extent he was responsible for the neglect before the battle of Pittsburg 
Landing, his conduct there was worse than a failure. His first assault on Yicks- 
burg failed. And his Meridian expedition was not at the time accounted a 
success. In subordinate positions, and mainly under the command of Grant, 
he had achieved great credit, and the army and the public alike recognized in 
him a competent corps General. With the most, this was believed to be the 
height of his capacity. It is to the rare sagacity of General Grant in judging 
men that the country owes the brilliant and eventful career we have now to 
trace. 

Between these two the friendship that began almost at the outbreak of the 
war, cemented as it was in many an hour of danger and on many a hard-fought 
field, had grown more intimate and confidential. When now, Grant was raised 
to the Lieutenant-Generalship, in the fullness of his heart he sat down and wrote 
a letter to "Dear Sherman," giving him the news, and adding: "I want to ex- 
press my thanks to you and McPherson, as the men to whom, above all others, 
I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How far your advice and 

*For the causes of this failure see post, Life of William Sooy Smith. 



William T. Sherman. 447 

assistance have been of help to me, you know. How far your execution of 
whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, 
you can not know as well as I." Warm, genei'ous words, honorable alike to the 
writer and the one addressed ! But the reply is something more. It was 
graceful that General Sherman should say: "You do yourself injustice and us 
too much honor in assigning to us too large a share of the merits which have 
led to your high advancement. . . . You are now Washington's . . suc- 
cessor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous elevation ; but if you can 
continue, as heretofore, to be yourself, simple, honest, and unj)retending, you 
will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of mill- 
ions of human beings that will award you a large share in securing to them 
and their descendants a government of law and stability." And it was frank 
to add: "My only point of doubt was in your knowledge of grand strategy 
and of books of science and history; but I confess your common sense seems to 
have supplied all these." So, too, it was natural that he should urge Grant to 
"come West; take to yourself the whole Mississi^jpi Valley. Let us make it 
dead sure — and 1 tell you the Atlantic slopes and Pacific shores will follow its 
destiny. . . . Here lies the seat of coming empire, and from the West, when 
our task is done we will make short work of Charleston and Eichmoud, and 
the impoverished coast of the Atlantic." But it touched the limits of extrava- 
gant admiration, and was hardly free from a suspicion of flattery, to speak of 
Grant to his face as "Washington's legitimate successor," and to say, "I believe 
you are as brave, patriotic, and just, as the great prototj'pe Washington — as 
unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest, as a man should be."* 

Two days after this letter was sent, Sherman was appointed to the chief 
command between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi Eiver! 

He was summoned to meet Grant at Nashville, and he traveled as far north 
with him as Cincinnati. In that visit the plans were first outlined, the comple- 
tion of which ended the war. Later, General Grant sent him a map, on which 
were traced the lines the several armies were to take. The bare possibility of 
some inquisitive postmaster having opened the package in which this was sent, 
threw Sherman's suspicious mind into a fever of apprehension. f Finally Grant 
wrote, under date 4th April, disclosing his complete programme. This was 
Shermans share: "You I propose to move against Johnston's army, to break it 
up, and to get into the interior of the enemj-'s country as far as j'ou can, inflict- 
ing all the damage j^ou can against their war resources. I do not propose to 
lay down for you a plan of campaign, but simply to lay down the work it is 
desirable to have done, and leave you free to execute in your own way. Submit 
to me, however, as early as 3-ou can, your plan of operations." Sherman 
responded promptly : "lam pushing stores to the front with all possible dis- 
patch. ... It will take us all of April to get in all our furloughed vet- 

* Eep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, pp. 14, 15. 

t Ibid, p. 25. "I will cause inquiries to be made," writes Sherman, "lest the map has been 
6een by some eye intelligent enough to read the meaning of the blue and red lines. We can not 
be too careful in these matters." 



448 Ohio in the War. 

erans, . . and to collect provisions and cattle to the line of the Tonnes* 
see. . . At the signal, to be given by you, Schofield will . . drop down to Hi- 
awassee, and march on Johnston's right. . . Thomas will aim to have forty- 
five thousand men of all arms, and move straight on Johnston, wherever he may 
be, and fighting him continuously, persistentl3^ and to the best advantage. . . 
McPherson will have full thirty thousand of the best men in America. He will 
cross the Tennessee at Decatur, march toward Eome, and feel for Thomas. . . 
Should Johnston fall behind the Chattahoochie I would feign to the right, but 
pass to the left, and act on Atlanta, or on its eastern communications, according 
to developed facts. This is about as far ahead as I feel disposed to look."* 

Such then, was the campaign which our nervous, energetic General, now at 
last in independent command, and with ample force, proposed to himself He 
would act first against Johnston; then against Atlanta, or its communications. 
For the work he had three armies, numbering, in the aggregate, a hundred 
thousand men.f He had, moreover, three Generals — a consideration of no less 
weighty import. If Grant could trace his success to Sherman and McPherson, 
Sherman might now well fortify his hopes for the campaign by remembering 
that he was privileged to command George H.Thomas, James B. McPherson, 
and J. M. Schofield, | with the long list of brave officers, educated to war in the 
war, comprised within the army of each. 

* Ibid, pp. 26, 27, 28. 

t The exact number was : Thomas's Army of the Cumberland, sixty thousand .seven hundred 
and seventy-three; McPherson's Army of the Tennessee, twenty-four thousand four hundred and 
sixty-five; Schofield's Army of the Ohio, thirteen thousand five hundred and fifty-nine; total 
ninety-eight thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven ; with the splendid artillery equipment of 
two hundred and fifty-four guns. The organization of these armies was as follows : 

ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND ( THOMAS ). 

(D. S. Stanley's division. 
John Newton's divi.sion. _ 
Thomas J. Woods's division. ^ 

(Jeff. C. Davis's division. 
R. W. Johnson's divison. 
A. Baird's division. 

!A. S. Williams's division. 
John W. Geary's division. 
Daniel Butterlield's division. 

AKMY OF THE TENNESSEE (McPHERSON). 

P. J. Osterhaus's division. 



^ , ^ T , A T I Morgan L. Smith's division. 

Fitteenth Corps— John A. Logan, - - -j j^j^,^ y Smith's division. 

(^ Harrow's division. 

(T. E. G. Ransom's division. 
John M. Corse's division. 
T. W. Sweeney's division. 

, ^ T^ 1 Ti -Di • T i Charles R. Woods's division. 

Seventeenth Corps— Frank P. Blair, Jr., j ^^ jy Leggett's division. 

ARMY OF THE OHIO ( SCHOFIELD ). 

f M. S. Hascall's division. 
Twenty-Third Corps, \ J. D. Cox's division. 

I The whole force had been reorganized, and from the assignment of corps commanders 
down, the President had given Sherman his choice in everytliing. 



William T. Sherman. 449 

Against him stood the ablest commander remaining to the Confederacy, an 
accomplished and experienced soldier. But it was General Johnston's misfor- 
tune to be in ill favor at Eichmond. He had but fortj^-five thousand men of all 
arms, with some possible recruits, in the doubtful shape of Georgia militia, with- 
out ti'ansportation, and cowed by the successive disasters which (under Bragg) 
had hux'led them back from Nashville to Murfreesboro, to Tullahoma, to Chatta- 
nooga, to Mission Eidge, and to Dalton. With this force, Mr. Davis was 
demanding that he should undertake an offensive campagn against the hundred 
thousand men that lay clustered about the fastnesses of Chattanooga. 

While they debated it, Sherman's last preparations were completed. Grant 
had first fixed the 25th of April for the simultaneous movement of the several 
grand armies; then, as he found the Army of the Potomac still unready, the 27th; 
then 1st May, and finally 5th May. On the 4th he sent the final order; on the 
5th the campaign against Johnston and Atlanta opened. ~.] 

Sherman hoped to force Johnston to speedy and decisive battle; * Johnston, 
with the cautious wisdom that distinguished him, saw at once that, with his 
weak forces, his policy was to act on the defensive, draw Sherman away from his 
base, weaken his army at every step for guards for his attenuated line of sup- 
plies, and so finally bring on the decisive battle on something more nearly 
approaching equal terms. But he was nevertheless prepared to make his 
defensive campaign an obstinate one. His main defenses, in his present posi- 
tion, were along the Eocky Face Eidge, a short distance north of Dalton; at 
Tunnel Hill and Buzzard's Eoost Gaps. Here the heights were ci'owned with 
artillery, the approaches were obstructed with abattis, and, to complete the work, 
these were finally flooded by the aid of dams on the adjacent streams. Not pro- 
posing to sacrifice his soldiers against this impregnable position, General Sher- 
man made it his aim to maneuver Johnston into open ground, and then suddenly 
bring him to battle. To this end he sent Thomas to make a strong feint directly 
against the works, while McPherson, marching from his position on the west 
around Johnston, should silently sieze the Snake Gap, and throw himself upon 
the railroad below him at Eesaca, thus forcing him out of his craggy fastness to 
fight for his line of supplies. Thomas carried out his part of the plan admira- 
bly, and made so formidable a demonstx-ation that he fairly forced himself into 
the gap on Johnston's front. Meantime McPherson hastened around on his 
western detour, only to find that Johnston had seen through the whole plan 
from the outset, and had effectually guarded against it. In ample time he had dis- 
patched troops to Eesaca, and McPherson reported that he "found the place too 
strong to be taken b}' assault." And besides, so complete were Johnston's pre- 
parations, that he had not only fortified Eesaca, but had so strengthened his 
tenure of the line of railway to Dalton, above, that McPherson found it impos- 
sible to burst in upon it anywhere. Yet more, he had cut roads through the 
rough country so as to be able, by a sudden march, to pounce down from Dalton 
upon the flank of any adventurous force here seeking to molest his rear. Thus 

* "T hope the enemy will fight at Dalton," said Sherman in letter of instructions to McPher- 
son, Tah May. — Hep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866. Vol. I. p. 5L 

Vol. I.— 29. 



1 



450 Ohio in the Wae. 



endangered, McPherson thought it necessary for his own safety to draw back 
and fortify at Snake Gap; and so the first step in the campaign ended in failure, 

The cause will readily suggest itself to every one. The whole movement 
turned upon the success at Eesaca. The attack at Buzzard's Eoost was only a 
feint. But the feint was committed to Thomas, with an army of sixty thousand; 
the real movement to McPherson, with an army of twenty-five thousand, which 
proved, in the judgment of its skillful commander, too weak to attack, or even 
to hold its ground and run the risk of being attacked. But Sherman, with a 
fertility of resource that was admirable, was ready at once for the contingency, 
although, as he said, "somewhat disappointed at the result." He at once pre- 
pared to make the attack at Eesaca with almost his entire force, leaving only a 
single corps to keep up the feint at Buzzard's Eoost. So ended the first stage 
of the campaign. 

But Johnston was again to offer a skillful parry. No sooner had Sherman's 
movement commenced than, divining its object, his antagonist began to move 
to meet it. On the 13th Sherman's army began to arrive before Eesaca. On 
the 13th Johnston abandoned Dalton, and marched down to Eesaca, leaving the 
corps Sherman had left keeping up the feint, to march quietly after him. Next 
morning when Sherman arrived, he perceived at a glance that he was foiled 
again. 

This time, however, he determined to fight; while, at the same time, he 
should again essay cutting Johnston's line of supplies. From Eesaca southward 
the Oostenaula interposed its waters between Sherman and the railroad to 
Atlanta. Laying a pontoon bridge across this stream, a few miles below 
Eesaca, Sherman crossed here a single division. Behind this, and much further 
down, he sent G-arrard's cavalry division to cut the railroad far to the south- 
ward. Then, placing Thomas in the center, McPherson on the right, and Scho- 
field on the left, he made a fierce attack upon the intrenchments of Eesaca. 
Thomas and Schofield found the obstructions too great, and gained little or 
nothing. McPherson fared better, and succeeded in securing ground whence his 
batteries swept the Eebel positions. Meantime, hearing of the pontoon bridge 
across the river a little way below him, and of the threat there made on his 
rear, Johnston dispatched Hood to guard against this new danger. But before 
he could accomplish anything Sherman was swinging his whole right across the 
bridge. This settled the matter. Johnston at once evacuated Eesaca, and 
retreated southward, burning the bridges behind him. 

Thus ended the second stage of the campaign. It cost between four and 
five thousand men, while the Eebel loss was proportionately far less, on account 
of their inti-enchments, and the result was finally obtained, not by sanguinary 
fighting, but by the bloodless flanking operations below the town. Sherman 
was again disappointed in seeking to force Johnston's forty -five thousand to 
pitched battle with his hundred thousand — he must find his battle-field yet 
further from his base. 

Pursuit was promptly begun. McPherson had a skirmish at Calhoun ; 
there was a brisker little engagement at Adairsville; and finally Johnston was 



William. T. Sherman. 



451 



N N 




SHERMAN'S ATLANTA CAMPAIGN. 



William T. Sherman. 453 

found intrenched at Cassville, a point on the raih-oad about midway between 
Chattanooga and Atlanta. The Eebel army was now re-enforced by a fresh 
division of Polk's corps, making it a little stronger than at the outset of 
the campaign; and an attack was ordered on Sherman's advancing columns. 
But the orders were misunderstood; nothing was done, and Sherman soon had 
his artillery favorably posted, and playing upon the intrenchments. Hood and 
Polk, at nightfall, waited upon Johnston and urged a reti*eat, insisting that the 
National artillery made their positions untenable. The Eebel commander dis- 
sented from their views ; but the representations of his two best officers had so 
strong an influence upon him that, against his better judgment, he finally con- 
sented. Next morning Sherman found his antagonist gone. So ended one 
more stage in the campaign. 

Already far down into the enemy's country, beyond what, six months 
before, had seemed the utmost capacity of the Government to supply the army, 
Sherman did not hesitate. Thus far he had wonderfully preserved the thread 
of raih'oad by which his supplies passed through the hostile regions of Kentucky, 
Tennessee, and Northern Georgia, to reach him; and, emboldened by his suc- 
cess, and fertile in expedients, he at once resolved on yet more hazardous ven- 
tures. He was greatly disappointed in being unable to bring Johnston to 
decisive battle, and he knew full well the aim of "that astute commander," as 
he often styled him, in di-awing him yet further and further from his base of 
supplies. But re-enforcements continued to reach him, and with bold hearta 
his troops once more turned their faces southward. 

Sherman's thorough study of the topographical features of the country led 
him to the belief that Johnston's next stand would be in the strong natural 
position of Allatoona Pass, a point he had no desire to attack. Loading his 
wagons, therefore, with food and powder he made a long stride away from his 
railroad — marching far to the south-westward of Johnston's supposed position, 
and hoping to sieze Dallas, toward the west and rear of Allatoona Pass. But 
/'the astute commander" saw through Sherman's efforts to mask his real pur- 
pose; and when the heads of columns appeared near Dallas they found John- 
ston behind formidable intrenchments, ready to receive them. Here, in the 
vicinity of New Hope Church, Hooker, who led the advance of Thomas's army, 
had a fierce engagement as he came up on the 25th of May; and for the next 
three days there was skirmishing, sometimes swelling into heavy fighting, all 
along the lines. On the 27th Sherman ordered an assault, which co'st some three 
thousand men, while the enemy lost only four hundred and fifty, and held his 
ground. The next day, however, Johnston fell upon McPherson's army, but 
found it already behind good breastworks, and received an equally bloody repulse. 
Thus, for ten days, stood the two skillful antagonists, fairly matched, facing 
each other with thrust and parry. But Sherman was not so to be balked. To 
flank again to the westward would throw him, as he thought, too far from the 
railroad, with which it was vital to maintain his connection. He therefore 
gradually extended his lines to the eastward, Johnston closely watching and 
following every move. Throwing his cavalry out, he succeeded in siezing Alia- 



454 Ohio in the Wae. 

toona Pass, and Acworth, on the i-ailroad; then, establishing himself there, he 
began to accumulate supplies and prepare for a desperate grapple with the 
enemy, who, still resolutely confronting him, now lay a little further down on 
the railroad at Marietta. Between the hostile armies interposed a mountain 
gpur — henceforth as bloody and ill-omened a name in our history as Freder- 
icksburg — the heights of Kenesaw. They were held by the enemy. 

Within the next five days Sherman had the railroad repaired to his very 
camps, had abundant supplies, and was ready for a fresh movement. Weary 
of perpetual flanking, which seemed only to result in driving the enemy to 
stronger positions, and knowing very well what his antagonist hoped in thus 
drawing him on, he now determined to abandon his effort to bring on a battle 
on equal ground, and to attack Johnston just where Johnston had prepared for 
attack. Yet the results of his reconnoissances might well have given him pause. 
Directly in front loomed Kenesaw, bristling with batteries, scarred with in- 
trenchments and abattis. To the west, securely covering the flank, was Lost 
Mountain; thrust forward between the two was Pine Hill. But, with his quick 
eye for detecting the salient points of a position, Sherman saw that this line 
was too much extended for Johnston's weak force, and trusting to the chances 
that might result from carrying the weaker of the heights, he proceeded to 
attack. 

From the 9th of June, on which the advance was made, till the 3d of July, 
Sherman lay beating away his strength against those rock-bound barriers. He 
soon, indeed, forced Johnston off Lost Mountain and Pine Hill; but in so doing 
he only strengthened his position. Emboldened, however, by these successes, 
as it would seem, and doubtless remembering the scaling of Mission Eidge, at 
which all the world wondered, he now brought himself, well knowing the dan- 
ger, to order an attack on Kenesaw itself Ample time was given for prepara- 
tion. Finally, on the 27th, the batteries swept the mountain side with a fearful 
storm of shell; and at last two armies, Thomas's and McPherson's, rushed to the 
assault. They were completely and bloodily repulsed; the position was im- 
pregnable. "Failure it was, and for it I assume the entire responsibility," said 
Sherman, manfully. 

It would have been better for his fame if he had there rested. But, as has 
already been seen, it was a characteristic of this gifted commander's mind to be 
unwilling ever to acknowledge an error ;=^ and so he must needs prove that 
the failure was advantageous: "I claim that it produced good fruits, as it 
demonstrated to General Johnston that I would assault, and that boldl3\" 
JSTovel reason for battle — to make the enemy understand his intentions ! As a 
mistake, the first in a brilliant and highly successful campaign,! it would have 

■•■■ So warm an admirer of General Sherman, and so acute a military critic as Mr. Swinton, has 
here been forced to substantially the same observation: "The other alternative (from assault), 
that of flanking," he says, " would, if now adopted, suggest the query why it had not been chosen 
before, with saving of time and troops. Accordingly, Sherman felt authorized to make one grand 
assault." — Decisive Battles of the War, p. 403. 

t Or, at most, the second, if taking the bulk of the army for a feint at Kesaca he reckoned 
the first. 



William T. Sherman. 455 

been cordially pardoned. Who ever thought the less for it of that Frederick 
who wrote, "I have lost a gi-eat battle, and solely by my own fault?" But as a 
wise movement, neither the Government nor the Country was disposed to accept 
it. Presently, General Sherman thought it necessary to argue the point: "The 
assault," he writes to the Chief of Staff at Washington, "was no mistake. I 
had to do it. The enemy and our own army and officers had settled down into 
the conviction that the assault of lines formed no part of my game, and the 
moment the enemy was found behind anything like a parapet, why, everybody 
would deploy, throw up counter- works, and, take it easy, leaving it to the 'old 
man' to turn the position."* There is more of it in this and many other letters, 
but this is enough. Proud as he was of his army, he was yet ready to slander 
it in seeking defense for his course. Under his management, forsooth, its 
discipline had fallen so low that it had to be slaughtered in order to fit it for 
fighting ! And yet, a few days later, we find him apologetically explaining to 
General Grant that his army had "lost nothing in morale in the assault,"t — not 
because the assault had tended to improve the morale, as he has just been argu- 
ing, but because he prevented its injurious effects by sj)eedily following it up 
with other movements. 

Here, indeed, was his great merit. Unshaken by misfortune, he rose above 
it to fresh brilliancy. Instantly recognizing, with that swift perception that 
had so often stood him in good stead, the utter impossibility of seeking by 
further efforts to drive Johnston out of Kenesaw, he once more launched out 
his flanking column far to the south-westward. Straightway, in the darkness of 
a single night, Kenesaw fell without a blow! 

Johnston first halted at Smyrna Church, then, as Sherman's quick maneu- 
vers threw him out of this position, fell back bej'ond the Chattahoochie. Sher- 
man pushed forward, and lo! in sight rose the spires of Atlanta! 

But between him and them lay the network of defenses, drawn and held by 
a skillful General, whose parapets were for many weary days to keep the army 
at bay. Johnston now considered that the long-awaited favorable moment had 
come for decisive battle. He had compelled the powerful antagonist, who mus- 
tered more than two soldiers to his one, to sj^end seventy-two days in marching 
a hundred miles; he had lured him on to attack fortified positions, and, as he 
believed, had inflicted great loss. As the line lengthened, he knew that the 
assailant must weaken his forces at the front to protect it, and he reckoned on 
this as a cause of still greater depletion in the hostile ranks. Meanwhile his 
own were strengthened. Whereas he had begun the campaign with scarcelj'- 
forty-five thousand men, yet now, notwithstanding the natural losses of so 
active a series of operations, his re-enforcements had raised his strength to fifty- 
one thousand. I Believing, therefore, that he at last approached terms of equal - 

* Eep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, p. 114. 

t Ibid, p. 122. 

t Johnston's entire losses in the campaign, thus far, were ten thousand killed and wounded, 
and four thousand seven hundred from other causes. He had inflicted much greater loss upon 
Sherman. He estimates it at five times his own. 



456 Ohio in the Wae. 

itywith his antagonist, he prepai-ed such measures as seemed to promise decisive 
victory. Sherman, remembering his plan for demonstrating on the east side of 
Atlanta or its communications, as announced to Grant at the outset, had already 
crossed the Chattahoochie to the eastward of the railroad and city; but between 
him and Atlanta there still lay the swampy banks of Peachtree Creek. On the 
further side of this stream Johnston prepared his first works. He proposed that 
Sherman should be permitted to cross; that then, sallying from his works, he 
would fiill upon the adventurous arm}' and essay to drive it back in confusion 
into the stream. Failing in this, his next plan would be to draw off to the 
South and East, deserting these works, and leaving Sherman to march fair upon 
Atlanta. Then, issuing from his new positions, he would fall upon the flank of 
Sherman's passing column, break it if possible, and beat the fragments in detail. 

Such was the reception preparing for our army, when the Eebels, them- 
selves dealing the weightiest blows to their own cause, came to our aid. " Such 
a mysterious blow to the Confederacy," says an able military critic,* "was that 
by which General Johnston was removed from its Western army, when he was 
most needful for its salvation ; kept from its command till an intervening General 
had ruined and disintegrated it, and then gravely restored to the leadershii) of 
its pitiful fragments." 

There was left to oj^pose Sherman's advance. General J. B. Hood! It was 
a sorry contrast. The one, warlike by instinct, trained to military methods, 
and educated by long experience, was now the most brilliant soldier in the 
armies of his country. The other was a brave, rash, inconsiderate fighter — noth- 
ing more. Conscious, as it would seem, of his unfitness for the task to which 
the blind passions of the Confederate President had assigned him, he appealed 
to his late chief for assistance. Johnston explained all his plans, and Hood 
adopting them, at once proceeded to essay their execution. 

So it happened that, when Sherman, advancing across the Peachtree Creek, 
was coming out upon the firm ground, whence he hoped to march on Atlanta, 
he was suddenly struck with tremendous force at an unfortunate gap be- 
tween Schofield and Thomas. Pushing his advantage, bravely but not skillfull}', 
General Hood strove to carry out Johnston's plan, and drive the disordered 
columns into the stream. But a part of the line had been protected by hastily- 
erected bi'eastworks of rails; h%re the onset was handsomely resisted, the 
other corps rallied and were re-enforced, and, in the end, Hood was driven 
back to his intrenchments, with a loss, as Sherman estimated it, of well-nigh 
five thousand men. Sherman's own loss was but one thousand seven hundred 
and thirty-three. 

Foiled at the outset. Hood next faithfully strove to cany out Johnston's 
second plan. In the night he abandoned his Peachtree lines and drew down to 
his fortifications east of Atlanta. Next morning, Sherman was astonished to 
find that the works whence had flamed forth such fierce attack, were deserted. 
In the first surprise, and with his natural swiftness of reasoning, he leaped to 
the conclusion that Atlanta itself must be evacuated; and straightway he put 

* Swinton's Decisive Eatlles of the War, p. 405. 



William T. Sheeman. 457 

his columns in motion to occupy the city. It was neai'ly noon* when Hood, 
13-ing in wait, conceived the opportune moment to have come. Issuing, then, 
from his works, far to the rear of Sherman's advance, he fell upon his flank, 
where McPherson's army was marching. The attack was irresistible ; the col- 
umn, broken and in some disorder, was pushed back, some batteries were cap- 
tured, McPherson himself — weightiest loss of all — was killed. But Sherman, 
never long disconcerted by anything, quickly disposed his greatly superior force, 
liurried up Schofield, and at last, after a terrible struggle, continuing from noon 
till night, beat Hood back. The battle cost Sherman three thousand seven hun- 
dred and twenty-two men ; he estimated Hood's loss at eight thousand, which 
was doubtless something of an exaggeration. 

Hood now drew back into the works immediately around the city ; Sherman 
dispatched cavalry to attempt cutting the Eebel communications; then at last,f 
convinced that there was no hope on the east side of Atlanta, swung over to the 
west. But Hood, discerning the movement, marched as promptly, and the next 
day struck the ISTational lines in what Sherman himself called a "magnificent 
assault." But it was timed a little too late. No sooner had Sherman's troops 
been halted than their very first moments had been given to throwing up rapid 
breastworks. Behind these, therefore, they met Hood's onset. It was fiercely 
made, and for four hours continued, with a final result of six hundred lost to 
Sherman, and, as he estimated, not less than five thousand to Hood. 

The desperate struggles of the army that stood savagely at bay in Atlanta 
here ended for a little — apparently through sheer exhaustion. Sherman com- 
pleted his works, planted batteries, shelled the town (frequently setting it on 
fire), and gradually extended his lines around to the southward, toward the rail- 
road by which Hood drew the bulk of his supplies. Schofield was ordered to 
attempt breaking through the enemy's southern lines, but the effort failed. 
There followed a period of bombardments, of skirmishing along the line, of 
simultaneous extensions of works on either hand. 

It was now the middle of August. For a month Sherman had lain baflied 
in sight of Atlanta. His army was reduced ; periods of enlistment were fast 
expiring ; new levies of enormous magnitude began to be contemplated with 
alarm at the North. To what end, they asked, all this waste of blood and 
treasure ? We gain barren lines of railroad by strategic marches, but the fight- 
ing is against us, the Rebel army confronts us, and in the West, as at the East, 
the fortifications of the city we have spent a whole campaign in trjnngto reduce 
still defy us. The old distrust of Sherman was not yet fully allayed, and 
even his warmest admirers grew uneasy. At last the great convention of the 
anti-war party assembled at Chicago. In the height of their opposition to 
the prosecution of hostilities, they pointed to Sherman's foiled armies before 
Atlanta, and proclaimed that the war for the restoration of the Union was a 
failure. 

But, on the very day before that resolution passed, there began an eventful 
movement, which, a month afterward, those political managers would have 

* On 22d July, 1864. tJuly 27th. 



458 Ohio in the Wak. 

given untold sums to have foreseen. General Sherman had sent Kilpatrick to 
make a serious break on the railroads south of Atlanta — taking advantage of 
the opportune absence of Hood's cavalry on a similar errand northward. But 
Kilpatrick was not satisfactorily successful. Meantime it would seem that 
Sherman himself had grown uneasy at the protracted contest, and would will- 
ingly have stayed his hand. He cast longing looks to Mobile and its rivers for 
help. He sent dispatcpes to know if Mobile were likely to fall, and said that 
if it were he would quietly await the event. He dwelt upon the danger to his 
communications, the peril of carrying his flanking opei-ations further. Across, 
the mountains, his great friend, the General-in-Chief, lay before another 
beleaguered city in similar perplexity. There no device was practiced save a 
steady extension of the lines. But at last, having fully counted the cost, Sher- 
man took his resolution. Filling his wagons with supplies, and cutting loose 
from his base, he swung around to the south-westward with the bulk of hia 
army. He first struck the West Point Eailroad, broke and thoroughly destro3^ed 
it for many miles; and then, while the Chicago Convention is proclaiming the 
war a failure, pushes straight eastward, for the only remaining railroad con- 
necting Atlanta with the Confederacy. He strikes it near Jonesboro', finds a 
considerable portion of Hood's army here, fights and repulses them, interposes 
between them and Atlanta, and proceeds with a vigorous destruction of the 
track. Hood now needs no strategist to tell him the effect of that repulse. 
That night* dull reverberations at the north, in the direction of Atlanta, 
arouse the sleepers. It is the end of the long campaign. Hood is evacuating 
the city, out of which he has been maneuvered. 

The exultation of the army was tempered by the remembrance of the 
graves that lined the railroad back to Chattanooga, and of the fresh perils that 
came with the victor3^ But the rejoicing of the country knew no bounds. 
General Grant fired a shotted salute from every battery bearing on the enemy 
about Eichmond in honor of the great achievement of his friend. The Presi- 
dent ordered a salute of a hundred guns from each leading city and military 
post in the country ; and in special executive order tendered to General Sher- 
man the thanks of the Nation for " the distinguished ability, perseverance, and 
courage displayed in the campaign." Bells rang, flags were hung out, bonfires 
were burnt in the leading cities. From the day that the capture of Atlanta 
was announced, the party that had resolved that the war was a failure was 
defeated. The Presidential contest was settled when Sherman cut loose from 
his base. The name and praise of Sherman were in every mouth. From 
positive unpopularity^, or cold and questioning respect, he suddenly found him- 
self burdened by the heartfelt homage of an impulsive and grateful people. 

The popular verdict indeed made amends to Sherman for previous coldness 
by fervid excess of praise. Of the remarkable campaign thus happily ended, 
it must be said that its main object was, after all, unattained. General Sher- 
man had sought to bring the Eebel army to decisive battle at Dalton ; he had 

* September 1, 1864. The campaign began 5th May, and thus lasted about four months. 



William T. Shekman. 459 

sought it at every stage of his advance ; but the army had at last escaped hira, 
shattered, indeed, but still an effective organization, with all its trains and war 
materiel intact. He had neither crushed it nor signally defeated it. But, viewed 
t^implj^ as an operation for conquering territory, the entire campaign was mas- 
terly. Each feature, its tactics, its logistics, its strategy, was equally admirable. 
Blunders there undoubtedly were. Need we recall again that wise saying of 
Marshal Turenne's, " Whoever has committed no faults has not made war." 
But, as a whole, the campaign will long be studied as a brilliant exemplification 
of sound military principles skillfully put in practice. Two features in it will 
always attract special attention : the marvelous manner in which, by judicious 
accumulations of supplies at various secondary bases along the route, thoroughly 
protected by strong garrisons and fortifications, the army was kept constantly 
supplied, in spite of raids to the rear, the hostility of the inhabitants, and the 
inevitable exposure of so unprecedentedly long a line ; and the no less marvel- 
ous manner in which, moving great armies over great spaces, in the face of a 
wary antagonist. General Sherman handled them as deftly and as precisely as 
he might the pieces on a chess-board. 

But the fall of Atlanta brought to G-eneral Sherman new perplexities. 
He had advanced beyond it a little, had found the enemy opposing a strong 
front in well-chosen defensive positions, and had felt unable to attack. He 
dared not prolong his line another score of miles; already he was sure that 
Hood's forces, if reasonably well-handled, were strong enough to break it and 
throw him back upon Chattanooga ; at the farthest he could only hope, by the 
vigorous use of his army, to defend the railroad which supplied him, and main- 
tain himself at the end, of it. To what purpose? He perplexedly considered 
the question, as he lay listening to the thunders of Northern applause, sending 
home the thousands of troops whose time of service had expired, and refitting 
the remainder. 

Meantime it was easy to see how success had elated the man, and increased 
the natural absolutism of all his mental processes. Before Atlanta, indeed, there 
had thus been bred a habit of command that did not always stop within legiti- 
mate limits. Opposed from the outset to the enlistment of negro troops, he had 
chosen, in a letter to the head-quarters of the army, to denounce the law of 
Congress for sending recruiting-agents for them into the Rebel States as the 
height of folly, and to declare that he would not permit its enforcement within 
his command.* Even less objectionable services were barely tolerated : " The 
Sanitary and Christian Commissions," he declared, '* are enough to eradicate 
all trace of Christianity from our minds, much less a set of unscruj)ulous 
State agents in search of recruits." When the agent of Massachusetts applied 
for a pass to the army, in accordance with the law, he gave him one instead into 

* Tlie exact language was : "I must expre.ss my opinion that it is the height of folly. I 
can not permit it here. I will not have a set of fellows hanging about on any such pretences." 
Report Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, p. 123. 

■ T Ibid. 



460 Ohio in the War. 

the Eebel lines, and pleasantly advised him to open recruiting-offices in Mobile, 
Montgomery, Savannah, and similar Eebel posts; while to help the matter he 
added that "civilian agents about an army were a nuisance," — a proposition of 
more palpable truth than politeness, and not exactly sufficient to overturn a law of 
Congress.* The Governor of Minnesota wished to send a military commissioner 
to look after the sick and wounded from his State — a species of generous care for 
their soldiers practiced by the Governments of most of the States throughout the 
war, and often attended with the happiest results. General Sherman perempto- 
rily refused to give him a pass, on the ground that it would be loading down the 
cars with passengers, and excluding provisions for the soldiers If To such 
lengths had his imperious temper, and his hostility to State or civilian agencies, 
carried him. On another point his views were more alarming. Expressing his 
regret that Governor Bramlette, of Kentucky, had not felt warranted by law to 
carry out his extraordinary recommendation for "arresting every fellow hang- 
ing about the towns, villages, and cross-roads, who had no honest calling," he 
declared that, "in our country personal liberty has been so well secured that 
public safety is lost sight of in our laws and constitutions; and the fact is we 
are thrown back a hundred years in civilization, law, and everything else, and 
will go right straight to anarchy and the devil if somebody doesn't arrest our 
downward progress. "We, the military, must do it, and we have right and law 
on our side." X This, in a letter of instructions to a military commander, as 
lute as June, 1864, in defense of the policy of arresting by wholesale, without 
warrant or process, unaccused persons throughout an entire State, not openly in 
rebellion, because their occupations did not seem satisfactory to the petty officers 
in command at the various posts! It will not now seem wonderful that after 
still other brilliant successes in the field had still further elated our General, he 
should carry his disposition to absorb all power into his own hands to an extent 
that, for a little time, proved alarming alike to the Government and to the whole 
country. 

He was not, indeed, backward at any time in traveling to the verge of his 
own sphere, to volunteer opinions, advice, or protest. The promotion by the 
President of General Osterhaus to a Major-Generalship displeased him, and he 
straightway telegraphed the Department: "I wish to put on record this, my 
emphatic opinion, that it is an act of injustice to officers who stand by their 
posts in the day of danger to neglect them and advance such as General Hovey 
and General Osterhaus, who left us in the midst of bullets to go to the rear in 

■■■■■ Sherman and his Campaigns, pp. 236, 237. 

t Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, pp. 146, 147. The language is: "It seems 
that Dr. Luke Miller, a commissioner of your State, has been denied a pass on the military rail- 
road below Nashville, for the purpose of ministering to the wants of the sick and wounded sol- 
diers of your State here at the front. You will be amazed when on this simple statement I must 
accuse you of heartless cruelty to your constituents, but such is the fact. You would take the 
very bread and meat out of your soldiers' mouths, . . . would load down our cars with trav- 
elers, and limit our ability to feed our horses, and transport the powder and ball necessary to 
carry on this war." 

X Letter of instructions to General Burbridge. Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 233. 



William T. Sherman. 461 

search of personal advancement." In the midst of his perj)lexity before Atlanta, 
just after his failures on the eastern side, and while he was hesitating about 
swinging to the south-westward, he found time to volunteer General Canby 
advice as to the best way of taking Mobile,* and Admiral Farragut suggestions 
as to the stationing of his fleet, but they do not seem to have been followed. 
"While at bay before Dallas, he telegraphed that he thought Grant, by the move 
on Hanover C. H., which he regarded specially admirable, could force Lee to 
attack him in position or to move away toward Gordonsville or Lynchburg,f 
but Lee failed to perceive the necessity. 

In the same temper we now find him sending messages through his lines to 
Governor Bi'own, of Georgia, and to Alexander H. Stephens, telling them on 
what terms they could have peace, and how Georgia might escape being ravaged 
by his army. The Government had little fault to find with the substance of 
these communications; but it was a startling symptom that a military officer, 
having certain specific military duties to perform, should, without authority, 
enter into peace negotiations with prominent civil officials of the Eebel Govern- 
ment; and even trustful Mr. Lincoln — a little alarmed as it would seem — pro- 
posed to himself a visit to General Sherman's head-quarters to look into the 
matter. J Yet it is noteworthy that in all this the intention seems always good. 
The General gradually assumed more and more authority to interfere in all 
sorts of matters, but a word from the Government was always sufficient to check 
him, and he generally made full and frank reports of his exceptional doings. 

Meanwhile he had grown to be the idol of his troops. Their faith in Sher- 
man was boundless; their zeal for him flaming. Like McClellan, he had skill- 
fully cultivated this feeling, though he displayed far more art in concealing his 
arts of popularity. He was always jealous of their privileges. He took great 
pains to keep them abundantly supplied. The whistle of the provision-train's 
locomotive in their woi'ks, almost before they had finished the skirmish that 
secured them, was a perpetual reminder of the care of their General. He was 
never laggard in extolling their exploits. Even when, in congratulatory orders, 
he said, "The crossing of the Chattahoochee was most handsomely executed by 
us, and will be studied as an example in the art of war,"|| the troops, overlook- 
ing the egotism for the sake of the praise, were in raptures over the eulogium 
which the fortunate "us" enabled them to share. 

Nor was he less cai-eful of his officers. To the shirks he was remorselessly 
severe; and sometimes he took an inex^ilicable dislike to a good officer, as when, 
preferring the mediocre Howard to Hooker for the command of a force less than 
twenty-five thousand strong, he said of the latter that he "was not qualified for 
or suited to it," and that he might leave if he Avanted to — he was "not indis- 

■• "I would advise that a single gunboat lie above Pilot Cove, and prevent supplies going to 
Fort Morgan. To reduce Mobile, I would pass a force up the Tensas and across to Old Fort Stod- 
dard." Dispatch of 17th August to Canby. Rep. Com. Con. War, ubi supra, p. 175. 

t Ibid, p. 77. 

t Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, p. 197. Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 
512. II Order on fall of Atlanta. 



462 Ohio in the Wak. 

pensable to success.''-^ But, save in a very few such instances, he was kind and 
almost paternal in his regard for the welfare of the officers who deserved well. 
In mentioning to one of his army commanders, that in a division just sent him 
was a certain brigade, he took pains to say that it was commanded "by Charles 
R. Woods, whom you will find a magnificent officer." His letter on the death of 
McPherson was as touching and tender as a woman's. When Palmer becam.e 
involved in a question of rank with Schofield, Sherman decided against him. 
Subsequent!}^ he heard that Palmer felt aggrieved and was about to resign. 
Writing at length to him at once he begged him to reconsider this determina- 
tion : " Your future is too valuable to be staked on a mistake. If you want to 
resign, wait a few days and allege some other reason — one that will stand the 
test of time. Do not disregard the friendly advice of such men as General 
Thomas and myself, for you can not misconstrue our friendly feelings toward 
you.'t He feai^ed that a corps general was prejudiced against one of his 
division commanders; and, in the midst of the fighting, he stopped to write a 
letter to General Logan about it. " I have noticed for some time a growing dis- 
satisfaction on the part of General Dodge with General Sweeney. It may be 
personal. See that General Dodge prefers specific charges and specifications ; 
and you, as the army commander, must be the judge of the sufficiency of the 
•charges. . . . You can see how cruel it would be to a brave and sensitive 
gentleman and officer to be arrested and sent to the rear at this time. I fear 
that General Sweeney will feel that even I am influenced against him . . . 
but it is not so."| By such kindness, care, and watchful justice, was it that 
personal bickerings and jealousies were wonderfully removed, so that the army 
with which General Sherman was now to essay undei'takings not less remarka- 
ble than his late ones, became the most brotherly, the most soldierly, the most 
harmonious that ever marched on the continent. 

When Sherman was forecasting the hazards of the movements by which 
Atlanta fell, he dwelt especially on the danger of being permanently cut off from 
the base which he was temporarily to abandon. "If I should be," he telegraphs 
to the Chief-of-Stafi" at Washington, "look out for me about St. Marks, Florida, 
or Savannah, Georgia." |1 To the authorities at Washington, this doubtless 
seemed chimerical enough, but Sherman kept revolving the idea. He was not 
yet, however, cut off from his base. Then came the dangers to his line, and 
tlie uncertainty about Mobile, to which, as we have seen, he had often longingly 
looked. Under these new impulses, before he had entered Atlanta, he had tele- 
graphed to Washington his plans for the next campaign : " Canby should now 
proceed with all energy to get Montgomery, and the reach of the Alabama 
Eiver above Selma ; that, when I know he can move on Columbus, Georgia, I 
move on La Grange and West Point, keeping to the east of the Chattahoochie ; 
that we form a junction, repair roads to Montgomery, open up the Appalachicola 

*Rep. Com. Con. War, ubi supra, p. 142. tibid, p. 155. 

JEep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, pp. 139, 140. 
II Ibid, p. 167. Dispatcb of date 13th August, 1864. 



William T. Sherman. 463 

and Chattahoochie Rivers to Columbus, and move from it as a base, straight on 
Macon. This campaign can be made in the vrinter."* And, in the same dis- 
patch, he added, as if it were an element of this plan: "I propose to move all 
the inhabitants of Atlanta, sending those committed to our cause to the rear, 
and the Rebel families to the front, ... so that we will have the entire use 
of the railroad back, and also such corn and forage as may be reached by our 
troops. If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will 
answer that war is war, and not popularity seeking." 

This last determination he executed to the letter. A small portion of the 
inhabitants were sent northward. Four hundred and forty-six families, embrac- 
ing over two thousand souls, were sent south — being permitted to take an aver- 
age of not three hundred and fifty pounds of personal effects of all kinds to 
each person. 

We have told this story in few and simple words ; but the sufferings it 
entailed could scarcely be described in a volume. The Mayor of Atlanta in one 
touching-paragraph, gave a faint shadowing of the story: "It involves in the 
aggregate consequences appalling and heart-rending. Many poor women are 
in an advanced state of pregnancy; others now have young children, and their 
husbands are either in the army, prisoners, or dead. Some say, 'I have such an 
one sick at home; who will wait on them when I am gone?' Others say, 'What 
&re we to do? We have no houses to go to and no means to buy, build, or rent 
any — no parents, friends, or relatives to go to.' The country south of this is 
already crowded with refugees, and without houses to accommodate the people ; 
and . . many are now starving in churches and other out-buildings. This 
being so, how is it possible for the people here (mostly women and children) to 
find any shelter? and how can they live through the winter in the woods — no 
shelter nor subsistence, in the midst of strangers who know them not, and with- 
out the power to assist them if they were willing to do so?" 

Genei-al Sherman's reply to this touching appeal was one of the hajDpiest 
and most convincing si^ecimens of the ad captandum argument that has ever been 
offered: "I give full credit," he said, '-to your statements of the distress that 
will be occasioned, and yet shall not revoke my order, simply because my orders 
-'^ not designed to meet the humanities of the case, but to prepare for the future 
struggles in which millions, yea, hundreds of millions of good people outside of 
Atlanta have a deep interest. , . . The use of Atlanta for warlike purposes 
is inconsistent with its character as a home for families. ... I can not dis- 
cuss this subject with you fairly, because I can not impart to you what I propose 
to do, but I assert that my military plans make it necessary for the inhabitants 
to go away. . . . You can not qualify war in harsher terms than I will. 
War is cruelty, and you can not refine it; and those who brought war on our 
country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. . . . 
You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible 
hardships of war. . . '. But . . when peace comes you may call upon me 

* Report Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, p. 190. Dispatch of date 4th September. 
from Lovejoy's, sent in cipher. 



464 Ohio in the Wak. 

for anything. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you 
to shield your home and fiimilies against danger from every quarter. Now you 
must go and take with you the old and feeble; feed and nurse them, and build 
for them in more quiet places proper habitations to shield them against the 
weather, until the mad passions of men cool down, and allow the Union and 
peace once more to settle on your old homes at Atlanta." 

The trenchant statement, of which we have here condensed the outlines, 
was at once accepted as ample excuse for the sufferings inflicted on the people 
of Atlanta. It was accepted, indeed, for far more. The Administration party 
reprinted it as a campaign document, considered to condense and elucidate the 
heart and substance of the struggle; the Secretary of War brought himself to 
unaccustomed words of eulogy after its perusal; the newspaper press reproduced 
it with rapturous comments, and the people considered it at once the end of 
argument, and the evidence of a breadth of ability they had never before sus- 
pected in its author. Now that the passions of the war have cooled down, we 
can scarcely contemplate it with the same feelings. General Sherman could not 
explain to the Mayor of Atlanta his reasons for the measure, and therefore hia 
declaration that his plans made it necessary was sufficient. But we now have 
(in the dispatch above quoted) his own statement of what made it necessary. It 
was that he might "have the entire use of the railroad back, as also such corn 
and forage as might be reached by the troops." General Sherman was at the head 
of an army of a hundred thousand men. Here was a community of women and 
children, the "feeble folk" who could not follow or precede Hood's retreat, two 
thousand in number, with, as the Mayor assured him, a "respectable number" 
who could subsist for several months without assistance, and another " respecta- 
ble number " who would not need assistance at any time. General Sherman 
had already contemplated cutting loose from this base altogether; his present 
plan was to unite with another force, with Mobile as a base; and it will scarcely 
be thought that the selling of supplies for a month or two to such portion of 
these two thousand women and children as might need them, would have in- 
terfered with either of these plans. Furthermore, with that looseness of exj)ression 
which may often be noticed in General Sherman's resort to the pen as a weapon, 
he committed himself to a barbarism which no officer in the army would be 
quicker to repel than himself The cruelty of war can be refined, and the army 
holds no greater stickler for its refinements than General Sherman. How long 
was it till he was declaring (substantially) that if the truce which he had made 
with General Johnston, though disapproved, and to be void in a few hours, 
should be violated by one hour by United States trooj)s, he himself would unite 
with the Eebel General to punish the violators ? 

It was presently to appear that neither Atlanta nor the railroad that sup- 
plied it were longer of any importance in the great game that Sherman played. 
Finding that Mobile was not to be counted on, he cast about for some new j)lan 
of campaign, and presently fell again upon his old idea of "turning up" "at 
St. Marks, Florida, or Savannah, Georgia." As early as September 20th he had 
his plans somewhat elaborated. Not yet, however, had he reached the pitch of 



William T. Sherman. 465 

audacious daring that the subsequent march down to the sea required. He still 
looked to co-operating movements for assistance. If Grant would take Wilming- 
ton, and then "fix a day to be in Savannah," he "would not hesitate to cross the 
State of Georgia with sixty thousand men," assured that "where a million of 
people find subsistence my (his) army won't starve." Till Savannah fell, he 
thought it would be enough for him " to keep Hood employed, and put the army 
in fine order for a march on Augusta, Columbus, and Charleston."* 

But now an unexpected counselor was to aid in the decision. This was 
none other than Hood himself; who, under the spur of Mr. Davis's visit to the 
West to inspire new life into the drooping affairs of the Confederacy, determined 
upon an aggressive campaign, which, cutting Sherman's line of supplies, should 
throw him back to the Tennessee, only to find his antagonist ahead of him, once 
more in possession of the fertile country about Murfreesboro' and Nashville. 
The moment this project was fairly disclosed, Sherman's inspiration came to 
him. " If Hood will go to Tennessee," he exclaimed, " I will furnish him rations 
for the trip." He at once decided on detaching Thomas to take care of Hood, 
and marching through to the Atlantic with the rest of the army. • He under 
stood precisely what he was doing. "The movement," he writes, "is not purely 
military or strategic, but it will illustrate the vulnerability of the South." 

And now ensued a month of measureless activit3^ Hood threw himself 
upon the railroad, was repulsed, then moved off in directions for a time uncer- 
tain and to the highest degree mystifying. Troops were marched hither and 
thither to guard against him. Sherman himself flew back and forth ; the tele- 
graph was burdened with messages to his Generals; couriers were kept con- 
stantly on the run. Hood might venture to the Tennessee, so Sherman finally 
assured Thomas, but he did not believe he would cross it. As soon as he found 
the army sweeping southward from Atlanta, he would be compelled to turn and 
follow it.f But "having alternatives, I can take so eccentric a course that no 
General can guess at my objective."! 

Every preparation was accordingly hastened for marching southward as 
fast as Hood was going northward. Thomas was strengthened and fully in- 
structed; supplies were accumulated; the army was re-organized and re-enforced 
till, without Thomas, it numbered sixty -six thousand ; Atlanta and the railroad 
back to Dalton were destroyed; last messages were sent and instructions re- 
ceived ; the telegraph connecting the head-quarters Avith the North was cut; and 
on the 12th of November the army, to which all eyes had so long turned, disap- 
peared from the Northern gaze. || 

The Government and the public alike resorted to the Eichmond newspapers 
for accounts of Sherman. The people of the North were as much puzzled as 
the Eebels themselves, to decide where he was going. Charleston, Mobile, 

*Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. 1, p. 200. Letter to Grant of date 20th Sep- 
tember, 1864. 

tRep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1866, Vol. I, pp. 213, 226. 
Tibid, p. 235. 

II Instead of the rather stilted designation of " armies," the two organizations remaining in 
Vol I.— 30. 



466 Ohio in the War. 

Savannah, St. Marks, were all canvassed; while othei-s, remembering the Meri- 
dian raid, predicted that before long he would be heard of again at Atlanta. 
For a time it was believed that his cavalry must be almost destroyed. Eveiy 
day's issue of the Eichmond papers contained fresh accounts of how Wheoler 

Sherman's force after the withdrawal of Thomas were now entitled respectively tlie right and 
left wings. The following was their organization: 

EIGHT WING— MAJOR-GENERAL HOWARD. 

(Divisions of Brigadier-General Charles R. Wood. 
Brigadier-General William B. Hazen. 
Brigadier-General John E. Smith. 
Brigadier-General John M. Corse. 



c< 4 iU rt TVT • n ) 1 T7 if Divisions of Maior-General John A. Mower 

Seventeenth Corps-Major-Gen al Frank I Brigadier-General M. D. Le-( 

P. Blair, jr. I 



Brigadier-General Giles A. Smith. 



LEFT WING— MAJOR-GENERAL H. W. SLOCUM. 

■Ti^^i/-, T. iTVT'/-i f Divisions of Brigadier-General William P. Carlin. 

Fourteenth Corps-Brevet Major-Gen- I Bri|adier-General James D. Morgan. 

eralJeff. C. Davis. | Bri|adier-General A. Baird. 

m ^' .1 /-> T) • J- ri It r Divisions of Brigadier-General Norman J. Jackson. 

T^^"tie h Corps-Bngadier-General A. Bri|adier-General John W. Geary. 

^. Williams. ^ Brigadier-General William T. Ward. 

Besides, there were two brigades of cavalry under General Kilpatrick. 

A popular biographer of Sherman preserves the following fugitive sketch of his appearance 
at the outset of the Atlanta and Savannah campaign : " While I was watching to-day the end- 
less line of troops shifting by, an officer with a modest escort rode up to the fence near which I 
was standing, and dismounted. He was rather tall and slender, and his quick movements 
denoted good muscle added to absolute leanness — not thinness. His uniform was neither new 
nor old, but bordering on a hazy mellowness of gloss, while the elbows and knees were a little 
accented from the continuous agitation of those joints. 

"The face was one I should never rest upon in a crowd, simply because, to my eye, there was 
nothing remarkable in it save the nose, which organ was high, thin, and planted with a curve as 
vehement as the curl of a Malay cutlass. The face and neck were rougli and covered with red- 
dish hair, the eye light in color and animated ; but, though restless and bounding like a ball from 
one object to another, neither piercing nor brilliant; the mouth well-closed but common, the 
ears large, the hands and feet long and thin, the gait a little rolling, but firm and active. In 
dress and manner there was not the slightest trace of pretension. He spoke rapidly, and gen- 
erally with an inquisitive smile. To this ensemble I must add a hat which was the reverse of 
dignified or distinguished — a simple felt aflTair, with a round crown and drooping brim — and you 
have as fair a description of General Sherman's externals as I can pen. 

" Seating himself on a stick of cordwood hard by the fence, he drew a bit of pencil from his 
pocket, and spreading a piece of note paper on his knee, he wrote with great rapidity. Long col- 
umns of troops lined the road a few yards in his front, and beyond the road, massed in a series of 
spreading green fields, a whole division of infantiy was waiting to take up the line of march, the 
blue ranks clear cut against the verdant background. Those who were near their General looked 
at him curiously; for in so vast an army the soldier sees his Commander-in-Chief but seldom. 
Page after page was filled by the Generals nimble pencil, and dispatched. 

"For half an hour I watched him, and, though I looked for and expected to find them, no 
symptoms could I detect that the mind of the great leader was taxed by the infinite cares of a 
terribly hazardous militarj' coup de main. Apparently it did not lay upon his mind the weight 
of a feather. A mail arrived. He tore open the papers and glanced over them hastily, then 
chatted with some general officers near him, then rode off with characteristic suddenness, but 
with fresh and smiling countenance, filing down the road beside many thousand men, whose 
lives were in his keeping. 



William T. Sherman. 467 

had cut Kiipa trick to pieces. But presently it was observed that after each 
annihilation, Kilpatrick kept getting into new fights on advanced positions, and 
the apprehensions Avere dispelled. Of the great bulk of the army nothing could 
be heard. At first, the Eebel papers predicted that it could not cross the 
Ocmulgee without hard fighting. Then for weeks they told of its being baffled 
at every point in attempting to cross the Oconee. Finally, they admitted that 
it had crossed the Oconee, but were perfectly sure that the success would be 
fatal, since now it was securely shut up between the Oconee and the Ogee- 
chee. As to its ultimate destination, their notions were vague and contradic- 
tory. But their accounts were absolutely all that the country could get from the 
lost army, and were eagerly sought. Energetic agents were kept in the works 
before Eichraond to get papers through the lines; and whatever they contained 
about Sherman was forthwith telegraphed bodily East and West. 

In this uncertainty with which General Sherman wonderfully shrouded his 
movements, even from the Eebel cavalry that hung upon his flanks, and which 
the confusion of the Eichmond newspapers fairly represented, lay his safety. 
He had only sixty-five thousand men. Had they but known, or been able to 
form, from his course, any reasonable guess as to his destination, the Eebels 
might have concentrated thirty thousand to oppose him. With an enemy thirty 
thousand strong on his front, he could not have spread out his columns over a 
breadth of thirty miles, to gather in the supplies of the country; and as he 
was forced to concentrate, he would have found it impossible to feed. The 
march through Georgia was possible, only because General Sherman so bewil- 
dered his antagonists that they were looking for him at once at Augusta, and 
Macon, and Milledgeville, at Charleston and Savannah ; and the force that 
should have been consolidated to resist his march was scattered in garrisons for 
each threatened town, and utterly paralyzed. 

And so it came about that, moving out from the smoking ruins of Atlanta, 
General Sherman marched over three hundred miles in twenty-four days, and 
deplo^-ed his forces before Savannah without having had a battle by the way, or 
even a vigorous skirmish (save with the cavalry), with a loss (including the 
storming of a fort at the end of his march) of only five hundred and sixty-seven 
all told, of whom but sixty-three were killed and two hundred and forty-five 
wounded. Marching his columns first on Milledgeville, he nevertheless kept 
the garrison of Macon in daily expectation of attack, sending the cavalry far 
to his right to threaten it, and actually bringing on a cavalry fight at its outer 
defenses. Thus Milledgeville fell. Then, marching for Millen, where he hoped 
to liberate large numbers of Union prisoners, he yet kept Augusta in a panic, 
sending the cavalry to threaten in that direction. In this Kilpatrick had a 
slight misadventure, and the prisoners were removed from Millen before Sher- 
man could arrive. But the success of the march was now assured; the last 
river was passed, and before the army lay the easy slope down to Savannah and 
the sea. To the very last, the mystification was kept up, and demonstrations at 
Sister's Ferry kept the Chariestonians uneasy till the troops Avere actually 
deploying before Savannah. 



468 



Ohio in the War. 



The army fared superbly. Sherman, indeed, had dechired, months before, 
that where a million of inhabitants found subsistence, his army could nol 
starve; but even he had no conception of the ease with which the question of 
supplies would adjust itself The foraging parties provided hams, chickens, 
turkeys, sweet-potatoes, sorghum, and the like, in abundance; and in some ot 
the corps the rations with which the scanty wagon-trains were loaded at Atlanta 
were hauled throiigh to the sea almost unbroken. The collection of these sup- 
plies was not always performed without excess. Pillage and spoliation follow 

naturally in the path of loose impress- 
ments by irresponsible parties, and no 
effort seems to have been made to re- 
press irregularities. But the worst did 
not come till the Georgia camj^aign was 
over. One other stain rests upon the 
fair recoi'd of the march. Thousands of 
negroes accompanied the column, bj' the 
express permission of General Sherman. 
Once or twice great crowds of these un- 
fortunate creatures were driven back 
from the bridges, when the army was 
crossing rivers, and, the bridges being 
taken up as soon as the army had cross- 
ed, were left to the cruelty of the Eebel 
cavalry and of the enraged masters 
whom they had been encouraged to de- 
sert. General Jeff. C. Davis seems to 
have been prominent in this barbarism, 
but it called forth no rebuke from Gen- 
eral Sherman himself. 

Throughout the march, Sherman was 
in constant communication, with all the 
corps, and with the cavalry. He gener- 
ally accompanied the corps engaged in 
destroying the railroads, and he person- 
aUy saw to it that this destruction was 
accomplished in the most thorough man- 
ner. When Savannah was reached, he 
SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA. sought instantly to opcn communication 
with the fleet. Fort McAllister stood in the way. It was nearly sunset; but 
a vessel was seen in the distance ; and just as she began signalling to know if 
McAllister had fallen, so that she could safely approach, Sherman gave the 
order to Hazeu to storm. In less than half an hour the flags of Hazen's com- 
mand were floating from the fort; and Sherman, after hasty congratulations 
on the gallant deed, was in a skiff, recklessly pulling over the torpedoes toward 
the vessel. 




William T. Sherman. 469 

He soon had Savannah almost entirelj' invested. One road of exit to 
Hardee's garrison of fifteen thousand men was left, for reasons never fully 
explained. It was considered unsafe to isolate a force to guard it ; and yet 
Sherman thought he "could command it." He began preparing for a siege, and 
about the time his heavy guns were in position Hardee evacuated, leaving all 
his artillery and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton ; but carrying off 
his army safe. It was on the morning of 21st of December. Sherman himself 
was absent, but two days later he returned, and telegraphed to Mr. Lincoln, "I 
beg to present you. as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred 
and fifty heavy guns, and plenty of ammunition, and also about twenty-five 
thousand bales of cotton." 

Once more the North rekindled its bonfires. In this steady-marching suc- 
<;ess of Confederate disasters, in this "tramp, tramp, tramp," that winter or 
rough weather could not delaj^, of the sixty thousand that had bisected the 
Confederacy, they read the approaching doom of the Eebel cause. Grant still 
lay baffled by the skill of the wise soldier who defended Eichmond ; but already 
in imagination, " while the doomed Confederate army, compassed in fatal toils, 
looked southerly for an outlet of escape," the people heard — to use the words 
of an elegant writer — "rolling across the plains of the Carolinas, beating nearer 
iind nearer, the drums of Champion Hills and Pittsburg Landing."* 

Other plans for this still victorious army engrossed for a time the mind of 
the Lieutenant-General. He congratulated its leader most heartily, wanted his 
views, and subscribed himself "more than ever, if possible, Your Friend. "f 
But still he wanted the army transferred at once by water to Eichmond. "Un- 
less you see objections to this plan, which I can not see," he wrote as early as 
6th December, " use every vessel going to you for the purpose of transporta- 
tion. ";{: General Sherman promptly began preparations to obey this order ; at 
the same time expressing some doubts as to whether it would not be better to 
" punish South Carolina as she deserves." " I do sincerely believe," he wrote, a 
few days later, "that the whoje United States, North and South, would rejoice 
to have this army turned loose on South Carolina, to devastate that State in 
the manner we have done in Georgia. "|| General Grant presently fell in with 
this view, and before transportation had been accumulated for removing the 
army by sea, General Sherman was ordered to march northward through the 
interior, all details being left to his own judgment. This decision reached him 
a day or two after his entry into Savannah. Three weeks were spent in prepa- 
ration ; on 15th of January, 1865, the movement began. 

Meantime, the restless temper of the General on whom the cares of this 
still more dangerous movement might be supposed to press with sufficient 
weight, kept him busy with essays in fresh fields of responsibility. Some citizen 
wrote, asking his advice on the question of reorganization. He had the wis- 

* Swinton's Twelve Decisive Battles of the War. 

T Grant's letter to Sherman 18th Dec, 1864, Rep. Cora Con. War, ubi supra, p. 287. 

ilbid, p. 279. il Ibid, p. 284. 



470 Ohio in the War. 

dom to say that he had nothing to do with it, but not the wisdom to stop with 
that. Instead, he went on at length to elaborate, his views on a subject already- 
engaging the full powers of the best statesmen of the country, trained to politi- 
cal problems, and not otherwise employed : " Georgia is not out of the Union,'' 
he declared with some emphasis. "My opinion is that no negotiations are 
necessary, nor commissioners, nor conventions, nor anything of the kind. 
Whenever the people of Georgia quit rebelling against their Government, and 
elect members of Congress and Senators, and these go and take their seats, then 
the State of Georgia will have resumed her functions in the Union." Light, 
indeed, must the crime of the rebellion have seemed in the eyes of the man 
who could in such haste propose to restore Rebels to the balance of power in 
Congress. Abundant must have been the confidence in his own judgment, on 
any and all subjects, that could induce the general of a great army, on the eve 
of most dangerous movements, to obtrude an opinion — tossed oif in a leisure 
half hour like a family letter — on the gravest of political problems — unfamiliar 
to him, but already being studied in the minutest details by the first jurists and 
statesmen of the nation.* 

He next essayed a solution of the negro problem — setting apart for the 
exclusive use of the negroes in the vicinity, the Sea Islands of South Carolina 
and Georgia, and the rice swamps of the adjacent mainland, each family to 
have a forty-acre tract, to which a military officer was to give a possessory title I 
It was the most remarkable assumption of power outside his sphere which Gen- 
eral Sherman had yet attempted; and the fact that the order was shown to the 
Secretary of War before its issue constitutes no excuse for the interminable 
difficulties to which it led, — difficulties alike for the poor blacks whom it pro- 
posed to befriend, and for the Government whose functions it usurped. 

The operations of the Treasury Department did not suit him. He thought 
it "ought not to bother itself with the captures of war,"f — in effect that what- 
ever Government property the military captured it should retain under its 
exclusive control. An English Consul sought to protect the cotton claims of 
some English subjects. The General astonished hjm by the notification that in 
no event would he "treat an English subject with more favor than one of our 
own deluded citizens," and that " it would afford him great pleasure to conduct 
his army to Nassau and wipe out that nest of pirates." | He reverted once more 
to his chronic rabies, the newspaper subject, solemnly adjudicated that two 
newspapers were enough for Savannah, and no more should be published; 
ordered that these be held to the strictest accountability "for any libellous pub- 
lication, mischievous matter, premature news, exaggerated statements, or any 
comment whatever upon the acts of the constituted authorities — even for such 
articles, though copied from other papers." || 

It is with pleasure that we turn from these performances, in which much 

*This letter was shown to Secretary Stanton, who was then on a visit to Savannah. His 
only reply was that, like all the General's letters, it was suflBciently emphatic and not likely to ho 
misunderstood. Sherman and his campaigns, pp. 324, 325. 

t Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 326. X Ibid, p. 326. || Ibid, p. 321. 



William T. Sherman. 471 

good sense is so mingled with eccentric extravagances and ill-considered judg- 
ments, to the brighter story of the march through the Carolinas.* 

When, gathering in hand his various divisions from Savannah and Beaufort 
the Sea Islands, the ferries, and the important roads in the interior, G-eneral 

"•■■ A pen-picture of General Sherman at Savannah, by Rev. Mr. Alvord, has been much 
admired by his friends, and may prove interesting to those who would study his characteristics 
more in detail. The following extracts embrace its substance: 

"Tall, lithe, almost delicately formed. If at ease stoops slightly; when excited, erect and 
commanding. Face stern, savage almost; yet smiling as a boy's when pleased. Every move- 
ment, both of mind and body, quick and nervous. A brilliant talker, announcing his plans, but 
concealing his real intention. A graceful easy rider. "When leading a column looking as if 
born only to command. Approachable at times, almost to a fault, again not to be approached 
at all. 

" I saw him in a grand review at Savannah. His position was in front of the Exchange on 
Bay street. The Twelfth Corps was to pass before him ; he rode rapidly to the spot, almost 
alone, leaped from his horse, stepped to the bit and examined it a moment, patted the animal 
on the cheek, then adjusted his glove, looked around with an uneasy air as if in want of some- 
thing to do; catching in liis eye the group of officers on the balcony he bowed, and commenced 
a familiar conversation, quite unconscious of observation by the surrounding and excited crowds. 
Presently music sounded at the head of the approaching corps. Quick as thought he vaulted 
to the saddle and was in position. There was peculiar grace in the gesture of arm and head 
which did not weary, as for an hour he returned the salutes of every grade of officers. Rev- 
erence was added as the regimental flags were lowered before him. The more blackened and 
torn and riddled with shot they were, the higlier the General's hat was raised and the lower his 
head was bent in recognition of the honored colors. Every soldier, as he marched past, showed 
that he loved his commander. He evidently loved his soldiers. 

"I saw him in his princely head-quarters at Charles Green's on New Year's Day. Many 
were congratulating him. He was easy, affable, magnificent. Presently an officer with hurried 
step entered tlie circle and handed him a sealed packet. He tore it open instantly, but did not 
cease talking. Read it, still talking as he read. Commodore Porter had dispatched a steamer, 
announcing the defeat at Fort Fisher. 

'"Butler's defeated!' he exclaimed, his eye gleaming as it lifted from the paper. ' Fizzle— 
great fizzle/' nervously, 'knew 'twould be so. I shall have to go up there and do that job — eat 
'em up as I go and take 'em back side.' Thus the fiery heart exploded, true to loyalty and 
country. 

"I entered the rear parlor and sat down at the glowing grate. He came, and leaning his 
elbow upon tiie marble mantel, said ; ' My army, sir, is not demoralized — has improved on the 
march — Christian army I've got — soldiers are Christians, if anybody is — noble fellows — God will 
take care of them — war improves character. My array, sir, is growing better all the while.' 

"I expressed satisfaction at having such testimony, and the group of officers who stood 
around could not suppress a smile at the General's earnest Cliristian eulogium. 

"Such is W. T. Sherman. A genius, with greatness grim and terrible, yet simple and 
unaffected as a child. The thunderbolt or sunbeam, as circumstances call him out. 

"On the march from Atlanta his order was 'No plunder by the individual soldier;' but his 
daily inquiry as he rode among them would be, 'Well, boys, how do you get along? like to see 
soldiers enterprising; ought to live well, boys; you know I don't carry any thing in my haver- 
sack, so don't fail to have a chicken leg for me when I come along; must live well, boys, on such 
a march as this.' The boys always took the hint. The chicken leg was ready for the General, 
and there were very few courts-martial between Atlanta and Savannah to punish men for living 
as best they could. 

"When McAllister fell, he stood with his staff and Howard by his side, awaiting the 
assaulting column. 'They are repulsed,' he exclaimed, as the smoke of bursting torpedoes 
enveloped the troops; 'must try something else.' It was a moment of agony. The strong heart 
did not quail ! A distant shout was heard. Again raising his glass the colors of each of the three 



472 Ohio in the War. 

Sherman now launched his columns northward, the strategic problem presented 
to himself and to that "astute Eebel commander"* who (soon to be restored to 
the fragments of the army he had been forced to leave before Atlanta), strove 
to withstand him, was the same. General Sherman sought to secure a junction 
with Grant and to prevent Johnston's junction with Lee. General Johnston 
sought to secure a junction with Lee and to jjrevent Sherman's junction with 
Grant. Neither sought decisive battle with his immediate antagonist, for the 
eyes of each were fixed upon what might befall after the desired junction should 
be secured. But the game was an unequal one, and it needed no far-seeing vis- 
ion to perceive the end. Sherman had sixty thousand. Johnston had twenty-five 
thousand. f Or, if we look beyond these single combatants, Lee had but fifty 
thousand ; and Lee and Johnston stood for the Confederacy. Against and around 

brigades were seen planting themselves simultaneously on the parapet. 'The fort is ours,' said 
he, calmly. He could not restrain his tears. ' It's my old division,' he added, ' I knew they'd 
do it.' 

'"How long, General,' said a Southron, 'do you think this war will last, we hear the North- 
ern people are nearly exhausted?' 'Well, well,' said he, 'about six or seven years of this kind 
of war, then twenty or twenty-five of guerrilla, until you are all killed off, then we will begin 
anew.' 

"A wealthy planter appealing to his pity, 'Yes, yes,' said he, 'war is a bad thing very bad, 
cruel institution — very cruel ; but you brought it on yourselves, and you are only getting a taste 
of it.' 

"The English ex-consul asked him for protection and a pass on the ground of his neutrality 
and that of his country. ' Don't talk to me,' said Sherman, ' of your neutrality, my soldiers have 
seen on a hundred battle-fields the shot and shell of England with your Queen's mark upon them 
all, and they never can forget it. Don't tell me you couldn't leave before I came; you could send 
out your cotton to pay Confederate bonds and bring cannon in return — don't tell me you couldn't 
get away yourself.' 

"The consul stood abashed, and awkwardly bowed himself from his presence. 

"Such is his treatment of Rebels. He receives no apology nor has any circumlocution. He 
strikes with his battalions ; he strikes with every word he utters, whether from pen or lips. The 
secessionists of Georgia and South Carolina believe he'll do what he threatens. 

"Said the Rebel Colonel who had placed the torpedoes in the Savannah River when ordered 
to take them up, 'No! I'll be d— d if I do any such drudgery.' 

"' Then you'll hang to-morrow morninrj ; leave me,' said the stern commander. The torpedoes 
were removed. 

"In this way, by his words, his manner, his personal presence, his threats with their literal 
execution, and the swift and utter destruction in the track of his army on their late march, he has 
struck terror to all hearts. Though thoroughly secretive, he is strangely frank. 

'"Give me your pass, General?' said I, 'I'll meet you again on your march.' 'You don't 
know where I'm going,' said he, with emphasis. ' I think I do. General, if I can catch you.' 
^ Where f 'At Charleston.' 'I'm not going to Charleston.' 'Then, at Wilmington.' 'I'm not 
going to Wilmington.' 'I'll see you, I think, in Richmond.' 'I'm not going to Richmond. 
You don't know where I'm going. Howard don't know.' But he gave me the pass; I, at least, 
know where he was not going." 

* Sherman's own phrase in describing Johnston. 

t Sherman, indeed, estimated the force opposed to him at a much higher figure, — at one time 
reckoning it at not less than "forty-five thousand eflectives." (Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867. 
Vol. I, p. 346.) But the honesty of General Johnston's oflScial statements has never been ques- 
tioned, and he says that he had (besides militia and t)ther dead-weights who deserted him long 
before he had any chance to use them) not over twenty- five thousand effective strength. See, also, 
Swinton, Hist. Army Potomac, p. 567. 



William T. Sherman. 



473 




CAMPAIGN OF THE CAROLINAS. 



William T. Sherman. 475 

them rose, with fateful gleam, the bayonets of the converging ranks of a million 
soldiers. 

At the outset of his movement, Sherman experienced no difficulty save that 
from the roads. The remnants of Hood's army — making their way eastward, 
over the route of the march from Atlanta to the sea, that region where now, as 
the expressive phrase of the soldiers had it, a crow could not make the jour- 
ney without carrying a haversack, — experienced fatal delays. Meantime, the 
other Eebel forces were scattered, guarding points supposed to be in danger. 
Johnston had not yet assumed command, and there was no unit}' of action. 
Sherman made feints toward Charleston, on his right, and Hardee lay waiting 
for him; and sent his cavalry toward Augusta, on his left, and the Georgia mili- 
tia stayed there. On his front were left only Wheeler's and Wade Hampton's 
cavalry, — a force to be brushed aside by his army like house-flies. Presently, 
his columns appeared, unresisted, before Columbia. The capital fell without a 
blow, while the bulk of the army that shou'ld have defended it had been sol- 
emnlj' guarding the ruins of Charleston. Suddenly, Hardee discovered that 
while he was thus lying idle at the useless sea-port, the State was being ravaged 
from end to end, his own flank was turned, and, unless he made haste to rescue 
himself from his false position, his army would be as effectually eliminated from 
the campaign as if it were thrown bej'ond the Alleghanies. Already-, Sher- 
man's position barred his march toward the point of danger — be was forced to 
retreat on a line far to the eastward. Even there he was too late to be secure, 
and he was soon to find the destroyer on his track, and to lose more than two 
score pieces of the artillery he had brought with infinite pains from abandoned 
Charleston. 

When Sherman rode into Columbia, piles of cotton which Wade Hampton 
had fired, lay smouldering through the streets. As the wind rose, locks of lint 
from the bales which the fire had already burned open, drifted about in every di- 
rection. Soldiers extinguished the fires, as they supposed, but at nightfall they 
broke out again — doubtless in one or two places from the burning cotton. But, 
as if by concert, there suddenly came cries of alarm from a dozen different 
quarters. The city was on fire in as many places. General Sherman ordered 
out a force to attempt checking the conflagration, but the effort was vain. 
Before morning a large portion of the city was in ruins ; thousands of helpless 
women and children were suddenl}^ made homeless — in an hour — in the night — 
in the winter. It was the most monstrous barbarity of the barbarous march. 
There is no reason to think that General Sherman knew any thing of the pur- 
pose to burn the city, which had been freely talked about among the soldiei-s 
through the afternoon. But there is reason to think that he knew well enough 
who did it, that he never rebuked it, and made no effort to punish it. Instead, 
he sought indeed to show that the enemy himself had burned his own city, "not 
with malicious intent, but from follj^ and want of sense." Yet in the same par- 
agraph he admits everything except the original starting of the first fire: "Offi- 
cers and men not on duty, including the officers who had long been imprisoned 
there, may have assisted in spreading the fire after it had once begun, and may 



476 Ohio in the War. 

have indulged in unconcealed joy to see the ruin of the capital of Soutb 

Carolina."* 

Thus far, feinting eastward and westward and so keeping the enemy scat- 
tered, Sherman had in truth marched almost due northward, till now, with 
scarcely a skirmish, he stood, a hundred and thirty miles from Savannah, in the 
heart of South Carolina. To prolong the same course Avould speedily bring 
him to Charlotte, North Carolina. Thither went Johnston to prepare for him. 
There also were gathering the fragments of armies, the pitiful remnants of gar- 
risons, and militia, and home-guards, wherewith to eke out his column. But 
Sherman stood now at the dividing of ways. Straight before him, through 
Charlotte, stretched a road by which he might reach the James. To his right 
led a route, equally practicable, by which he might reach the sea-coast. And 
already, on leaving Savannah, he had ordered his quartermasters around the 
coast to " Morehead City, there to stand ready to forward supplies to the army 
at Goldsboro', about the 15th of March. "f It only remained to convince John- 
ston that he was going to Charlotte. 

Moving, therefore, straight northward from Columbia, he swept up with his 
wide- spread columns almost half way to Charlotte— then turning sharp to the 
right, made all haste for Fayetteville and Goldsboro', while his cavalry, cover- 
ing his left as with an impenetrable screen, kept Johnston in doubt, and con- 
cealed the sudden change. There were diflaculties in the march ; floods in the 
streams, quicksands, swamps. Eut there was nothing but marching to do ; the 
enemy did not even discover that Charlotte was not menaced till the army was 

* General Wade Hampton has made a very inconsiderate attempt to fasten the guilt ("guilt' 
certainly in the eyes of every civilized being) of the burning of Columbia upon General Sher- 
man himself. This is idle. He did personally what he could to save the city after the confla- 
gration had begun — labored, indeed, with his own hands through almost the entire night, and 
the next day strove to mitigate the calamity of the sufferers. (Story of the Great March, p. 165.) 
But he did not seek to ferret out and punish the offending parties. He did not make his army 
understand tliat he regarded this barbarity as a crime. He did not seek to repress their lawless 
course. On the contrary, they came to understand that the leader, whom they idolized, regarded 
their actions as a good joke, cliuckled over them in secret, and winked at them in public. Here 
was General Hampton's true cause of complaint. Here, too, is the cause for complaint which 
every friend of humanity throughout the civilized world must cherish against General Sherman. 
But General Hampton is not the man to throw stones in this matter. His action in firing the 
cotton, in the lieart of the city, on a windy day, was criminally reckless. 

Of the real origin of the conflagration there can be no reasonable doubt. Whoever has seen 
fire flash through a lock of lint cotton can understand it. Old cotton planters — particularly 
those who passed through the cotton-burning scenes on the Mississippi River — say that a rope- 
bound bale of cotton, once fired, can never be extinguished. I have heard them tell of throwing 
such bales into the river, and hours afterward taking them out, only to find them still smoulder- 
ing. The soldiers thought they had extinguislied the fire in the heaps of cotton at the street 
corners. Toward evening some of them blazed out again. The wind was high ; tlie ropes that 
bound the bales were burnt ofi", and the cotton was loose; some single lock, carried by the wind 
to a house-top, began the ruin of the city. That the soldiers not on duty had before this threat- 
ened to burn the city, seems established. That they rejoiced at and aided the conflagration when 
they found it already begun, is admitted by Sherman himself, in the extract from his oflScial 
report given in the text, by the author of " The Story of the Great ]\Iarch," and by nearly every 
other reputable eye-witness. 

t Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 335. 



William T. Sherman. 477 

fairly across the Yadkin, two-thirds of the way to Fayetteville, and with an 
open path before it. Then, indeed, Johnston, in. spite of his limited forces, and 
unnumbered embarrassments, vindicated his reputation. It was too late to stop 
Sherman's entr}^ of Faj'etteville and communication with the sea-coast, via the 
river to Wilmington; but he succeeded in giving the cavalry a sharp blow that 
had nearly proven disastrous, and in so planting his forces as to arouse in Sher- 
man's mind the liveliest apprehensions as to the short remainder of his march. 
•'Every day now," he wrote, "is worth a million dollars. I can whip Joe John- 
ston, provided he doesn't catch one of ray corps in flank, and I will see that my 
army mai'ches hence to Goldsboro' in compact form."* 

"Provided he doesn't catch one of my corps in flank." There was, indeed, 
the rub. 

A few days were spent at Fayetteville, destroying the arsenal and costly 
machinery. "The United States should never again confide such valuable 
property to a people who have betrayed a trust;" wrote the General.f The 
sentiment was unexceptionable — it would have been better, indeed, for Sher- 
man if he had called it to mind a few weeks later, when he came to sit at a lit- 
tle writing table with his antagonists — but the delay was dangerous. It was 
now the 15th of March — the very day on which he had directed his Quarter- 
masters to be ready for him at Groldsboro'. Johnston was improving every 
hour in concentrating upon his front. Schofield was on the other side of Golds- 
boro', coming up; Johnston could yet interpose between them. True, either 
army outnumbered him; but in case of such overwhelming superiority (eighty- 
five thousand at the very least against Johnston's paltry twenty-five thousand) 
the exposure of isolated wings to battles, successful or unsuccessful, became 
butchery. 

On the 15th Sherman started from Fayetteville. The very next day his 
left was checked at Averysboro'. The outer lines of the Eebel force was easily 
driven in, but there the success stopped. All further assault only succeeded in 
keeping the enemy close within his main intrenchments. Seventy-seven were 
killed, four hundred and seventy-seven wounded, and a day lost. Next morn- 
ing the enemy had withdrawn. It would seem that he had accomplished his 
purpose. 

For now, while Sherman deflecting his columns to the right to move straight 
on Bentonville and Goldsboro', felt sure that no further interrujDtion was in- 
tended, and went off to open communication with Schofield's column from the sea- 
coast, Johnston had improved the day's delay, had gathered his troops together, 
had selected with all his old skill, formidable positions of defense, and had for- 
tified them, as Sherman afterward ruefully confessed, "with the old sort of par- 
apets," which he "didn't like to assail.";}: Suddenly the left wing, marcliing in 
all the confidence of Sherman's belief that he was now past any danger of 
attack, came fairly upon Johnston's skirmishers. A fierce assault speedily fol- 
lowed, driving in the Union advance, with loss of guns and provisions. Slocum 

* Sherman to Terry, Rep. Com. Con War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 348. 
tibid, p. 344. tibid, p. 362. 



478 Ohio in the Wak. 

hurriedly sent word to Sherman that he was confronted by Johnston's whole 
army, and then hastened to make such preparations for defense as the instant 
emero-ency would permit. Johnston's entire force was probably about equal to 
this wino-. His hope had been to crush it by a sudden onset, or, failing in that, 
to secure himself behind his fortifications. The attack was skillfully delivered, 
and the Union column was clearly caught at fault; but Johnston's army was no 
longer the disciplined body of men that, step by step, had resisted every 
advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta. It was weakened by desertion, dis- 
pirited by an Iliad of woes, deteriorated by the infusion of raw and unwilling 
recruits. The assault placed Slocum in great peril; but after recovering from 
the first sudden onslaught, he lost no more ground. It was hard to persuade 
Sherman that anything serious was going on,* but at last he got over from the 
other wing, brought up re-enforcements, pushed Johnston into his works, and 
then lay skirmishing and feeling his flanks. Meanwhile Schofield hurried u]) 
and entered Goldsboro' almost unopposed. Johnston found one flank seriously 
compromised, and retreated in the night to a point midway between Goldsboro' 
and Ealeigh.f And thus, with his army once more in communication with the 
sea-coast, and the enemy brushed away from his flanks, Sherman ended the 
Campaign of the Carolinas. 

In boldness of conception and skill of execution, it was scarcely less won- 
derful than the great campaign which preceded it and furnished its model. In 
neither was there any considerable enemy to oppose till at the very ending. In 
both, the forces which the Eebels did have were paralyzed by their uncertainty 
as to the points of attack. In both, great bodies of men were moved over 
States and groups of States with the accuracy and precision of mechanism. In 
neither was any effort to preserve discipline apparent, save only so far as was 
needful for keeping up the march. 

Here, indeed, is the single stain on the brilliant record. Before his move- 
ment began, General Sherman begged permission to turn his army loose in 
South Carolina and devastate it. J He used this permission to the full. He 
protested that he did not wage war on women and children. But, under the 
operation of his orders, the last morsel of food was taken from hundreds of des- 
titute families, that his soldiers might feast in needless and riotous abundance. 
Before his eyes rose, day after day, the mournful clouds of smoke on every side, 
that told of old people and their grandchildren driven, in mid-winter, from the 
only roofs there were to shelter them, by the flames which the wantonness of 
his soldiers had kindled. With his full knowledge and tacit approval, too great a 

« Eep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, pp. 357, 358. 

tThe aggregate loss in this battle was one thousand six hundred and forty-six, of which one 
thousand two hundred and forty-seven came from Slocum's left wing; while two hundred and 
sixty-seven Eebel dead were left on the field, and one thousand six hundred and twenty-five 
prisoners were taken. The Kebel loss was doubtless somewhat greater than Sherman's, since it 
made the assault ; but not enough to warrant his glowing statement in his official dispatch to 
Grant that he " had driven off Joe Johnston with fearful loss." 

tKep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 284. 



William T. Sherman. 479 

portion of his advance resolved itself into bands of jeweliy-thieves and plate- 
closet burglars.* Yet, if a single soldier was punished for a single outrage or 
theft during that entire movement, we have found no mention of it in all the 
voluminous records of the march. He did indeed say that he "would not pro- 
tect' them in stealing "women's apparel or jewelry." f But even this, with 
no whisper of punishment attached, he said, not in general orders, nor in 
approval of the findings of some righteously-severe court-martial, but incident- 
ally — in a letter to one of his officers, which never saw the light till two years 
after the close of the war. He rebuked no one for such outrages; the soldiers 
understood that they pleased him. Was not South Cax'olina to be properly 
punished? 

This was not war. It was not even the revenge of a wrathful soldiery, for 
it was practiced, not upon the enemy, but upon the defenseless "feeble folk" he 
had left at home. There was indeed one excuse for it — an excuse which 
chivalric soldiers might be slow to plead. It injured the enemy — not by open 
fight, where a million would have been thought full match for less than a hun- 
dred thousand, but by frightening his men about the situation of their wives 
and children ! 

At last prudential considerations suggested themselves. On the borders 

*The fact stated above is so notorious that authorities seem needless. Yet the following 
naive testimony from that enthusiastic friend of General Sherman, the author of the Story of 
the Great March (p. 207) has an interest of its own: "It was not unusual to hear among the sol- 
diers such conversations as this: 'Where did you get that splendid meerschaum?' or 'Did you 
bring that handsome cane along with you?' 'Oh,' was the reply, 'that was presented me by a 
lady in Columbia for saving her house from burning.' This style of answer, which was very 
satisfactory, soon became the common explanation of the possession of all sorts of property. An 
officer taking his punch from an elegantly-chased silver cup, was saluted thus: 'Halloa, Cap- 
tain, that's a gem of a cup! No mark on it; why, where did you get it?' ' Ye-e-es! that cup? 
Oh, that was given me by a lady in Columbia for saving her household goods from destruction.' 
. . . After a while this joke came to be repeated so often that it was dangerous for any one to 
exhibit a gold watch, a tobacco-box, any uncommon utensil of kitchen ware, anew pipe, a guard- 
chain, or. a ring, without being asked if 'a lady at Columbia had presented that article to him 
for saving her house from burning?' This was one of the humors of the camp." Vastly humor- 
ous, no doubt, but ! Take from the same work (p. 112) another statement: "As rumors of 

the approach of our army reached the frightened inhabitants, frantic efforts were made to con- 
ceal valuable personal effects — plate, jewelry, and other rich goods. . . . The favorite 
method of concealment was the burial of the treasures in the pathways and gardens adjoining 
the dwelling-houses. . . . With untiring zeal the soldiers hunted for concealed treasures. 
Wherever the army halted, almost every inch of ground in the vicinity of the dwellings was 
poked by ramrods, pierced by sabers, or upturned with spades. The universal digging was good 
for the garden land, but its results were distressing to the Rebel owners of exhumed property, 
who saw it rapidly and irretrievably confiscated." Mr. Greeley, in his cautious and singularlj 
accurate history, has been forced to say (Vol. II, p. 704) : "Though a good many watches and 
pieces of plate which were claimed to have been 'found hidden in a swamp, a mile from any 
house,' were in fact drawn from less occult sources, it would have been difficult to hide a watch 
or goblet where it would not have been discovered and appropriated. And the business of for- 
aging had been gradually assumed as a specialty by the least scrupulous of the soldiers, . . . 
often many miles in advance, gathering as provisions for the army anything inviting and port- 
able for themselves, . . . but fonder on the whole of rifling a house than of fighting iia 
owner, and constantly intent on the main chance." 

TRep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 3.30. 



480 Ohio in the Wae. 

of North Carolina we find General Sherman writing: "It might be well to 
instruct your brigade commanders that we are now out of South Carolina, and 
that a little moderation may be of political consequence to us."* And he fur- 
thermore advised that -'they try to keep foragers from — insulting families!" 
That was all. Here, as elsewhere, the not unusual inconsistency may be observed. 
Now we see him suffering his soldiers to rob Southern school -girls of their finger- 
rings, and Southern old women of their family silver. A month hence we shall 
find him eager to surrender to the enemy, rather than accept their surrender to 
him, in order that he may soothe the excitable Southern people and promote 
harmony and good feeling. 

But this is an aspect of the pillage and license in Georgia and the Caro- 
linas not then familiar to the public. All rejoiced that the war was at last 
brought home to its authors. The more cruel the severities of its coming the 
more was the fitness of the retribution enhanced. If the women and children 
of South Carolina suffered, that hot-bed of treason was only experiencing the 
horrors of the war it had provoked. The enormities of the march were thus, 
for the time, either lightly forgiven or actually enjoyed ; its success and itg 
brilliancy were rapturously applauded. The popularity of Sherman rose even 
higher than when he reached Savannah. His appearance then in the remotest 
hamlet at the North would have been the signal for an ovation. History was 
ransacked for parallels to his greatness and his genius. None thought of com- 
paring him with Grant; he was immeasurably superior to the dull soldier, 
who, after untold slaughter, still lay baffled before Petersburg, waiting for the 
army and the General that had made him all he was to march up from Golds- 
boro' and save him now 

The excitable and susceptible nature of Sherman could not fail to absorb 
this intoxication of the hour. There was indeed no shadow of disloyalty in it 
to his old friendship for the Lieutenant-General. But he glowed with uncon- 
cealed pleasure at the praise which the Government and the public heaped 
upon him ; he came to believe that to him and his army nothing was impos- 
sible; he conceived yet more exalted ideas of his importance to the Nation, 
and the right this gave him to decide for himself the gravest and most uncer- 
tain questions. 

In this frame of mind he returned from a hasty visit to Grant, where he 
had met and received the thanks of the President. He prepared at once for 
his new march, to place his army in communication with Grant's, north of the 
Eoanoke, with Norfolk as its base of supplies. In the midst of his beginnings 
came the news of Lee's retreat. Then he pushed straight for Johnston's armj-. 
Johnston retreated through Ealeigh ; Sherman followed hard upon the rear- 
guard. His activity was boundless; his plans seemed perfect. In the midst of 
them came the news of Lee's surrender; then, before the delirium of enthusi- 
asm into which this threw him had subsided, propositions of surrender from 
Johnston. That wary strategist knew his man, and skillfully prepared his bait. 

•Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 339. 



William T. Sherman. 481 

Would not General Sherman prefer, instead of capturing a paltry army of 
twent}' thousand, here in North Carolina, to accept the surrender of all the 
armies of the Confederacy, and be the author of peace from the Atlantic to the 
Rio Grande ? 

!N"othing could more admirably have hit the exact temper of the man's 
mind. He was thrilling Avith exultation over his performances. Here was 
something that might well flatter his vanity. He was panting for more 
achievements that should win fresh laurels. What could now give the con- 
i^ueror of Atlanta and the author of the subsequent marches higher praise, 
unless it were his being thus chosen to receive the final surrender of the entire 
Confederacy, and to wij)e out with his single hand the gigantic rebellion? Was 
there question of terms? Who so competent to decide them as he who was 
conquering the peace? Was there doubt as to his power? What officer of the 
Government was likely to claim precedence of the Soldier who could approach 
his President with the surrender of the insurgent half of the Nation in his 
hands? 

We may well believe that such considerations left not a doubt as to his 
course in the mind of the rightfully exultant victor. We may even question 
whether, under similar circumstances, they would not have seemed equally con- 
clusive to many another man less excited and less tempted. General Sherman 
unhesitatingly entered into a discussion of the terms for a general peace. He 
now came in contact with another wary bargainer. The new diplomatist 
appeared indeed under a military guise ; but none should have known better 
than Sherman that it was not the subordinate and inconspicuous Major-General 
Breckinridge with whom he was conferring, but the Confederate Secretary of 
War, speaking for the Cabinet of the Confederate Government, and pleading 
for terms which he would never dare to ask from the Cabinet at Washington.* 
In the hands of this adroit, plausible, and polished publicist, our poor General, 
wild with pride in his successes, and already clutching, in imagination, at the 
laurels of "peace from the Potomac to the Rio Grande," became as wax. At 
the very outset they talked — not of the surrender of the army — ("in the first 
five minutes of our conversation indeed," Sherman tells us,t "Johnston said 
any further resistance on his part would be an act of folly,") — but as to what 
form of government they were to have at the South! J Presently dispatches 
arrive from absent members of the Rebel Cabinet. Sherman sits aside while 
the Rebel General and the Rebel Secretary of War discuss them. At last one 
is handed to him — a formal preamble and general terms of peace, submitted by 
the Postmaster-General of the Confederacy. This Sherman rejects. Then they 
"discuss matters; talk nbout slavery; talk about everything." || The Rebels 
humor the bent of the hero they are capturing. They agree with him about 

••'The appearance, in the negotiations between the two Generals, of the Secretary of War of 
one of them, was made presentable to the public eye by General Johnston's taking his own 
chief as a subordinate on his personal staff I This was the explanation given by Sherman to 
Committee on the Conduct of the War. — Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 494. 

t Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 16. J Ibid, p. 4. || Ibid. 
YOL. I.— 31. 



482 Ohio in the Wak. 

slavery; laugh with him at the folly of raising negro troops. Sherman tells 
them he does not know what the views of the Administration are on the gen- 
eral subject of reconstruction. At last he thinks he can bring them to adopt 
his own. And so he seats himself at the table and writes them down. The 
Eebels hastily agree to them ; they are formally signed by both parties, each 
pledging himself promptly to obtain authority therefor; and Sherman makes 
haste to dispatch them to Washington; To his honor, be it remembered, even 
in this height of his delirious ambition, he does not forget that everything 
depends upon the Executive assent. But that such terms as he should agree to 
would be rejected seems now never to occur to him, so nearly has he reached 
the dangerous verge of mistaking his will for the finality ! " The moment my 
action is approved," he says, "I can spare five corps, ... to be paid and 
mustered out. ... I would like to be able to begin the march north by May 
Ist. ... I urge on the part of the President speedy action."* And, a few 
days later, remembering the importance of the slavery question, which he had 
wholly omitted to notice in his basis of peace, we find him writing to General 
Johnston, to propose that they should settle this subject also. "I am honestly 
convinced," he says, "that our simple declaration of a result will be accepted 
as good law everywhere." f 

Let us see what the action is which he thus confidently, and, as it were, by 
authority, volunteers to present to the Grovernment and the people, who have 
for four years waged a bloody war to put down an unprovoked rebellion, who 
have, not by generalship, but by the mere force of overwhelming numbers, in 
default of prevailing generalship, subdued it, and who now have a million men 
under arms, against the enemy's twenty thousand, to exact what terms they 
choose : 

'' Memorandum, or basis of agreement, made this, the 18th day of April, A. D. 1865, near 
Durham's Station, in the State of North Carolina, by and between General Joseph E. Johnston, 
commanding the Confederate army, and Major-General W. T. Sherman, commanding the army 
of the United States, both present. 

" I. The contending armies now in the field to maintain the status quo until notice is given 
by the Commanding General of any one to his opponent, and reasonable time, say forty-eight 
hours, allowed. 

" II. The Confederate armies now in existence to be disbanded and conducted to their sev- 
eral State capitals, there to deposit their arms and public property in the State arsenal ; and 
each officer and man to execute and file an agreement to cease from acts of war, and to abide the 
action of both State and Federal authorities. The number of arms and munitions of war to be 
reported to the Chief of Ordnance at Washington City, subject to the future action of the Con- 
gress of the United States, and in the meantime to be used solely to maintain peace and order 
within the borders of the States respectively. 

" III. The recognition by the Executive of the United States of the several State Govern- 
ments, on their ofiicers and Legislatures taking the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the 
United States ; and where conflicting State Governments have resulted from the war, the legit- 
imacy of all shall be submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. 

" IV. The re-establishment of all Federal courts in the several States, with powers as defined 
by the Constitution and laws of Congress. 

" V. The people and inhabitants of all States to be guaranteed, so far as the Executive can, 

* Letter to Grant and Halleck. — Sherman and his Campaigns, pp. 398, 399. f Ibid, p. 429. 



William T. Sherman. 483 

their political rights and franchise, as well as their riglits of person and property, as defined by 
the Constitution of the United States and of the States respectively. 

"VI. The executive authority or Government of the United States not to disturb any of the 
people by reason of the late war, so long as they live in peace and quiet, and abstain from acta 
of armed hostility, and obey the laws in existence at the place of their residence. 

" VII. In general terms, it is announced that the war is to cease ; a general amnesty, so far 
as the Executive of the United States can command, on condition of the disbandment of the 
Confederate armies, the distribution of arms, and the resumption of peaceful pursuits by officers 
and men hitherto composing said armies. 

" Not being fully empowered by our respective principals to fulfill these terms, we individ- 
ually and officially pledge ourselves to promptlv obtain authority, and will endeavor to carry out 
the above programme." 

To this hour we read these terms with fresh amazement. Every member 
of the Cabinet instantly disapproved them. General Grant heartily concurred 
in this action. President Johnson, fresh in the chair which the mysterious 
assassination had made vacant for him, was more emphatic than any of his sub- 
ordinates. This dispatch, recently written by the hand of the martyred Pres- 
ident himself, was brought forwai-d by the Secretary of War: 

" Washington, March 3, 1865—12:30 P. M. 
' Lieutenant- General Grant : 

" The President directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no conference with 
General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army, or some minor and purely 
military matters. He instructs me to say you are not to decide or confer upon any political ques- 
tions. Such questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no mil- 
itary conference or conditions. Meantime vou are to press to the utmost your military advan- 
tages. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War." 

These words seemed to rise from the fresh grave of the last victim of the 
rebellion. They were unanimously adopted as the fit response to General Sher- 
man. In announcing to the public the action of the Cabinet, Mr. Stanton 
appended a lucid condensation of the more striking and obvious objections to 
the extraordinary ''basis of peace:" 

" First. — It was an exercise of authority not vested in General Sherman, and on its face 
shows that both he and Johnston knew that General Sherman had no authority to enter into any 
such arrangement. 

"Second. — It was an acknowledgment of the Rebel Government. 

"Third. — It is understood to re-establish Rebel State Governments that had been over- 
thrown at the sacrifice of many thousands of loyal lives and immense treasure, and placed arms 
and munitions of war in the hands of Rebels, at their respective capitals, which might be used 
as soon as the armies of the United States were disbanded, and used to conquer and subdue 
loyal States. 

'' Fourth. — By the restoration of the Rebel authority in their respective States they would 
be enabled to re-establish slavery. 

" Fifth. — It might furnish a ground of responsibility, by the Federal Government, to pay 
the Rebel debt, and certainly subjects loyal citizens of the Rebel States to debts contracted by 
Rebels in the name of the States. 

" Sixth. — It put in dispute the existence of loyal State Governments and the new State of 
West Virginia, which had been recognized by every department of the United States Govern- 
tnent. 

"Seventh. — It practically abolished the confiscation laws, and relieved Rebels of evei7 
degree who had slaughtered our people from all- pains and penalties for their crimes. 



484 Ohio in the Wak. 

"Eighth. — It gave terms that had been deliberately, repeatedly, and solemnly rejected by 
President Lincoln, and better terms than the Eebels had ever asked in their most prosperous 
condition. 

" Ninth. — It formed no basis of true and lasting peace, but relieved the Kebels from the 
pressure of our victories, and left them in condition to renew their effort to overthrow the United 
States Government, and subdue the loyal States, whenever their strength was recruited and any 
opportunity should offer."* 

The publicitj'- thus given to General Sherman's effort at diplomacy was 
understood to originate in the fear with which his strange effort had inspired 
the Government as to his future course. The times were revolutionary ; the 
President had just been assassinated ; ramifications of the plot were suspected ; 
the complicity of the Eebel leaders was openly proclaimed. It was but one 
step further to suspicion of ambitious or disloyal designs on the part of Gen- 
eral Sherman ; but such designs could only succeed by secrecy. The exposure 
at first simply amazed the Nation. At the capital, men went to Cabinet 
officers in alarm for explanations. " I have no patience to talk about the dis- 
graceful subject," said one ; " if I had my way he should be cashiered." And 
meanwhile, in alarm lest Sherman might make trouble in the army, on learning 
of the disapproval of his treaty, General Grant was hastily dispatched to 
Ealeigh "to direct future operations against Johnston's army;" General Hal- 
leck was instructed to push forward a column from Eichmond, in the fear that, 
under Sherman's management, his troops might not obey the new orders; and 
similar instructions were transmitted to Generals Thomas and "Wilson. As all 
these facts came to the knowledge of the public, the first amazement deepened 
into alarm and anger. Some did not hesitate to denounce Sherman as a traitor. 
Many expressed the greatest apprehension as to his ambitious personal projects. 
The indignation against him was almost universal. In the early part of his 
career he had been simply unpopular. He was now fast becoming odious. 

But the people were as unjust now in their wholesale censure as recently 
in their wholesale praise. Sincere patriotism (coupled indeed with and obscured 
by his vanity, his excitement, and his ambition for fresh laurels) had led Gen- 

■■■■ That tlie reader may see not only General Sherman's original position, but his defense of it 
against Mr. Stanton's reasoning, I copy the following from General Sherman's official report of 
Johnston's surrender. It immediately follows his statement of his treaty with Johnston : " The 
President's (Lincoln's) message of 1864; his amnesty proclamation ; General Grant's terms to 
General Lee, substantially extending the benefit of that proclamation to all officers above the 
rank of Colonel ; the invitation to the Virginia Legislature to reassemble in Eichmond by Gen- 
eral Weitzel, with the supposed approval of Mr. Lincoln and General Grant, then on the spot ; 
a firm belief that I had been fighting to re-establish the Constitution of the United States ; and 
last, but not least, the general and univeral desire to close a war any longer without organized 
resistance, were the leading facts that induced me to pen the memorandum of April 15th, signed 
by myself and General Johnston. It was designed to be, and so expressed on its face, as a mere 
basis for reference to the President of the United States, and Constitutional Commander-in- 
Chief, to enable him, if he chose, at one blow, to dissipate the military power of the Confed- 
eracy, which had threatened the National safety for years. It admitted of modification, altera- 
tion, and change. It had no appearance of an ultimatum, and by no false reasoning can it be 
construed into a usurpation of power on my part. I have my opinion on the questions involved, 
and will stand by the memorandum." 



William T. Shekman. 485 

eral Sherman to his great folly.* He had persuaded himself that, unless such 
concessions to the Eebels were made, they would break up their remaining forces 
into guerrilla bands and devastate the country for 3'ears to come. Events have 
proved his judgment utterly worthless ; but this furnishes no ground for 
impugning his fidelity to his oath and to his soldierly honor. His dispositions 
for pushing Johnston to extremities were perfect. The moment his peace 
arrangement was disapproved he was able to move irresistibly. He betrayed 
all the petulance of disappointed vanity at his great miscarriage, but not one 
symptom of insubordination. Johnston immediately surrendered. Sherman 
hastened to put his army in condition for muster out; hurried down to Savan- 
nah to make some final dispositions in that part of his captured department, 
and finally turned toward Washington to participate in the " Grand Eeview." 
Then, for the first time, coming here upon one evidence of it and tlien upon 
another, he began to comprehend the extent to which he had displeased the 
Government and the people, and to see to what suspicions he had been sub- 
jected. The thought inflamed and maddened him. All his just pride as a sol- 
dier was aroused ; all the morbid vanity that had grown with his growth was 
outraged. He turned from Mr. Stanton's condensation of the blunders in his 
treaty to the less guarded comments of the public press ; from Halleck's orders 
for Sheridan and Meade to push forward against Johnston, regardless of any 
orders but Grant's, to his recommendation for instructing Thomas, Stoneman, 
and Wilson not to obey Sherman's commands. Each seemed to his excited 
vision a fresh insult. Whichever way he turned he was stung again into new 
fury. In his frantic rage he flew to letters and reports to give it vent. He 
. wrote to General Grant, denouncing Mr. Stanton's publication concerning his 
truce, and demanding the publication of his incoherent reply — which, on the 
contrary. Grant prudently suppressed. He plunged into the subject at great 
length in his official report of the surrender, which reads like the disjointed 
speech of a baffled lawyer, enraged at finding that he can not bully the court 
into agreeing with him. Instead of reporting he argued, complained, sneered, 
threatened. That he had not been rebuked for his Savannah letter to a private 
person, giving his individual notions of reconstruction, he adduced as proof 
that he was warranted in treating for " peace from the Potomac to the Eio 
Grande." That his truce had been published he considered proof that it would 
not be safe for him to tell the Secretary of War what measures he had or had 
not taken for the capture of Jeff. Davis ! That his superior should choose to 
give instructions to officers whom he had once directed to receive their instruc- 
tions from General Sherman, he described as " the Secretary of War's taking 
it upon himself to order my subordinate Generals to disobey me ! " But Gen- 
eral Halleck's performance was "still more dangerous and offensive" than that 
of the Secretary of War ! He (Halleck) should have gone himself when he 
sent columns to push against Johnston, "for he knew I was bound in honor to 
defend and maintain my own truce, even at the cost of many lives!" 

■■■ "I admit my folly in embracing, in a military convention, any civil matter." — Sherman 
tj Stanton, 25th April, 1865 : Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 506. 



486 Ohio in the War. 

All previous charges of insubordination against Sherman had been ground- 
less ; but matter like this in official reports, to be finally submitted to his chief, 
the verv Secretary of War whom he abused, was monstrous. The last threat 
was too much even for the friendship and stolid calm of Grant, who directed 
Sherman's attention to be called to it, with the notification that in a case like 
that of which complaint was made, where independent Generals acted against 
a common foe, each must be the judge of his own duty. Sherman replied, hotly 
ai'guing the point, and maintaining that had Halleck attacked Johnston, it 
would have been his duty to turn against his flag, by uniting with Johnston to- 
repulse Halleck ! 

In such temper he entered Washington. His testimony before the Com- 
mittee on the Conduct of the War was less violent, but its tone was the same ; 
and its special pleading and disingenuous misrepresentation are so glaring that 
we may well blush to find such matter on record from our most brilliant 
General. A single example must suffice. Under all the solemnities of his oath 
he held out to the committee that his object in agreeing upon the treaty had 
been merely to throw out some glittering generalities, which would at once 
delay Johnston and draw out fi'om his own Government, for his guidance, its 
wishes and intentions. To such inconsequential proportions had shrunk this 
great basis of peace for a continent, the instant adoption of which he practically 
assumed when he forwarded it, in his accompanying letter, and indeed pledged 
his word, in the document itself, to procure ! 

But the mercurial people had suffered their anger to die out before Sher- 
man had discovered its existence. With them, in that great pentecostal out- 
pouring of joy, all was well that ended well. Johnston had surrendered, the 
whole insurrection had gone down, Sherman's army had done its duty without 
insubordination, the new President was abundantly bloodthirsty in his talk 
against traitors — it was all ending well. And so they abandoned themselves to 
the enjoyment of the grand review. As Sherman rode slowl}^ up the avenue, 
at the head of his troops, he was amazed to find himself receiving the most 
enthusiastic of welcomes. He reached the stand where the President and Cab- 
inet were stationed. All rose to greet and congratulate him. He shook hands' 
cordially with the President, with Dennison, Speed, and Harlan, of the Cab- 
inet. His own immediate superior, the Secretary of War, approached, smiling 
and holding out his hand. General Sherman refused to touch it, and, without 
sign of recognition, turned his back ! 

Even this, after a time, the people forgave. With peace came a series of 
ovations to the Generals. Wherever Sherman appeared men ceased to talk of 
his vagaries, and remembered only the proud roll of his achievements. Sere- 
nades, dinners, receptions, were showered upon him. An elegant residence in 
St. Louis was presented him. Grant heading the subscription list for that pur- 
pose, and a long list of his civic admirers following with generous contributions.* 

* When a similar testimonial was tendered to Geo. H. Thomas, the best type of Soldier the 
war produced, he declined it, on the ground that to accept it would be to seem to say that the 
Country had not already sufficiently rewarded him for his services ; and that, if the generosity 



William T. Sherman. 487 

His elastic temper rose again to the highest pitch of nervous exaltation. He 
plunged into the speech-making as he might into a campaign ; told stories, 
recalled reminiscences, recited to curious listeners the story of his deeds, o-ave 
graphic accounts of the origin of campaigns and the strategy of the war. Men 
once more talked of him for the Presidency ; by common consent he was 
adjudged to share the honors of the war with Grant; and without question or 
rivalry he succeeded to the vacant Lieutenant-Generalship on the occasion of 
Grant's final promotion. 

General Sherman was assigned to the frontier in the new arrangement of 
military districts. For a time he had little to do — so little that he was sent out 
with the United States Minister to Mexico on a vague mission to Juarez, which 
made much noise at the starting, and came to an untimel}- end, accomplishing 
nothing. Pi-esently Indian difficulties broke out. General Sherman was not 
slow to repeat the opinions of his boyhood, as expressed when a Second-Lieu- 
tenant in the Seminole war. Now, as then, his plan for keeping the Indians 
quiet was, in brief, to exterminate them.* But, as has been frequently observed 
throughout his career, his practice was not so bloody as his talk. 

Perhaps the briefest expression of General Sherman's professional char- 
acter may be found in the reversal of a well-known apothegm by Kinglake. 
He is too warlike to be military. Yet, like most applications of such sayings, 
this is only partially just. He is indeed warlike by nature, and his ardor often 
carries him beyond mere military rules — sometimes to evil, as at Kenesaw, 
sometimes to great glory, as in the march to the sea. Yet in many things he is 
devoted to the sevei-est military methods. In moving, supplying, and maneuver- 
ing great armies, — undertakings in which rigid adherence to method is vital — 
he is without a rival or an equal. In the whole branch of the logistics of war he 
is the foremost General of the Country, and worthy to be named beside the 
foremost of the Century. 

As a strategist he has displayed inferior but still brilliant powers. He can 
not here be declared without a rival. He is indeed to be named after one or 
two Generals who have achieved a much smaller measure of success. But the 
single campaign in which he was enabled to make a worthy display of his 
strategy against a worthy antagonist, will long be studied as a hapj)y exemplifi- 
cation of the art of war. In the campaigns through Georgia and the Carolinas, 
he was unworthily opposed, and his superiority of force was for the most part 
overwhelming ; but he still carried the same skill into the management of his 

and gratitude of the people to their defenders needed an outlet, it could be better found amonc 
the private soldiers, or the families whom their death had left desolate, rather than among Gen- 
erals already abundantly rewarded in money, place, power, and fame. 

* Letter to General Grant, December, 1866. "We must act with vindictive earnestness 
against the Sioux, even to their extermination — men, women, and children. Nothing else will 
reach the root of the case." Before this he had proposed to take possession of a large part of 
the Indian territory, restricting certain tribes within certain limits, while " any Indians found 
outside these limits, without a written pass from a military officer, should be dealt with sum- 
marilv." 



488 Ohio in the Wak. 

columns, and drew an impenetrable veil of mystery over his movements. His 
topographical knowledge was wonderful; and it is to be observed that he never 
seemed burdened with the manifold details which he accumulated, but rising 
above them, took in their import with a coup d'osil as comprehensive as it was 
minute. 

In his plans there was often a happy mingling of audacity with system ; of 
defiance of military methods in the conception with a skillful use of them in 
the execution. It was unmilitary, as he himself said, to turn his back on Hood 
and set out for Savannah; but there was no unmilitary looseness in the order 
of march, or the handling of the cavalry. It was audacious to project his army 
into the heart of Georgia, along a thread of railroad that for hundi*eds of miles 
was vulnerable at almost every point ; but there was no unmilitary audacity in 
the care which established secondary depots along the route, or in the system 
which pervaded the whole railroad management and made it a marvel forever. 
Into all these details too he personally entered. He turned from a study of 
Joseph E. Johnston's latest move to specify the kinds of return -freight the 
railroad might carry; from the problem of what to do with Atlanta after he 
got it, to the status of news agents, and the issue of a decree that the news- 
papers might be transported but not the newsboys.* Through such minute 
matters his wondex-ful energy carried him ; and when he turned to the larger 
problems before him, not one trace of fatigue from the labor or confusion from 
the details blurred the clearness of vision which he brought to the determina- 
tion of Hood's purposes, or to the estimate of the difficulties between him and 
Savannah. 

There was an excess of unconscious egotism in his beginning a long letter 
to Grant about his plans with the phrase : "I still have some thoughts in my 
busy brain that should be confided to you."f But it expressed the embodied 
energy and force of the man. His brain was a husy one — always seeking 
something new, always revolving a thousand chances that might never occur, 
always roving over the whole field that he filled, and into many an obscure 
quarter besides. Physically and mentally he was the most uniformly restless 
man in the army. 

Out of this, combined with the intense vanity that had grown with his 
growth till his mind became absolutely diseased with it, sprang many of those 
hasty opinions — dashed off on the spur of the moment, and expressed with his 
usual looseness of language and habit of exaggerating for the sake of empha- 
sis — to which, in their literal meanings it would be so hard to hold him. No 
man at the close of the war was probably more opposed at heart to the jjolicy 
of confiscation ; but, in the heat of an argument with the people of Hunts- 
ville, in the first days of 1864, he declared himself in favor of confiscation if the 
war should last another year. J No man probably knew better than he how 

* Eep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 153. 
t Bep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 259. 

t Sherman and His Campaigns, p. 156. "Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we 
can take them, and rightfully too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives." 



I 



I 



William T. 8heeman. 489 

hollow was the shell of the Confederacy, and how neai- its collapse ; but in the 
heat of an argument with the Secretary of War against negro recruiting he 
declared, late in the fall of 1864, that the war was but fairly begun.* No man 
was more committed to the theory of overwhelmingly large armies, and for 
himself he demanded at least a hundred thousand on starting for Atlanta; but 
in arguing with Halleck against a concentration with Grant, he declared that 
no General could handle more than sixty thousand men in battle. f 

Truth is manj'-sided ; but so vehement was the intensity of this man's 
nature that he was, in fact, incapable of seeing more than the one side. He 
would have fought to the last gasp on the silver side of the shield, before admit- 
ting that by possibility there might Idc another side that was golden. He could 
see very clearly that ignorant plantation negroes were not so good recruits as 
the average product of New England common schools. There were other sides 
to the question of negro recruiting, but to these he resolutely shut his eyes — 
rather, these he was constitutionally incapable of taking in with his piercing- 
but contracted vision — and he fought negi-o recruiting to the end. 

He was liable, too, to amazing twists of logic in defense of j^ositions to 
which he had once committed himself. Before the Committee on the Conduct 
of the "War he solemnly swore to his knowledge that if President Lincoln had 
lived Jie would have sanctioned the treaty with Johnston.| Yet when he took 
this oath he had seen Mr. Lincoln's dispatch to Grant peremptorily forbidding 
him to meddle in civil affairs. He considered himself fully authorized by the 
President to undertake civil negotiations. || Yet when he was asked to produce 
his authority, the most tangible thing he could show was this: "I feel great 
interest in the subjects of your dispatch mentioning corn and sorghum, and 
contemi^late a visit to you. — A. Lincoln." And the only feature in the dispatch 
to which this cautious and non-committal reply was sent, that referred to civil 
negotiations was as follows : " Governor Brown has disbanded his militia to 
gather the corn and sorghum of the State. I have reason to believe that he and 
Stephens want to visit me, and I have sent them a hearty invitation. "§ Such, 
on the oath of General Sherman, was complete authority for making peace with 
General Johnston and the Eebel Secretary of War, " from the Potomac to the 
Rio Grande." JSTay, it was even more. It was a ground for the arraignment 
of the new administration because of the neglect to explain its civil policy to 
him. " It is not fair," he exclaimed, "to withhold plans and policy from me (if 
any there be) and expect me to guess at them."** 

* Kep. Com. Con. War. Series 1867, Vol. I, p. 240. " Those who liold the swords and mus- 
kets at the end of this war (which is but fairly begun) will have something to .say." Letter from 
Gaylesville, Alabama, 25th October, 1864. 

t Ibid, p. 290. " I don't believe that any one General can handle over sixty thousand men 
in battle." 

jEep, Com. Con. War. Series of 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 6. "Had President Lincoln lived I 
know he would have sustained me." 

II Ibid, p. 15. "Q. By Mr. Loan. In your examination by the chair, you stated that you were 
acting in pursuance of intructions from Mr. Lincoln, derived from his letters and telegrams at 
different times? A. Yes, sir." § Sherman and His Campaigns, p. 512. 

' Eep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 19. 



490 Ohio in the Wak. 

Surpassing Grant in almost all the more brilliant intellectual qualities, he 
was still inferior to him in the capacity for judging men. Yet even here he 
was rarely deceived a second time. He was suspicious rather than penetrating 
in his personal estimates. Let his suspicions be once aroused, and there was an 
end to an}^ danger of his being overreached. Sometimes he was unjust to 
officers — particularly to those against whom he might happen to have a dislike. 
But there is no doubt that he strove with himself to be just, and that to the 
most he was also generous. To his soldiers he w^as uniformly kind. Indeed, 
he sought popularity with them at any cost — sacrificed discipline for it, gave 
extravagant praises for it, tolerated pillage for it. As to pojDularity with the 
public he professed himself reckless. In reality he was very fond of it, and 
stung and soured whenever he failed to secure it. 

But his keen perceptions taught him that it was good standing with his 
superiors that it behooved him most to cultivate. If he maintained himself with 
these, the applause of the crowd would come. To these, therefore, he paid 
assiduous court. He was as diplomatic and as skillful as a veteran office- 
hunter in keeping on the good side of the powers that be. He ingratiated 
himself with Grant at Pittsburg Landing, and defended his course. When 
Halleck reversed the policy, he ingratiated himself with him and defended hi& 
course. When Grant was restored to power, he was in as high favor as ever. 
When his savage complaints about the promotion of Osterhaus and Hovey, and 
his declaration that it looked as if the army had better change front on Wash- 
ington, provoked a gentle rebuke from Mr. Lincoln, he hastened to apologize. 
He did not suppose that his dispatch would go outside of the War Department. 
He begged not to be regarded as fault-finding, declared that he had been well 
sustained in every respect, assured the President of his admiration for the 
marked skill displayed in his military appointments.* When his declaration 
that he would not permit the enforcement of the negro recruiting law in his 
commandf provoked another gentle admonition, he hastened to telegraph to the 
President his retraction : "I have the highest veneration for the law, and will 
respect it always. "| When Grant became Lieutenant-General he told him he 
was the legitimate successor of Washington ;|| and at a later period of the inde- 
cisive opei'ations against Richmond, as if resolved to flatter to the top of hi& 
bent, declared : " Lee has lost in one day the reputation of three years ; and you 
have established a reputation that would make Wellington jump out of his 
coffin. "§ 

We have spoken of his vanity. Toward the close it was skillfully fed by 
adroit staff officers, who learned to begin the orders, " The General-in-Chief 
directs." ** Its culmination was reached when, at the close of his treaty 
with Johnston, his conviction of his own importance had become so absolute 

* Kep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 143. 

t Ibid, p 123. t Ibid, p. 131, || Ibid, p. 15. gibid, p. 378. This, it is to be noted, was not 
said about any g;reat success of Grant's, but about the beginning of those tedious and coatly 
movements by the left that kept the army almost a year before Petersburg. 

**Ibid, Georgia and Carolina campaigns, passim.. 



William T. Sheeman. 491 

that he believed " our simple declaration of a result will be accepted as good law 
everywhere."* The question concerning which he thus imagined that the 
simple declaration of two Major-Generals of dissolving armies would prove a 
settlement and a finality, was the question of American Slavery. 

Extreme in all things, he asserted the military power to the denial of civil 
rights; f he threatened confiscation if the war lasted through 1864, and the 
lives of the Eebels if it extended into 1865 ;| he declared that Sanitary and 
Christian Commissions were enough to eradicate all trace of Christianity ; |j 
he attacked the (a-overnors of States, for wanting to rob the bread from his sol- 
diers' mouths and for displaying heartless cruelty, when they sought to send 
down their agents with supplies for the wounded ;§ he pronounced the blood- 
less occupation of Corinth, when Beauregard got ready to leave it, after the two 
months of siege approaches, " a victory as brilliant and important as any 
recorded in history;" he demanded two hundred thousand men to face Buckner's 
twelve thousand at Bowling Green ;** he spoke of the brother to whom he 

owed promotion as " one of the d d Abolitionists who have been getting up 

this war."ff Reckless of money where economy stood in his way, he told 
Dahlgren that ships were made to be lost -jXX and Wheeler, that whatever cotton 
the Rebel army spared from the torch his own would burn.|||| Less excusa- 
bly reckless in his greed for destruction, he told Gillmore that he would not 
hesitate to burn Savannah, or Charleston, or Wilmington, if the gai-risons were 
needed ;§§ he gloated over the prospects for further ravages, and told Tei-ry 
that if Sheridan only reached him he would make all North Carolina howl — 
would make him a deed of gift of every horse in the State, and let him settle 
at the day of judgment.*** 

Inconsistent as these extravagancies necessarily made him, he was still 
always right in his own eyes. He was right when he depreciated defensive 
works before Pittsburg Landing. He was right when he eulogized Halleck's 
refusal to move without defensive works every half mile of his advance upon 
Corinth. He was right when he assaulted Kenesaw. He was right when he 
paused before "the old style of parapets," which he "didn't like to assault," at 
Bentonville. He was right when he pronounced Hooker unfit for a command of 
scarcely twenty-five thousandftf — Hooker, of whom Horace Walpole's saying 
might well be repeated, that nothing but such parts could buo}" up such a char- 
acter, and that nothing but such a character could drag down such parts. He 
was right when he eulogized and advanced Frank Blair. He was right when 
he declared that war was a cruelty which could not be refined. He was right 
when he threatened to fight against his flag rather than suffer the violation of 
one of its refinements. He was right when he burnt valuable arsenals which 
he might have preserved, declaring that " the United States should never again 

* Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 429. 

T Ibid, p. 233. Letter of instructions to General Burbridge in Kentucky. 

t Sherman and his Campaigns. || Rep. Com. Con. War, ubi supra, p. 123. 

? Ibid, p. 146. *■■■ See note ante, p. 428. tt See note ante, p. 438. tt Ibid, p. 309. 

II II Ibid, p. 323. ?§Ibid, p. 352. «»*Ibid, p. 354. ttt Ibid, p. 171. 



492 Ohio in the Wae. 

confide such valuable propertj^ to a people who have betraj^ed a trust."* He 
was right when he sought to confer upon the people, who had betrayed a trust 
through the confines of every Eebel State, the privilege of retaining all their 
arms, artillery, and munitions of war. 

He said nothing about slavery in his treaty with Johnston, because the 
question was settled, and he had no control over it.f He proposed to Johnston 
that they should unite in settling the slavery question by a simple declaration 
which would be accepted as good law everywhere.! He held everything, save 
the maintenance of the Union, as beneath a soldier's notice, and enjoined his 
subordinates to leave details to the lawyers.]] He was presently negotiating on 
such details himself — striving to settle questions of the legality of new State 
Governments, of political rights, of amnesty, of rights of person and property. 
He scorned the press, and asked it to publish his letters and particularize his 
whereabouts ; he loathed flattery, and paid the most assiduous court to whoever 
was in power ; he denied responsibility to the public, and rushed into explana- 
tions to the public of his grievances against Secretary Stanton, and into dis- 
cussions before the public of the management of such battles as Pittsburg 
Landing. § 

Like Eosecrans, he was an intellectual absolutist. In his logical processes 
there was no stopping- place between absolute disbelief or absolute conviction. 
By consequence he was sure to be either vehemently right or vehemently 
wrong — in any event, vehement in all things. If he agreed with the Grovern- 
ment, well. If he disagreed with it, the Government was wrong ! That this 
dangerous quality did not lead to irreparable mischief was due partly to for- 
tunate circumstances, but largely also to that instinctive loyalty that led the 
pro-slavery principal of the Louisiana Military Institute to abandon his conge- 
nial position rather than " raise a hand against the Union of these States." 

He was himself a signal example of the little purpose to which a mere 
West Point education may serve one in the trials of real war. He professed 
himself a soldier; stood published to the world as one by his criticisms and as- 
sumptions; and yet in 1862 the Army of the Tennessee held no General, who, 
joined to equal opportunities, rawness in war equal to his own. He was guilty 
of conduct of which his orderly sergeants, four years later, would have been 
ashamed. But he was as prompt to learn from his mistakes as he was to deny 
that he had made mistakes. He learned indeed with a rapidity that showed 
not only the extent of his theoretical knowledge, but his remarkable natural 
capacity for war. He made many mistakes after Pittsburg Landing, but he 
rarely repeated old ones. With every campaign he learned and rose. When 
Grant, turning eastward, left him the Valley of the Mississippi for his Depart- 
ment he was equal to it. When, before Savannah, he turned northward to bear 
his part in the colossal campaign that ended the war, he was not indeed the 
safest, but beyond question the most brilliant General in the army. Incom- 

*Ibid, p. 344. tlbid. Series of 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 14. 

X Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 429. ||Rep. Com. Con. War, Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 340. 

§ As, inter alia, his vigorous pamphlet warfare with Lieutenant-Governor Ben. Stanton. 



William T. Shekman. 493 

parably more than Grant, more, perhaps, than any of the less noted Generals 
who might be named beside him, he had displayed not merely military talent 
but military genius* It would be an evil day for the Country when the talent, 
the staid common sense, and phlegm of Grant should be replaced at the head of 
the army by the erratic genius of Sherman. But where he is he rightfully 
belongs. What others might have done had Sherman's opportunities been 
theirs, it is useless to inquire. It is enough that the brilliancy he displayed, 
and the success he won, abundantly entitle him to the rank next to the first in 
the armies of his Country. 

General Sherman is above the middle height, spare, thin, and (especially in 
the field) a trifle rough in dress and appearance. His head is long, and the 
forehead capacious. In repose there is little about him to attract attention. In 
conversation he brightens up, and appears (as he has been well described) "the 
embodiment of nervous and intellectual force." He talks well — always fluently 
and often brilliantly. Unlike most of our leading Generals, he has no hesitation 
about speech-making, but he will never be mistaken for a popular orator. 

He was born a Presbyterian and educated a Roman Catholic ; and he seems 
to regard the creeds of both with impartial charity. His wife is a Eoman 
Catholic, and his children are nurtured in that faith. His political views are 
decided and very conservative. Before the war he was a pro-slavery Whig. 
During the war he committed himself to the theory of reorganization, which 
President Johnson has since adopted. He was at first very doubtful about 
emancipation ; and he never gave up his hostility to negro troops. In 1864 he 
objected to changing the status of the free negroes, and declared that he much 
preferred to keep them for some time to come in a subordinate state. f At the 
close of the war he insisted "that the United States can not make negroes vote 
in the South, anymore than they can in the North, without revolution. "| And 
to Chief- Justice Chase he wrote about the same time: "The assertion openly of 
your ideas of universal negro suffrage, as a fixed policy of our General Govern- 
ment, will produce new war, sooner or later, more bloody and destructive than 
the last."|| He believes in a strong Government and a strong standing army; 
and would rather limit than extend the suffrage. 

*" Talent," says James Kussell Lowell pithily, "is that which is in a man's power; genius is 
that in whose power a man is." North American Review, No. CCXVI. Rousseau and the 
Sentimentalists. 

tRep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 240. Letter to Secretary Stanton. 

t Sherman and his Campaigns, p. 463. 

II Ibid, p. 461. 




?k 



''*> iii'^U^' 



% wnr 



Philip H. Shkeidan. 



495 



MAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP H. SHERIDAN. 



JT ,vould seem to have been fated that Ohio should be prominent as well 
^ for the variety as for the valne of the services her sons were to render 
throughout the trials of the Great Rebellion. In the Cabinet and in 
Congress we have seen how they filled the foremost plaees. It was not less sin 
guar that in the field, almost every branch of the service should have as i^ 
acknowledged chief an Ohio General. At the head of the army stoodGralt 
w ho,n success, the absolute test in war. pronounced our greatest Soldier. Beyond 
a doubt Sherman was the most perfect master of marching and of the logistics 

wl oTV^d y. T '"' '™^ ""'• ^"■"P^*™* -'«-° ="■'- surveyi„°g th 
whole field, have placed Bosecrans at the head of on,- strategists. In Gilfmor 

To the ! T T °' "" ""'•■ """* """^ "-^ ''- *» "'^l""^ »is further Ola m 
to the laurels as Bngmeer. We have now to see how perfect is the title of 
another son of Ohio to the rank of the first of living Generals of Cavalry. 

Philip H. Sheridan was born on the 6th of March, 1831, in the villa-^e of 

Somerset, Perry County, Ohio-scarcely more than a dozen miles from the°next 

onnty sea westward, where, eleven years earlier, William Tecumseh SI, rman 

fl.st saw t e bght* Sheridan's parents were recent emigrants from County 

wittwbo r n u • ""^' """ "°' descendants of the Scotch emigrants 

w,th whom Cromwell had nndertaken to repeoplc the island, and the/were 
unshaken ,n the.r adhesion to the Roman Catholic Church, in the faith of whic" 
the.r boy was scrupulously reared. About Somerset, there had long been <.ath- 
cr,ng a Roman Catholic community, and the village "Church of St. Jostpb " 
was noted as the oldest house of public worship in the State. ^ 

The boyhood of the future General was like that of other pugnacious and 

gather from the Somerset gossips any of those "youthful foreshadowin<.s of 

was fond of horses, and the Rev. Mr. Headiey gives us a wonderful picture of 
the cavalry General that was to be, at the early age of five year.' m^unt:! 

.he 2^ ^Zl'^^L^llZT^?''!''-' ™ ^°™ '" Ma.aoh„«.,, a few .„„.h, before 
General, and it /:rfl™ed bv ."■ V'^'^T"" '"=" ■"'"'"'" '^'"''"' "''"S-P"- <>"h« 
given „; the anthoritv o g1™, t t,''"°\^'""'- ^'" ''""'•"■ '" ""> '«'- >'■'-"'". '» 
«ncerni„g,he "em * ^''""^'"' '■■"■-'f-"ho Probably has authentic informat on 



496 Ohio in the Wak. 

upon an untamed racer, barebacked and bridleless, astonishing the mischievous 
youngsters who had induced him to mount, by leaping fences, and dashing off 
at break-neck pace for a dozen miles — to be sought after the next day by the 
alarmed neighborhood, and coddled over, and much lionized.* There aro 
stories, too, about the young Irish boy who led in all the dare-devil exploits of 
his comrades, and who, in those callow days, had never heard of the excellent 
Polonios, with his grey -beard advice to beware of entrance to a quarrel. 

More authentic and characteristic is this bit of genuine history of the lad, 
for which we are indebted to the friendly pen of one of his schoolmates,f who 
insists that it must be called "Phil Sheridan's first victory:" 

"Phil used to go to school at Somerset to an Irish school teacher of the 
Irishest sort, named Patrick McNanly, who believed that the intelligence, 
morality, and happiness of scholars depended upon a liberal use of birch, and 
this deponent can verily testify that in that he was truly scientific. 

"One terribly cold morning of 1842 or 1843, two of Patrick's scholars got 
there a little ahead of time. They crawled in through the window to get 
warmed, and once in, the chief eneni}" of mankind and school-boys, as well as 
the discovery of a bucket full of ice water, tempted them to trick the teacher. 
They fastened it over the door in such a manner that the opening of the doort 

® The following is Mr. Headley's story, which may or may not be true : 

"At five years of age he was playing near his home, when some lads came along and amused! 
themselves with the wide-awake boy. A horse was feeding quietly in an adjoining lot. 

"'Phil, would you like a ride?' they said to him. 

" 'Yes, give me one.' 

"In a few moments the boy was on the animal's back. The sudden and unceremonious 
mounting of the young rider started the steed and away he ran. 

'"Whoa! whoa!' sung out the mischievous lads, but in vain. Over the fence he sprang 
and once on the highway it was a Gilpin ride. 'Phil' clung to the mane, while the sobered 
authors of the race turned pale with the apprehension of a tragical end to it, expecting to see 
him dashed to the earth and killed. But out of sight horse and rider vanished, miles soon lay 
between the two parties, when the horse suddenly turned into the shed of a tavern where its 
owner had frequently stopped in his travel. Men came out, and recognizing the horse, questioned 
the boy. One of the curious company, after securing the foaming animal, without saddle or 
bridle, and the unterrified 'Phil,' inquired: 

'"Who taught you to ride?' 

"'Nobody,' answered the boy. 

'"Did no one teach you how to .sit on a horse?' asked another. 

'"Oh yes ! Bill Seymour told me to hold on with my knees, and I did.' 

"'Wasn't you frightened?' 

"'Nary a bit; I wanted to go farther, but the horse wouldn't go.' 

"'Ain't you sore, boy?' 

'"Kinder, but I'll be better to-morrow, and then I'll ride back home.' 

" ' That boy,' said the questioner, ' has pluck enough to be an Indian hunter.' 

"The following morning 'Phil' was lame and sore, still he wanted to go home. The sur- 
prised and interested people kept the little fellow to nurse him before he undertook the return 
trip. Meanwhile, the owner of the horse, on his own account and in behalf of the family, made 
his appearance. He had learned along the way the course of the young Gilpin. He expressed 
astonishment that he was not thrown, as the horse was vicious, and had unsaddled excellent 
horsemen. This was 'Phil's' first cavalry experience." i 

t Major Lyman J. Jackson, of New Lexirgton, formerly of Eleventh Ohio Infantry. 



Philip H. Sheridan. 497 

would tilt it upon the head of an}- one entering-, and retired to watch the result 
f'rora a neighboring haymow. 

"Patrick soon came trotting along, rubbing his hands yigorously to keep 
them warm, hurriedly turned the key, and bolted in just as the bucket turned 
over his head. It is not a 'bull' to say that his Celtic blood was heated by the 
chilling douse. His situation was a bad one. There wasn't a boy to beat any- 
where about. He looked all around, inside and out, and there wasn't a soul to 
be seen. So he armed himself with a six-foot hickory twig, built on a rousing 
fire and sat down to dr}', fully determined to flog the first boy that entered. 

"An unfortunate little fellow soon came, and almost at the instant his hand 

was on the latch, Patrick seized him by the collar and shook him fiercely, 'to 

shake the truth out of him,' he said. The astonished looks and astonishing yells 

j convinced Patrick that that bo}^ knew nothing of the outrage. Setting him 

down by the fire, he again placed himself in the position of attack. 

"The next, and the next, and the next Avent through the same operation, 
and finally, when nearly all the school had been throttled and shaken into their 
seats, our two youngsters climbed down the haymow, entered the school-room, 
got their shaking, and went to work. It happened that Phil Sheridan was late 
that morning, and as each one proved his innocence, the presumption became 
the stronger against the few there were left to suspect. Finally Phil came — the 
last, and, of course, the guilty one, if every body else was innocent. 

"Just as he opened the door Patrick made a dive for him. Phil dodged and 
commenced a retreat. Patrick thought that a proof of his guilt, and pursued. 
Away went Phil up the street, and away went the teacher after him, bare- 
headed, stick in hand, the whole school bringing up the rear, all on the run. 
Phil lost a little on the home stretch, and by the time Mr. Sheridan's house was 
reached, his pursuer was too close to let him shut the gate, and on he broke into 
the back yard. There he got re-enforcements in the shape of a huge Newfound- 
land pet dog, which instantly made an attack on Patrick's flank and rear. 

"Patrick mounted the fence — so did Phil. The dog snapped at Patrick's 
heels, and he discovered it necessary to climb an apple-tree, where he found 
himself out of breath, out of patience, and very completely outflanked. 

"'Take away your divilish dog, Phil,' says he, 'or I'll bate the life of ye.' 

'"Like to see you,' says Phil, 'watch him, Eover,' and with that he got an 
old piece of carpet and laid it under the tree for the dog to watch over. 

"The dog laid down on it, and Phil mounted the fence, where he sat, con- 
templative, with his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees. ' What do 
you want to lick me for?' asked Phil. 

"•What did 3'ou throw the wather on me for?' was the answer. 

"'I didn't throw any water on you.' 

'•You did, though, bekase none of the other boys did, and I'll polish you 
to death intirely, if you don't let me doAvn.' 

"He started down, but Eover went for his foot before it was nearly in reach 
and the teacher retreated up the tree, calling loudly for Phil's fiither. The noise 
soon brought Mr. Sheridan out. The teacher up the tree, the dog growling at 
Vol. I.— 32. 



498 Ohio in the War. 

him, Phil on the fence, and the whole school around, was too funny a scene to 
be closed without explanation. 

"'What are you doing up that apple-tree, McNanly ? ' asked Mr. Sheridan. 

'"Ah, that divilish boy of yours, Misther Sheridan, will be the death of me 
yet. It's all his doin's, sir. He poored a whole bucket of wather on me this 
mornin', and whin 1 wanted to give him a dacent riprimand, he ran away, and 
for the sake of the discipline of the school, I went to catch him, and he got 
that big baste of a dog of yours afther me, and I had to climb the tree to defind 
myself 

" 'I didn't throw any water at all,' says Phil, 'all I know about it is that he 
went to whipping me this morning before I got in.' 

"The old gentleman, probably enjoying the fun, and not being very certain 
whether his boy ought to be whipped without reason, suggested to let the case] 
await further inquiry. 

"'Let him go without a floggin', Misther Sheridan? Shure it'll ruin the 
school to do that now; just luck at them, will you, how the 're laughing at me.'i 
The old gentleman commenced calling the dog ; it looked at Phil and wouldn't! 
stir. 'Take away that divilish dog or I'll bate the life out of ye's both intirely,' 
says Patrick. 

'"Better come down first,' Phil suggested; 'watch him, Eover. But I'll 
tell you what I'll do,' he added after a pause, ' if you won't whip me I'll call 
him off. He won't go if ftither calls all day — besides he sees you're imposing on 
me.' 

"Patrick argued, and protested, and threatened, but it wouldn't do — the 
terms were unconditional. The hot race and the cold water had got him into 
a terrible chill. The longer he talked in the air of a frosty January morning,i 
the colder he got, and the more hopeless his case became, especially when Phil 
intimated his intention to demand exemption from all future floggings. 

'"I'll tell you what, Phil,' said he finally, 'if you'll just call off that baste, 
I'll not bate you this time, indade I won't." 

"'Wh}' didn't you say so at first,' said Phil. 'Come away Eover.' And awav 
Rover did come; and away came the teacher almost too badly chilled to climh 
down. 

"And this was the first surrender to Sheridan. Phil says the teacher kepi 
his word in that affair, but put two floggings into every one that he afterward 
administered for new offenses." 

Through such tribulations our joll}^ lad forced his way into a fair common- 
school education. Then it was time that he should do something to help sup 
port the famil}'. He was bright enough to become more than a mere laborer 
and in those days when a village lad was thought to be fit for something bettei 
than his father's or his schoolmates' lot, the first thought would be to make i\ 
store-keeper of him. So Mr. Talbot, a small hardware dealer, came to hav« 
Philip H. Shei-idan for "clerk." He did well by It. too. The boy was active' 
intelligent, and faithful. Mr. Talbot began to take a special interest in him! 
and, by-and-by, to teach him mathematics, select works of history for him t< 



Philip H. Shekidan. 409 

read, and ciicoui*age him to improve himself. After a time an opportunity to 
do better offered, and so another storekeeper, a Mr. Henry Detton, shares with 
Mr. Talbot the honor of having had the greatest American Cavalry General for 
a store boy. 

Meantime the studies in mathematics and history were bearing fruit. Our 
young clerk began to aspire to something better than selling goods in a village 
store for a livelihood. There was quite a pressure upon General Thomas Eitchey, 
the district Congressman, for the vacant appointment to West Point. "At last," 
said the old General, "there came a letter, accompanied by no testimonials, no 
influential recommendations, or appeals from wealthy parents. It simply asked 
that the place might be given to the writer, and was signed 'Phil. Sheridan.' 
The boy needed no recommendation," continued the old man, "for I knew him 
and his father before him, and I appointed him at once." 

Sheridan was seventeen years old when, after his independent boy -fashion 
(and in a manner strikingly similar to that of his subsequent friend and chief. 
General Kosecrans), he thus turned his back on the old Somerset life and became 
an inmate of "West Point. He found another young Ohioan in his class, of whom 
the world was yet to hear something; it was the lamented James B. McPherson. 
Among the fifty other classmates were Schofield, Terrill, Sill, and Tyler, and 
the Eebel General Hood. 

His career at West Point was characteristic. He was not ranked brilliant 
ill the recitations, but he was far above mediocrity, in spite of the fact that his 
general standing was constantly kept down by "that odious column of demerits." 
The animal spirits of the boy were forever running over into trivial infractions 
of the rules. Everybody liked him; even the staid Professors, as they scored 
down the demerits, would readily have voted him "the best fellow in the class." 
But one day he went too far. One of the cadets, as he fancied, insulted him. 
Irish fashion, he proceeded to redress his own grievances. The flogging he 
administered was perfect but it was unmilitary, and it cost him just an extra 
year at West Point. And this is the reason that though he entered as cadet in 
1848, the Army Eegister marks the date of his admission to the service in 1853. 
His suspension had thrown him over into the class following the one in which 
lie should have graduated. 

At last, in his twent} -third year, he finished the West Point course and was 
assigned to the First Infantry as Brevet Second-Lieutenant. His first service 
was on the Texas frontier against the Indians. Here a promotion to a full 
Second-Lieutenancy in the Fourth Infantrj^ soon found him.* From 1853 to 

• Some of the popular biographers have another story of possible authenticity concerning 
this promotion. Here is one version of it: 

"Lieutenant Sheridan had ere long to try his prowess with the Apache warriors. One day 
he was outside the fort with two others, when a band of tliose savages suddenly sprang upon 
them. The chief, not dreaming of resistance from three men amid several times their number, 
leaped from his 'fiery mustang' to seize his prisoners. In an instant Sheridan was on the back 
of the wild charger and galloping away to Fort Duncan. He summoned the troops to arms, 
seized his pistols without dismounting, and hastened back like a flying warrior to the aid of the 
two companions who were heroically fighting for life. Dashing up to the enraged chief he levelled 



500 Ohio in the Wak. 

1861 he continued on the frontier, first in Texas, then in Oregon, with only a 
brief interval of recruiting duty in New York. 

In 1855 he commanded the escort for Lieutenant Williamson's exploring ex- 
jjedition through Oregon, for a branch of the Pacific Railroad. In 1856 we find 
him in a fight with the Yokimas near Fort Yancouver, behaving so gallantly 
as to elicit mention in general orders. In 1857 he had command in the Yokima 
reservation, and Lieutenant-G-enei"al Scott thought his conduct in keeping this 
turbulent tribe in order worthy of special mention. Next he establishes a new 
military post at Yamhill, and concludes an advantageous treaty with the Co- 
quillos. And so in reckless Indian fighting, in prudent etforts to preserve the 
peace as long as the Indians would let him, in successful efforts to master the 
Indian dialects, in sport and adventure and all the variety of hardy frontier life,- 
the years went by. The young Somerset boy, risen to be a First-Lieutenant, 
was become an experienced backwoodsman and bushwhacker; he was now ta 
enter upon another part of his varied preparation for the great career he was 
3^et to run. 

A Captain's commission in the Thirteenth Infantry reached him, and with 
it news of the impending war. Seated there among the Orego« Indians at his 
post of Yamhill, he had no difficulty in perceiving his duty, and his combative 
nature longed for the time when the angry words of the secession leaders 
might give way to something more substantial. "If they will fight us," he wrote 
to a friend in "the States," "let them know we accept the challenge." Ee 
added, with a modest ambition that now may well provoke a smile : " Who 
knows? Perhaps I may have a chance to earn a major's commission." 

At last the uneasy waiting in Oregon came to an end, and Sheridan's chance 
to "try for a major's commission" in the great civil war came to him. He was* 
ordered to report at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. He arrived in the midst of 
the confusion that followed the removal of Fremont from command. Nothing 
could be a more droll illustration of the frequent governmental faculty for get- 
ing the wrong men in the right places than the assignment that awaited the 
young Indian fighter. He was made president of a board to audit claims under 
the Fremont administration. He did the work satisfactorily however; and pre- 

a pistol at his head — 'crack!' went the little weapon, and, with a mad leap into the air, the In- 
dian fell dead at the feet of the Lieutenant's horse. The soldiers that followed him then came 
up, and the just now exulting band was ridden down and most of the number killed. The valiant 
deed, however, won no commendation from the commandant of the fort, who seemed to have a 
Southern prejudice against the Western boy. The irritated, jealous officer charged his Lieutenant 
with breach of discipline because he was away from his command. That commander was a 
Rebel general in the late civil war. 

" For two years Sheridan was thus employed in the defense of the Southern frontier ; at one 
time leading a company of soldiers to a threatened settlement, and at another cautiously making 
explorations, not knowing where the stealthy savage would rise from ambush, or fire his weapon 
from its unknown seclusion. But the unfortunate displeasure of his superior officer, and the col- 
lisions attending, induced Sheridan to seek a different post of duty. Accordingh' the War De- 
partment, in the spring of 1855, created him a full Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry, tlien in , 
Oregon." ^ 



Philip H. Sheridan. 501 

sently the Govei'nment, fully satisfied now that here was a good man for routine 
and clerical duties, made him Quartermaster and Commissary for Curtis, at the 
outset of the Pea Ridge campaign. 

All this seemed rapid promotion to Captain Sheridan, and he went to work 
hearlily and earnestly to make a Quartermaster of himself. He was sixty-fourth 
Captain on the list — so one of the staff officers tells of his reasoning in those 
days — and with the chances of war in his favor, it needn't be a very.great while 
before he might hope to be a Major! With such modest aspirations he worked 
away at the wagon-trains ; cut down regimental transportation, gave fewer 
wagons for camp furniture and more for hard bread and fixed ammunition, 
established secondary depote for supplies, and with all his labor found that he 
had not fully estimated the wants of the army.* Some orders from General 

■•■■Here is some staff-officer's gossip about Sheridan during this portion of his opening career: 

"A modest, quiet little man was our Quartermaster; yet nobody could deny the vitalizing 
■energy and masterly force of his presence when he had occasion to exert himself. Neat in per- 
son, courteous in demeanor, exact in the transaction of business, and most accurate in all matters 
appertaining to the regulations, orders, and general military customs, it was no wonder that our 
acting Chief Quartermaster should have been universally liked. Especially was he in favor 
socially, for it soon became known that he was, off duty, a most genial companion, answering 
the most mythical requirement of that vaguest of comprehensive terms — ' a good fellow.' 

"The enlisted men on duty at head-quarters, or in his own bureau, remember him kindly. 
Not a clerk or orderly but treasures some act of kindness done by Captain Sheridan. Never for- 
getting, or allowing others to forget, the respect due to him and his position, he was yet the most 
approachable officer at head-quarters. His knowledge of the regulations and customs of the 
army, and of all professional minutife, were ever at the disposal of any proper inquirer. Private 
soldiers are seldom allowed to carry away as pleasant and kindly associations of a superior as 
those with which Captain Sheridan endowed us. When the army was ready to move he gave 
his personal attention in seeing that all attached to head-quarters were properly equipped for 
service in the field, issuing the necessary stores, animals, etc., without difficulty or discussion. 
Many a man received information about the preparation of papers and other matters which has 
since been of invaluable assistance. Nor was his kindness confined to subordinates alone. It is 
«asy for some men to be genial and kind to those under them, while it seems impossible to behave 
with the proper courtesy due to those whose position entitles them to consideration as gentlemen. 
We have served with a Major-General since then who to his soldiers was always forbearing, 
kindly, and humane, while to his officers, especially those on the staff", he was almost invariably 
rude, rough, blunt, and inconsiderate. This could not be said of Sheridan. He had that proper 
pride of military life which not alone demands, but accords to all, the courtesy due among gentle- 
men. It is fair to say that no man has risen more rapidly with less jealousy, if the feelings en- 
tertained by his old associates of the army of the South-west are any criterion. 

"Sheridan's modesty amounted to bashfulness, especially in the presence of the gentler sex. 
His life having been passed on the frontier among Indians, or at some solitary post, it was not at 
all surprising that our Quartermaster should hesitate when urged to go where ladies might be 
expected. If by chance he found himself in such a. gathering he was sure to shrink into an 
obscure corner and keep silent. We remember an amusing incident of this bashfulness. 

"He became attracted toward a young lady at Springfield, where he was engaged in forward- 
ing supplies to the army. Desirous of showing her some attention, he was altogether too modest 
to venture on such a step. Finally he hit upon an expedient. He had a gay young clerk, Eddy, 
in his office, whom he induced to take the young lady out riding, while he (Sheridan) furnished 
the carriage and horses. The modest little Captain could often be seen looking with pleasure on 
this arrangement. Courting by proxy seemed to please him much (as it certainly was less em- 
barrassing) as if it had been done by himself. There are but few men whose modesty would carry 
them so far. What the result was we never learnt. We think it most probable Eddy carried oil 
the prize." 



502 Ohio in the War. 

Curtis about this time seemed to him inconsistent with the West Point system ' 
of managing quartermaster's matters, and he said so officially with considerable 
freedom of utterance. The matter was passed over for a few days, but as soon 
as Pea Eidge was fought General Curtis found time to attend to smaller affairs. 
The first was to dispense with the further services of his Quartermaster, and 
send him back to St. Louis in arrest. 

But just then educated officers were too rare in Missouri to be long kept- 
out of service on punctilios. Presently the affair with Curtis was adjusted, and 
then the Grovernment had some fresh work for this young man of routine and 
business. It sent him over into Wisconsin to buy horses! The weeping philos- 
opher himself might have been embarrassed to refrain from laughter! McClel- 
lan was at the head of the army; Halleck had chief command in the West ; men 
like McClernand and Banks, Crittenden, and McCook, were commanding divis- 
ions or corps ; and for Cavalry Sheridan the best work the Government could ' 
find was — buying horses in Wisconsin! Then came Pittsburg Landing, and 
Halleck's hurried departure for the field. Wishing a body of instructed regular 
officers about him, he thought, among others, of Curtis's old Quartermaster, and 
ordered him up to the army before Corinth. There followed a little staff" ser- * 
vice, and at last, in May, 1862, the future head of the Cavalry got started on J 
his proper career. Watching wagon trains, disputing with the lawyers about 
doubtful contractor's claims, or with the jockeys about the worth of horses — all 
this seems now very unworthy of Sheridan, but it was a part of his education 
for the place he was to fill; and we shall see that the familiarity thus acquired 
with the details of supplying an army were to prove of service to one whose 
business was to be to command armies, and to tax the energies of those who 
supplied them to the utmost. 

The cavalry was inefficient — mostly for lack of officers who knew the differ- 
ence between a horse and a machine. The Second Michigan wanted a Colonel. 
Sheridan happened to be at hand and was thought of In a few daj's he was 
off toward Booneville on his first raid. The railroad track and depot were des- 
troyed, provisions captured, and a safe retreat secured. A few days later fol- 
lowed a reconnoissance to Donaldson's Cross Roads, and a sharp skirmish with 
Forrest. Two days later a second regiment was added to Sheridan's command, 
and he was sent on a brief pursuit of Forrest, which he managed so well that in 
four days more he was formally made commander of a cavalry brigade, and 
sent to Booneville, twenty miles in front of the array. Here on the 1st July,. 
1862, G-eneral Chalmers, with a force numbering between four and five thousand 
men, attacked Sheridan's little band of two regiments. He retreated slowly n 
toward his camp, where, with his back to a swamp, he kept up the unequal 
fight. The day, however, must in the end go against him. Sheridan saw and 
prepared for it. Selecting a body of picked men, scai'cely a hundred in all, he 
gent them by a circuitous route to the rear of the enemy. Meantime he sturdily 
held his ground on the front. Suddenly the assailants were stai'tled by the 
crack of carbines in their rear. Volley after volley poured in .from the revolv- 



Philip H. Shekidan. 503 

ing weapons of the little party till the roar seemed to betoken the attack of at 
least a brigade. Then charging recklessly into the rear, they penetrated almost 
to the heart of the command, and for a little time had possession of Chalmers 
himself This was the signal for Sheridan. At the head of his two regiments 
he led an impetuous onset upon the confused enemy, who, thinking himself 
surrounded, hastily fled, leaving dead and wounded on the field.* For twenty 
miles Sheridan kept up with his two thousand this pursuit of five thousand. On 
his return he found that the gallant deed had carried him far beyond the wildest 
ambition of his quartermaster days. He was appointed a Brigadier-General of 
Volunteers, to date from July 1st, in honor of this brilliant little battle of 
Booneville. 

In the comparative independence of command which he had here enjoyed, 
he had displayed qualities of vigor, enterprise, and sound judgment, that 
might have recommended him for similar positions in the future. But it was 
Sheridan's lot to be long kept back trom the fields for which he was peculiarly 
fitted, and to be subjected to severe and unusual tests. In a modest little letter 
now l^'ing before us, he shows his own appreciation of this singularity of his 
fortune. "It has been said," he writes, "that I was ' lucky' during the Eebellion 
in the success which attended me, but whether I was or not, I believe there was 
no general officer in the service who was subjected to harder tests. I was not 
only changed from one arm of the service to another, but was constantly being 
changed trom one line of operations to another, each involving new geographi- 
cal and topographical study, the necessity of overcoming the local prejudices of 
soldiers of different armies, and the old and bitter prejudices between infantry 
and cavalry." So now, precisely as the General saj-s, after he had just shown 
his special fitness for dashing cavalry exploits, he was changed to another arm 
of the service and another line of operations, being sent to take command of 
a division of infantry in Kentucky. Still this was high promotion. The "little 
Quartermaster" who thought that, as he was only sixty -fourth Captain on the 
list, the chances of war might yet enable him to win a Major's commission, was 
now, within less than a year from the date of that modest aspiration, a Briga- 
dier-General, in command of three brigades and a dozen regiments. 

At the time of our new General's arrival in Kentucky, Bragg was moving 
rapidly upon Louisville, and Buell was hastening back with his army to con- 
front him. For a little time Louisville was thought to be in danger. Sheridan 
was enei-getic in his efforts to place the city in a position for defense. Then 
joining Buell's army on its arrival, he moved out with his division in that pur- 
suit of Bragg, which, pressed b}' some subordinates too incautiously, suddenly 
brought him savagely to bay at Perryville. 

Whatever was thought of the general conduct of this battle, or of the 
policy of bringing it on, there was no doubt at head-quarters of the praise to 
which General Sheridan's conduct in it entitled him. He kept the position to 

*The fighting at Booneville lasted nearly s«ven hours. The number of Rebel dead left on 
the field was reported to be sixty-five. Sheridan's entire loss was forty-one. 



504 Ohio in the Wae. 1 

which he was iissigned (the left of Gilbert's corps, pi-otecting McCook's right), | 
with obstinate vigor, sustained a fierce attack, which he repelled, and directed <§ 
the fire of his batteries so as to do what he could against the assault that was •' 
cutting McCook's command to pieces. " He held the key of our position with 
tenacity," said his Corps General in the official report, "and used the point to 
its utmost advantage. I commend him to notice as an officer of much gallantry 
and of high professional ability."* Thenceforward the position of the new Gen- 
eral was secure in the array. His soldiers believed in hiraf and his superiors 
trusted him. But the Country, as yet, heard little of him. He was the subor- 
dinate of subordinates, and much hard fighting was still awaiting him before 
he could aspire to popular fame. 

In the changes consequent upon Rosecrans's assumption of command, Sher- 
idan was transferred to McCook's right wing of the army. With the details of 
his new position he found himself fully occupied through the fall and early 
winter of 1862. At last the army moved out upon Murfreesboro'. Sheridan 
had only to support other divisions in advance of him throiigh the march, 
until the day before the battle. Then he led the movement, had sharp skir- 
mishing, and finally was compelled to form line of battle and bring up his 
artillery to clear his front, losing some seventy-five killed and wounded in the 
operations. The men bivouacked in line of battle. They were to wake to great 
calamity and great glory in the morning. 

In the genei'al plan of the battle of Stone River the jjart assigned to the 
right wing was to hold the enemy, while the rest of the army swung through 
Murfreesboro' upon his rear. In this right wing Sheridan held the left. Else- 
where along that ill-formed line were batteries, to which the horses had not been 
harnessed when the fateful attack burst through the gray dawn upon them. 
But there was one division commander who, with or without orders thereto, 
might be trusted for ample vigilance in the face of an enemy. At two in the 
morning he was moving some of his regiments to strengthen a portion of his 
line, on which he thought the enemy was massing. At four he mustered his 
division under arms, and had every cannoneer at his post. For over two hours 
they waited. When the onset came the ready batteries opened at once. The 
Rebels continued to sweep up. At fifty yards' distance the volleys of Sheridan's 
musketry became too murderous. The enemy, in massed regiments, hesitated, 
wavered, and finally broke. Sheridan instantly sent Sill's brigade to charge 
upon the retreating column. The movement was brilliantly executed, but the 
life of the gallant brigade commander went out in the charge. 

■■■Rep. of Maj-Gen. Gilbert, Reb. Rec. Vol. V, p. 513. Sheridan rejiorted his loss in this 
battle at three hundred and thirty — of whom forty-four were killed and two hundred an<l sev- 
enty-four wounded. 

t About this time General Buell's arnay was a good deal demoralized by lack of confidence 
in many of the officers. Through the Ijattle Sheridan had been riding a favorite black hor.se ; 
it being shot under him, he was compelled, before the close of the action, to appear among the 
troops on another. They learned the cause, and rent tiie air with shouts for Sheridan ; while by 
the camp-fires at night it soon became common to hear them boasting that at last they had a 
fighting General, who cared more for victory than he did for bullets. 



Philip H. Sheridan. 505 

Present!}' the eneni}' rallied and returned. Already the rest of the wing 
had been hurled back in confusion ; the weight of the victorious foe bore down 
upon Sheridan's exposed flank and broke it. There was now come upon Sheridan 
that same stress of buttle under which his companion division commanders 
had been crushed. But, hastily drawing back the broken flank, he changed the 
front of his line to meet the new danger and ordered a brigade to charge ; while, 
under cover of this daring onset the new line was made compact. Here Sher- 
idan felt abundantly able to hold his ground. 

But his flank ? The routed divisions, which should have formed upon it, 

were still in hasty retreat. He dashed among them — threatened, begged, swore. 
All was in vain ; they would not re-form. Sheridan was isolated, and his right 
once more turned. Moving then by the left, he rapidly advanced, driving the 
enemy from his front, and maintaining his line unbroken till he secured a con- 
nection on the left with Negley. Here he was instantl}' and tremendously 
assailed. Tlie attack was repulsed. Again Cheatham's Eebel division attacked, 
and again it was driven back. Once again the baflded enemy swept up to the 
onset till his batteries were planted within two hundred yards of Sheridan's 
lines. The men stood firm. Another of the brigade commanders fell ; but the 
enemy was once more driven. Thus heroically did Sheridan strive to beat back 
the swift disaster that had befallen the right. 

But now came the crowning misfortune. When the rest of McCook's wing 
had been swept out of the contest, the ammunition train had fallen into the 
hands of the enemy. With the overwhelming force on his front, with the bat- 
teries playing at short range, with the third Rebel onslaught just repulsed, and 
the men momentarily growing more confident of themselves and of their fiery 
commander, there suddenly came the startling cry that the ammunition was 
exhausted ! " Fix bayonets, then !" was the ringing command. Under cover of 
the bristling lines of steel on the front, the brigades were rapidly withdrawn. 
Presently a couple of regiments fell upon an abandoned amnaunition wagon. 
For a moment they swarmed around it — then back on the double-quick to the 
front, to aid in the retreat of the artillery. One battery was lost, the rest, with 
only a missing piece or two, were brought off. Thus riddled and depleted, with 
fifteen hundred from the little division left dead or wounded in the dark cedars, 
but with compact ranks and a steady front, the heroic column came out on the 
Murfreesboro' Turnpike. "Here is all that is left of us," said Sheridan, riding 
up to Eosecrans to report. "Our cartridge-boxes are empty, and so are our 
muskets !" 

Thus the right, on which the battle was to have hinged, had disappeared 
from the struggle. Already the enem}^ pressing his advantage to the utmost, 
seemed about to break through the center; and Sheridan, supplied with ammu- 
nition, was ordered in to its relief He checked the Rebel advance, charged at 
one point, and captured guns and prisoners, held his line steady throughout, 
and bivouacked upon it at nightfall. This final struggle cost him his last bri- 
gade commander! "I knew it was infernal in there before I got in," was the 
rough but forcible exclamation of Rousseau, describing afterward his own 



506 Ohio in the Wak. 

entry into those cedar thickets; "but I was convinced of it when I saw Phil. 
Sheridan, with hat in one hand and sword in the other, fighting as if he were 
the devil incarnate, and swearing as if he had a fresh indulgence from Father j 
Tracy every five minutes."* 

Whatever was required of him through the scattered fighting of the subse- 
quent days, Sheridan did promptly and well, but this was the substantial end of 
his hard work at Stone Eiver. His conduct throughout was soldierly and superb. 
So much should be said irrespective of the success that attended it. Disaster 
did not dispirit him; unlooked-for emergencies did not find him unprepared; 
there was in him that simple soldier's faith in fighting as a means of success 
that would not permit him to think of yielding his ground while a cartridge 
remained to be shot at the enemy, or of suffering his retreat to become a rout 
while bayonets could cover it. But, furthermore, it was his rare good fortune 
to hold the key to the field, and thus b}' his splendid fighting to save the army. 
For, while his obstinate defense covered the retreat of McCook's routed divisions 
and broke the force of the blow by which the enemy had almost annihilatedf 
one wing of the army, while Cheatham and the other Eebel commandei-s were, 
by the testimony of their own writers, "storming about the field, gnashing their 
teeth at the delay and at the slaughter of their braves," Eosecrans was re-form- 
ing his lines. Before Sheridan's ammunition was exhausted the G-eneral Com- 
manding had gathered up the tangled and raveled threads of battle. When 
the noble column emerged with its empty " cartridge-boxes and muskets," he 
was ready for whatever the Eebels might attempt; the disaster had been reme- 
died. And so, while Eosecrans must forever stand the central figure of the 
great battle, none can dispute the claim of Sheridan to the place next to the 
foremost. If Eosecrans was the master that organized the victory, Sheridan 
was the bulwark behind which, at the critical moment, he was enabled to 
deploy his lines and mass his artillery. It was Eosecrans who fashioned and 
handled the weapons of victory ; but among those weapons he found none so 
efficient, at the critical hour, as Sheridan. 

The loss was terrible. Every one of the brigade commanders was shot 
dead. Sixteen hundred and thirty men were dead, wounded, or missing, from 
a division that went into battle scarcely five thousand strong.^ " I trust the 
General Commanding is satisfied with my division," said Sheridan, modestly, in 
his report. He went on in this apologetic fashion: "The loss of Houghtaling's 
battery and of one section of Bush's battery was unavoidable, as all the horses 
were shot down or disabled. Had my ammunition held out I would not have 
fallen back." The army and the country considered that no apology was neces- 
sary. No one indeed thought, even yet, of Sheridan as an independent com- 

■••■ Keferring to the fact of Sheridan's being a Koman Catholic, and to his relations to the 
well-known priest on duty at Rosecrans's head-quarters. 

t So far as the purposes of that battle were concerned. 

t The casualties given above are from llie Official Report. The strength of the division is 
only estimated. The right wing numbered fifteen thousand nine hundred and thirty-three men, 
including those in hospital or on detached duty. The three divisions in it were of about equal 
strength. 



Philip H. Sheeidan. 507 

mander, but all recognized him as a trusty and skillful soldier, in the sphere in 
which he was placed. General Rosecrans praised him in his report ; but. with 
the lack of insight which often marked that distinguished officer's judgments of 
men, he failed to single him out as the hero of the battle. In fact, of the ten 
brigadiers whom he recommended for Major-Generalships, Sheridan's name was 
the ver}^ last on his list. The commission, however, was duly issued, to date 
from Stone River. 

Through the long delays that consumed the spring and summer of 1863, we 
catch occasional glimpses of Sheridan. He was growing in the confidence of 
the generals; the soldiers had long trusted him implicitly. Once he was sent 
on an expedition against small forces of the Eebel cavalry, which jjenetrated 
almost to Shelbyville. During the inaction he kept his command in splendid 
drill, and acquired distinction among his brother officers for superior skill in a 
sort of camp ten-pin game. In the Tullahoma advance he handled his division 
energetically. When at last the Rebels crossed the Tennessee, he was sent for- 
ward in support of Stanley's cavalry, to try and save the great bridge across the 
river at Bridgeport. He dashed ahead with such vigor that his infantry out- 
stripped the horsemen they wore to support; and on their arrival, the Rebel 
rear-guard, which they captured, insisted that they must be the cavalry whose 
advance had been expected! When the railroad was repaired, Sheridan, con- 
ducting Thomas along it, was annoyed by the protracted stoppage of their train 
at a way-station. The conductor gave a gruff answer to inquiries about the 
delay, disobeyed the peremptory order to start, and finally, when called to 
account for it, began to tell that he only received his orders from the railroad 
superintendent, and not from generals of any rank. The sentence was not 
finished till Sheridan had felled him with a single blow of his fist, had kicked 
him off the train, and pulled the bell-rope. For the rest of the trip he served 
as conductor himself. The wild Irish boy of Somerset had grown dignified and 
discreet; but his old comrades would still have been apt to pronounce him 
" moighty handy wid his fists" upon occasion. 

At last the array crossed the Tennessee. "Little Phil," as by this time he 
had come to be called by his admiring soldiers, was held a capital fighter, and 
much liked ; but his capacity for something more than the command of a division 
under McCook, seems not even yet to have been suspected. In this painfully 
subordinate capacity he moved with his corps, gaining no prominence and 
winning no praise, save for the uniform promptness and intelligence with which 
he obeyed every order. On the evening before Chickamauga he was of essential 
service in coming to the aid of Wood's and Davis's divisions, which were hard 
pressed by Longstreet. Through the night he was ordered to change his posi- 
tion; at daybreak fresh changes occurred ; and before the attack came, he found 
himself isolated on the extreme right. Here he held his lines in almost perfect 
quiet until eleven o'clock — the roar far to the left telling meanwhile of the 
terrible assault upon Thomas. Finally, the attack seemed to approach the 
division nearest him, and he was ordered to send one of his brigades to support 
it. Hardly had this been properly disposed, when a fresh order came for the 



508 Ohio in the Wak. 

other brigades to move with all haste to support Thomas. Abandoning his 
position, Shei-idan started at once. But before he reached the ground where 
his first brigade had been sent, disaster was once more bursting upon the fated 
corps. Another division commander, perversely following the letter of an ordei- 
to the destruction of its spirit, had broken the lines, and the enemy was pouring 
into the gap and crushing the flanks, right and left. As Sheridan, marching 
toward Thomas, came to the rear of the brigade which he had recently de- 
tached, he found it breaking under the terrific onset. He instantly threw in his 
other brigades on the double-quick. They were pressed back : he rallied them, 
finally charged, and swept up to the ground from which his first brigade had 
just been driven. But it was a triumph costly and temporary. Many of his 
best ofiicers fell, foremost among them, General Lytle, commanding one of the 
chary-ing brigades, and in a few moments the division was once more broken 
and in retreat. 

Eallying and re-forming his troops in the lull that followed he now had 
opportunitj' to look around him. Of all the gallant line of battle behind which 
he had been marching to Thomas, not a division or a brigade remained. The 
right, in irretrievable confusion, had drifted out of the fight ; he was left alone, 
with the victorious enemy between himself and Thomas. 

It was a rout which had carried back division and corps commanders, and 
even the General at the head of the army. But Sheridan's position on the 
extreme right, had kept him out of the whirl of disaster a little, and not one 
thought of retreat would seem to have entered his mind. He first essayed 
to continue his former march by the Dry Creek Valley Eoad, and so connect 
with Thomas's right. Finding that the enemy had reached this road before 
him, he turned once more, still keeping his division well in hand, and marched 
for Thomas's left, near Rossville, carrying with him fragments of regiments and 
brigades from other commands, which, still retaining some semblance of organ- 
ization, gladly clung to his flanks. 

At Chattanooga it was first believed that he had been involved in the 
common disaster to the right. Then, as he failed to appear with the rest of the 
routed wing, he was supposed to have been cut off and captured ; and the loss of 
Sheridan's whole division was actually telegraphed to the North. But before 
the dispatches had been forwarded — indeed before some of them had been 
written — Sheridan Avas marching in on Thomas's left. He was not in time, 
however, to participate in the fierce struggle there, Avhich, a little before his 
arrival, had driven off the enemy. 

Sheridan's action at Chickamauga was not so distinguished as at Stone Eiver, 
and after the first disaster he was able to bring no great aid to the portion of the 
army that still kept up the struggle. But he fought his command with gal- 
lantry, rescued it from perilous isolation, and marched it, not like the rest, 
toward the rear, but in the direction of the enemy's guns. For the disasters 
that befell the right, he was, in no sense, responsible ; for the only exception to 
the sweeping rout of the right he deserves all the praise. His command at the 
outset numbered four thousand bayonets. His killed and wounded numbered 



Thilip H. Siiekidan. 509 

one thousand one hundred and eighty-nine, or nearly one man for every three 
who went into battle.* Two of his brigade commanders received severe wounds, 
and one of them, the lamented Lytle, fell dead after the third. 

In the changes consequent upon the removal of Eosecrans, Sheridan's com- 
mand was considerably enlarged. He held his part of the lines through the siege 
of Chattanooga; when offensive operations were resumed his position deter- 
mined his share in the storming of Mission Eidge. AH the while Sherman and 
Hooker on the opposite flanks were advancing, he lay in line of battle ; when 
Lookout was carried he advanced his line in front of Mission Eidge; there, all 
the forenoon and till the sun was nearly half down the western hemisphere, he 
lay watching the battle-flags of regiment after regiment marching up to re-en- 
force the Eebel line on his front, and awaiting the "six guns from Orchard 
•Knob" that were to be his signal for attack. At last they came. What followed 
has been told by a thousand j^ens, and has gone into history as the most brilliant 
spectacle of the great war. 

Before Sheridan and the companion divisions stretched an open space of a 
mile and an eighth to the enemy's first line of rifle-pits. Above this frowned a 
steep ascent of five hundred yards, up which it scarcely seemed likely that 
unresisted troops would clamber. At the summit were fresh rifle-pits. As Sher- 
idan rode along his front and recontioitered the Eebel pits at the base of the ridge, 
it seemed to him that, even if captured, the}' could scarcely be tenable under the 
plunging fire that might then be directed from the summit. He accordingly 
sent back a staff'-ofiicer to inquire if the order was to take the rifle-pits or to 
take the ridge.f But before there was time for an answer the six guns thun- 
dered out their stormy signal, and the whole line rose up and leaped forward. 
The plain was swept by a tornado of shot and shell, but the men rushed on at 
the double-quick, swarmed over the rifle-pits, and flung themselves down on the 
tace of the mountain. Just then the answer to Sheridan's message came. It 
was only this first line of rifle-pits that was to be carried. Some of the men 
were accordingly retired to it by their brigade commander, under the heav^- fire 
of grape, canister, and musketry. "But," said Sheridan, "believing that the 
attack had assumed a new phase and that I could carry the ridge, I could not 
order those ofiicers and men who were so gallantl}' ascending the hill, step by 
step, to return." As the twelve regimental colors slowly went up, one advanc- 
ing a little, the rest pushing forward, emulous to be even with it, till all were 
planted midway up the ascent on a partial line of rifle-pits that nearly covered 
Sheridan's front,| an order came from G-ranger : " [f in 3'our judgment the ridge 
can be taken, do so." An eye-witness shall tell us how he received it: "An aid 
rides up with the order. 'Avery, that flask,' said the General. Quietly filling 
the pewter cup Sheridan looks up at the battery that frowned above hiin, by Bragg's 
head-quarters, shakes his cap amid that storm of everything that kills, where you 
could hardly hold your hand without catching a bullet in it, and, with a • Eow 

*He lost three hundred and twenty-eight prisoners, besides a number of his wounded, who 
were captured in the field hospital. 

t Sheridan's Official Keport Mission Ridge. J Ibid. 



510 Ohio in the Wak. 

are you?' tosses off the cup. The blue battle-flag of the Eebels fluttered a 
response to the cool salute, and the next instant the battery let fly its six guns, 
showering Sheridan with earth. The General said in his quiet way: 'I thought 

it ungenerous!' The recording angel will drop a tear upon the word for 

the part he played that day. "Wheeling toward the men he cheered them to the 
charge, and made at the hill like a bold-riding hunter. They were out of the 
rifle-pits and into the tempest, and struggling up the steep before you could 
get breath to tell it."* 

Then came what the same writer has called the torrid zone of the battle. 
Eocks were rolled down from above on the advancing line ; shells with lighted 
fuses were rolled down ; guns were loaded with handfuls of cartridges and flred 
down, but the line struggled on: still fluttered the twelve regimental flags in the 
advance. At last, with a leap and a rush, over they went — all twelve fluttered* 
on the crest — the Rebels were bayoneted out of their rifle-pits — the guns were 
turned — the ridge was won. In this last spasm of the struggle Sheridan's horse 
was shot under him. He sprang upon a captured gun, to raise his short person 
high enough to be visible in the half-crazy throng, and ordered a pursuit! It 
harassed the enemy for some miles, and brought back eleven guns as proofs 
of its vigor. 

Signal as had been Sheridan's previous services, he had never before been 
so brilliantly conspicuous. In other battles he had approved himself a good 
officer in the eyes of his superiors; on the deathly front of Mission Eidge he 
flamed out the incarnation of soldierly valor and vigor in the eyes of the whole 
American people. His pntire losses were thirteen hundred and four, and he 
took seventeen hundred and sixty-two prisoners. But these figures give no 
adequate idea of the conflict. It may be better understood from the simple 
statement that in that brief contest, in a part of a winter afternoon, he lost 
one hundred and twenty-three officers from that single division — a number 
greater than the whole French army lost at Solferino ! Through his own 
clothes five Minie balls had passed; his horse had been shot under him; and yet 
he had come out without a scratch. 

No man could be more modest in detailing his own exploits ; but it was 
easy to arouse the belligerent tendencies of Sheridan's nature by seeking to 
appropriate the exploits of his soldiers. In his official report he could not 
r.efrain from this gruff correction : " While we were thus pushing the enemy, 
and forcing him to abandon his artillery, wagons, and stores, the division of 
General Wood remained on Mission Eidge, constructing rifle-pits, and General 
Hazen and his brigade employed themselves in collecting the artillery from 
which my men had driven the enemy, and have claimed it their capture. Gen- 
eral Wood, in his report to General Thomas of artillery taken, claims many 
pieces which were the prizes of my division, and when told b}' me that the 
report was untruthful, replied ' that it was based upon the report of General 
Hazen,' who perhaps will in turn base his on those of the regiments; but 
whether Wood, Hazen, regimental or company commanders are responsible, the 

*B. F. Taylor, Esq., of Chicago. 



I 



Philip H. Sheridan. 511 

report is untrue. Eleven of these guns were gleaned from the battle-field, and 
appropriated while I was pushing the enemy on to Chickamauga Station."* 

Then followed the rapid march for the relief of Knoxville, under Sherman, 
and then the long rest of the winter, not to be broken till the bugles sounded 
the advance for the Atlanta campaign. But the sjDring that unleashed his old 
troops for Atlanta, was to bring to Sheridan himself new duties and wider fame. 

It was largely to Grant that Sheridan had owed his start in the war, in his 
transfer fi'om the routine duties of the staff to the command of a cavalry regi- 
ment. He had then worked his own way up to the command of a brigade, and 
in the handsome little affair at Booneville had won his star. But he was again 
indebted to Grant, when he had been transferred to Kentucky, for the recom- 
mendation which had secured his further promotion to the command of a divis- 
ion. At Penyville, Stone Eiver, and Chickamauga, his conduct had been that 
of a trusty and energetic commander ; but, though he had won a Major-Gene- 
ralship, he had not succeeded in impressing his further capacities upon the 
minds of his immediate commanders. At Mission Eidge he shone; but the eyes 
that from Orchard Knob then watched his brilliant conduct, had followed him 
from the far-off days of Booneville. Their approval brought Sheridan face to 
face with his destiny. Grant soon applied for his transfer to the East; a few 
days later he was made Chief of Cavalry to the renowned Army of the Potomac ; 
in three weeks he was covering the flank of the army as it moved upon the 
"Wilderness. 

The next eleven months were to Sheridan the seed-time and fruition of 
all his soldierl}^ career. At their close he was able to say : " We sent to the 
War Department from 5th May, 1864, to 9th April, 1865 (the day on which the 
Army of Northern Virginia surrendered), two hundred and five battle flags, 
captured in open field fighting — nearly as many as all the armies of the United 
States combined sent there during the rebellion. The number of field pieces 
captured in the same period was between one hundi-ed and sixty and one hun- 
dred and seventy — all in open field fighting."t Of the operations of his 
immediate arm, the cavalry, he was able, with a proper pride in its brilliant 
performance, that still never overstepped the bounds of scrupulous narration, to 
say: ^'We led the advance of the army to the Wilderness; on the Eiehmond 
raid we marked out its line of march to the North Anna, where we found it on 
our return ; we again led its advance to Hanovertown, and thence to Cold 
Harbor ; we removed the enemy's cavahy from the south side of the Chicka- 
hominy by the Trevillian raid, and thereby materially assisted the army in its 
successful march to the James Eiver and Petersburg, where it remained until 
we made the campaign in the Yalley ; we marched back to Petersburg, again 
took the advance and led the army to victory. In all these operations the per 
centage of cavalry casualties was as great as that of the infantry, and the ques- 
tion which had existed — 'who ever saw a dead cavalrymen?' was set at rest." 

* Sheridan's Official Report, Mis.sion Ridge. 

t Sheridan's Official Reports, Gov't Edition, p. 31 



512 Ohio i:n the Wak. 

How brilliantly he led the cavalry these ringing sentences of his own may 
suggest. But the weight of the ponderous strokes which he dealt in those 
closing campaigns, with cavahy and with inflmtry as ,well, must be told by other 
pens. We shall have to follow him through such varied service to the Array 
of the Potomac as his own tribute to the cavalry hints at. We shall then find him 
summoned in an hour of peril to the command of a great department. We shall 
sec him drive the last Eebel organization from its borders. We shall see how his 
successes added enthusiasm to the Presidential campaign; and esprit to the army; 
how when he was absent his army was driven; how his individual return 
proved better than re-enforcements, bringing victory with him in his mad 
gallop; how his remorseless pursuit hung upon the great army of the rebellion 
in its final flight; how he planted himself across its path, tore great rents in its 
ranks, and at last forced it to yield ; how, from first to last, he never issued a 
congratulatory order to the troops that wrought such deeds, never assumed that 
they or he had done aught but what their duty required, and at the last turned his 
back upon the dazzling pageant in which generals and privates were to see how 
their countrymen admired them, to hurry to fresh fields of duty and danger. 

How these busy eleven months were crowded may perhaps be better seen \ 
in another way. Here is the oflScial roll of the battles he fought. There are 
seventy-six of them 1 All were fought by the troops of his command — all but . 
thirteen under orders from himself: 

Pakker's Store, May 5, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. B. Mcintosh, command- 
ing brigade Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and infantry advance of the Rebel 
army. 

Craig's Meeting-House, May 5, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- 
manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Rebel cavalry under command of 
General Fitz Lee. 

Todd's Tavern, May 5, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General D. McM. Gregg, commanding 
Second Cavalry Division, with Wilson's Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and 
Rebel cavalry corps under General J. E. B, Stuart. 

Furnaces, May 6, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. Merritt, commanding First Cav- 
alry Division, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry division. 

Todd's Tavern, No. 2, May 7, 1864.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, command- 
in" Gregg's and Merritt's cavalry divisions, and Rebel cavalry corps under General J. E. B. 
Stuart. 

Spottsylvania C. H., May 8, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- 
manding Third Cavalry Division, and Wickham's Rebel cavalry brigade and Longstreet's Rebel 
infantry corps. 

Beaver Dam, May 9 and 10, 1864.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, command- 
in" cavalry corps, Army of the Potomac, and the Rebel cavalry corps under General J. E. >5. 
Stuart. 

Yellow Tavern, May 11, 1864.— Fouglit by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding 
cavalry corps. Army of the Potomac, and Rebel cavalry corps under General J. E. B. Stuart. 

Meadow Bridge, or Richmond, May 12, 1864.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheri- 
dan, commanding cavalry corps. Army of the Potomac, and Rebel cavalry corps and four bri- 
gades of Rebel infantry. 

Hanovertown, May 27, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General A. T. A. Torbert, com- 
manding First Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Gordon's Rebel cavalry 
command. 

Hawe's Shop, May 28, 1864.— Fought by General P. H. Sheridan, commanding, with 



Philip H. Shekidan. 513 

Gregg's cavalry division and Custer's brigade, First Cavalry Division, and the Kebel cavalry 
corps with Butler's South Carolina mounted infantry, under General Wade Hampton. 

Matadequin Creek, May 30, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General A. T. A. Torbert com- 
manding First Cavalry Division, and General Fitz Lee's Eebel cavalry division. 

Cold Harbor, May 31 and June 1, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, com- 
manding, with the First Cavalry Division (Torbert's), supported by Second Cavalry Division 
(Gregg's), and General Wade Hampton, with Eebel cavalry corps, supported by Hoke's Kebel 
infantry division, etc. 

■■■■Mechtjmp's Creek, May 31, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. PL Wilson, command- 
ing Third Cavalry Division, and General W. H. F. Lee's Kebel cavalry division. 

®ASHLA2JD, June 1, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, commanding Third 
Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General W. H. F. Lee's division of Eebel cavalry. 

* Haw^e's Shop No. 2, June 2, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- 
manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General W. H. F. Lee's Kebel 
cavalry division. 

Sumner's Upper Bridge, June 2, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General D. McM. Gregg, 
commanding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and the right wing of the Kebel 
army. 

■■ ToLOPOTOMOY, June 2, 1864. — Fougiit by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, commanding 
Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and the left wing of the Eebel army. 

* Bethesda Church, June 11, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. B. Mcintosh, com- 
manding brigade, Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General W. H. F. Lee's 
Eebel cavalry division. 

Trevtllian Station, June 11, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, com- 
manding cavalry corps, Army of the Potomac, with the First and Second Cavalry Divisions, and 
Major-General Wade Hampton, commanding Eebel cavalry corps, supported by a brigade of 
South Carolina mounted infantry. 

* Long's Bridge, June 12, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H Wilson, command- 
ing Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Eebel cavalry division under General 
W. H. F. Lee. 

Mallory's Ford Cross-Eoads, June 12, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, 
commanding cavalry corps. Army of the Potomac, with First and Second Cavalry Divisions, and 
Major-General Wade Hampton, with Eebel cavalry corps, brigade of South Carolina mounted 
infantry, and Breckinridge's Eebel infantry division. 

* White Oak Swamp, June 13, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- 
manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Eebel cavalry division under 
General W. H. F. Lee. 

•• Eiddel's Shop, June 13, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General G. H. Chapman, com- 
manding cavalry brigade. Third Division, Army of the Potomac, and the infantry advance of 
the Eebel army. 

■'■Smith's Store, near St. Mary's Church, June 15, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-Gen- 
eral J. B.' Mcintosh, commanding brigade, Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and 
General W. H. F. Lee's Eebel cavalry division. 

TuNSTALii's Station, June 21, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, command- 
ing cavalry corps, Army of the Potomac, with the First and Second Cavalry Divisions, and 
Eebel cavalry corps under General Wade Hampton. 

■••■Nottoway C. H., June 23, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, command- 
ing Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Eebel cavalry division under General 
W. H. F. Lee. 

St. Mary's Church, June 24, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General D. McM. Gregg, com- 
manding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Wade Hampton, com- 
manding Eebel cavalry corps. 

■■•' EoANOKE Station, June 25, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, com- 
manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Kautz's cavalry division. Army 
of the James, and Eebel cavalry division and Home-Guards under General W. H. F. Lee. 
Vol. 1.— 33. 



514 Ohio in the Wak. 

* Stoney Creek, June 29, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. H, Wilson, command- 
ing, with Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Brigadier-General A, V. Kautz's 
cavalry division. Army of the James, and General Wade Hampton, commanding Eebel cavalry 
corps and General W. H. F. Lee's cavalry division. 

« Beam's Station, June 29, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, command- 
ing Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and Kautz's cavalry division. Army of the 
James, and Eebel cavalry divisions of Hampton, Fitz Lee, and W. H. F. Lee, and Hoke's divis- 
ion of Eebel infantry. 

Darbytowk, July 28, 1864.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding, with 
the First (Torbert's) and Second (Gregg's) Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Potomac, and Long- 
street's corps and Wilcox's division of Hill's corps (Eebel infantry), and Hampton's Eebel cav- 
alry corps. 

Lee's Meles, July 31, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. Irvin Gregg, commanding 
Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Fitz Lee's Eebel cavalry division. 

Moorefield, August 7, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General W. W. Averill, commanding 
Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Eebel cavalry brigades of Bradley 
Johnston, McCausland, and Imboden. 

Toll Gate, August 11, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General W. Merritt, commanding First 
Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Eebel infantry division of General Gordon, and 
Eebel cavalry under Wickhara. 

Cedarville, August 16, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General W. Merritt, commanding 
First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Fitz Lee's Eebel cavalry division, 
and General Kershaw's Eebel infantry division. 

Winchester, August 17, 1864.— Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert com- 
manding, with the Third (Wilson's) Cavalry Division, Lowell's brigade of First Cavalry Divis- 
ion, and Penrose's brigade. Sixth Army Corps, Army of the Shenandoah, and Eebel cavalry and 
Breckinridge's Eebel infantry corps. 

Summit Point, August 21, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, commanding 
Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Eebel cavalry and infantry advance of 
the Eebel army. 

Kearneysville, August 25, 1864.— Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, 
commanding First and Third Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and Breckinridge's 
Eebel infantry corps. 

Kabletown, August 26, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General C. E. Lowell, jr., command- 
ing brigade First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Fitz Lee's Eebel cavalry 
division, supported by Kershaw's Eebel infantry division. 

Smithfield, August 28, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier General W. Merritt, commanding First 
Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Lomax's Eebel cavalry division. 

Smithfield Crossing of the Opequan, August 29, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General 
W. Merritt, commanding First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoali, and General Breck- 
inridge's Eebel infantry corps, and General Fitz Lee's Eebel cavalry division. 

Bunker Hill, September 2 and 3, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. W. Averill, 
commanding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Eebel cavalry brigades of 
McCausland, Bradley Johnston, and Imboden. 

Abram's Creek, September 13, 1864.— Fought by Brigadier-General J. B. Mcintosh, com- 
manding brigade. Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Kershaw's Eebel 
infantry division, and McCausland's Eebel cavalry brigade. 

Opequan, September 19, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding 
Army of the Shenandoah (cavalry and infantry) and Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early, com- 
manding Eebel Army of the Valley (cavalry and infantry). 

Front Eoyal, September 21, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, command- 

* These were fought by Brigadier-General J. H. Wilson, commanding Third Cavalry 
Division, under instructions from Major-General G. G. Meade, commanding Army of the 
Potomac. 



Philip H. Sheridan. 515 

iiiij Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry division under Briga- 
dier-General Wickham. 

Fisher's Hill, September 22, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding 
Army of the Shenandoah (infantry) with Devin's brigade. First Cavalry Division, and Averill'a 
cavalry division, and Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early, commanding Rebel Army of the 
Valley. 

MiLFORD, September 22, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, com- 
aianding First (Merritt'sj and Third (Wilson's) Cavalry Division.?, Army of the Shenandoah, 
and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry division. 

LuRAY, September 24, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, command- 
ing First (Merritt's) and Third (Wilson's) Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and 
I'itz Lee's Rebel cavalry division. 

Forest Hill, September 24, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. H. Powall, com- 
manding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry brigades of 
Jackson, Imboden, and McCausland. 

Weyer's Cave, September 26, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. H. Powell, com- 
manding Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cav- 
ali y division. 

Brown's Gap, September 26, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. Merritt, commanding 
First Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry divison, 
and Kershaw's Rebel infantry division. 

Waynesboro', September 28, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, 
commanding Third (Wilson's) Division, and Lowell's brigade. First Cavalry Division, Army of 
the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry and infantry. 

Mt. Cbawford, October 2, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, 
commanding First (Merritt's) and Third (Custer's) Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenan- 
doah, and Rebel cavalry divisions of Fitz Lee and Rosser, and Pegram's Rebel infantry division. 

Tom's Run, October 9, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, command- 
ing, with cavalry divisions of Generals Merritt and Custer, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel 
cavalry divisions of Fitz Lee, Rosser, and Lomax. 

Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan commanding, 
with Army of the Shenandoah (cavalry and infantry), and Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early, 
commanding Rebel Army of the Valley (cavalry and infantry). 

MiLFOBD, No. 2. October 26, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General Powell, commanding 
Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General L. L. Lomax, with Rebel 
cavalry division. 

Middletown, November 12, 1864. — Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan commanding, 
with the First and Third Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and the Rebel Army 
oi the Valley, under Lieutenant-General Jubal A. Early. 

Nineveh, November 12, 1864. — Fought by Brigadier-General W. H. Powell, commanding 
Second Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry Division under General 
L. L. Lomax. 

Lacey's Spring's, December 21, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General G. A. Custer, 
commanding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry division 
under General Rosser. 

Liberty Mills, December 22, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, 
commanding First and Second Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and Rebel cavalry 
division under General L. L. Lomax. 

GoRDONSViLLE, December 23, 1864. — Fought by Brevet Major-General A. T. A. Torbert, 
commanding First and Second Cavalry Divisions, Army of the Shenandoah, and Lomax's 
Rebel cavalry division, and Pegram's division of Rebel infantry. 

Waynesboro' No. 2, March 2, 1865. — Fought by Brevet Major-General G. A. Custer, com- 
manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and Lieutennnt-General Early, 
with Wharton's Rebel infantry division, Lilley's infantry brigade, and Rosser with part of a 
brigade of cavalry. 



516 Ohio in the War. 

North Anna Bridges, or Ashland No. 2, March 14 and 15, 1865.— Fought by Major- 
Ocneral P. H. Sheridan commanding, with Merritt's two cavalry divisions (Custer's and Devin's), 
Army of the Shenandoah, and Lieutenant-GeneraJ Longstreet commanding, with Fitz Lee's Eebel 
cavalry division, and Pickett's and Bushrod Johnston's Eebel infantry division. 

DiNWiDDiE C. H., March 31, 1865.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan commanding, 
with Merritt's two cavalry divisions (i. e. Custer's and Devin's), Army of the Shenandoah, and 
Crook's cavalry division. Army of the Potomac, and Pickett's and Bushrod Johnston's Rebel 
infantry divisions, with Fitz Lee's and W. H. F. Lee's cavalry divisions. 

Five Forks, April 1, 1865.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan commanding, with 
Merritt's two cavalry divisions {i. e. Custer's and Devin's), Army of the Shenandoah, and 
Crook's and McKenzie's cavalry divisions, armies operating against Richmond, and the Fifth 
Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, and Lieutenant-General Anderson, commanding Pickett's 
and Bushrod Johnston's Rebel infantry divisions, and the Rebel cavalry corps, consisting of Fitz 
Lee's, W. H F. Lee's, Lomax's, and Rosser's Rebel cavalry divisions. 

Scott's Corners, April 2, 1865.— Fought by Brevet Major-General W. Merritt, commanding, 
with Custer's and Devin's cavalry divisions. Army of the Shenandoah, and McKenzie's cavalry 
division. Army of the James, and infantry rear-guard of the Rebel army under Longstreet, and 
Eebel cavalry under Fitz Lee and W. H. F. Lee. 

SWEETHOUSE Creek, April 3, 1865.— Fought by Brevet Major-General G. A. Custer, com- 
manding Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General W. H. F. Lee, com- 
manding Rebel cavalry division, supported by six brigades of Rebel infantry. 

WiNTicoMACK Creek, April 3, 1865.— Fought by Colonel William Wells, commanding bri- 
gade Third Cavalry Division, Army of the Shenandoah, and General Geary, commanding North 
Carolina brigade of Rebel cavalry. 

Amelia C. H., April 4 and 5, 1865.— Fought by Brigadier-General R. S. McKenzie, com- 
manding cavalry division. Army of the James, and the advance of the Rebel army under Gen- 
eral Longstreet. 

Tabernacle Church, April 4, 1865.— Fought by Brevet Major-General W. Merritt, com- 
manding, with Custer's and Devin's cavalry divisions. Army of the Shenandoah, and the rear- 
guard of the Rebel army under General Gordon. 

Amelia Springs, April 5, 1865.— Fought by Major-General George Crook, commanding Sec- 
ond Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Fitz Lee's Rebel cavalry division, 
supported by Rebel infantry. 

Sailor's Creek, April 6, 1865.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, commanding, 
with General W. Merritt's cavalry divisions (Custer's and Devin's) Army of the Shenandoah, 
Major-General Crook's Second Cavalry Division, and the Sixth Army Corps under Major-Gen- 
eral H. G. Wright, and the Rebel Army of Northern Virginia under General R. E. Lee. 

Farmvtlle, April 7, 1865.— Fought by Major-General George Crook, commanding, Sec- 
ond Cavalry Division, Army of the Potomac, and General Rosser's Rebel cavalry division, sup- 
ported by infantry, rear-guard of the Rebel army. 

Appomattox Station, April 8, 1865.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, command- 
ing, with Merritt's two cavalry divisions (i. e. Custer's and Devin's), Army of the Shenandoah, 
and the main advance of the Rebel army. 

Appomattox C. H., April 9, 1865.— Fought by Major-General P. H. Sheridan, with Mer- 
ritt's cavalry command (i. e. Custer's and Devin's cavalry divisions), Army of the Shenandoah, 
and Crook's and McKenzie's cavalry divisions, armies operating against Richmond, supported by 
the Fifth Army Corps, Army of the Potomac, and the Twenty-Fourth Army Corps, Army of the 
James, and Rebel Army of Northern Virginia (cavalry and infantry). General Robert E. Lee 
commanding. 

The history of these seventy-six battles is the history of by far the larger 
oart of the cavalry operations of the war. Into that we can not enter. It is 
likewise the history of the greatest of living cavalry Generals: and this (with 
a quicker pen) we may continue to trace. 



I 



Philip H. Sheridan. 517 

Minie muskets and rifled cannon had abolished the old functions of cavalry. 
What its true sphere might be, under the changed conditions of war, was still an 
open question. Manifestly the day for grand cavalry charges, which should 
tlecide the fate of pitched battles was past, when the charge must be made for 
miles under a storm of rifle projectiles. So high an authority as General Sher- 
man had declared that he had lost faith in cavalry raids.* In effect the cavalry 
was reduced to the drudgery of furnishing pickets for the army. It was with- 
out t'SpnY de corps; the men were the target for alternate abuse and raillery 
tVom the fighting inflvntry ; and their horses, neglected by riders never taught 
iiuw to care for them, were broken down. 

Sheridan's first movement was to procure the release of his cavalry from a 
large share of their picket-duty; his next to nurse the horses into some 
degree of fitness for active service. Meantime he sought to impress upon the 
mind of the Lieutenant-General his own idea of the work before the cavalry 
of the Army of the Potomac. He took up the theory, he tells us, that in that 
countiy of dense woods and numerous streams, " our cavalry ought to fight the 
enemy's cavalry, and our infantry the enemy's infantry. . . . But it was 
difficult to overcome the established custom of wasting cavahy for the protec- 
tion of trains, and for the establishment of cordons around a sleeping infantry 
force."! He had taken up another notable idea. He did " not believe war to 
be simply that lines should engage each other in battle, as that is but the duello 
part — a part which would be kept up so long as those who live at home in peace 
and plenty, could find the best youth of the country to enlist in their cause. "| 
He said "the best" — he explained, "because the bravest are always the best."^ 
And with this profession of a soldier's creed, he added that, believing war to be 
something more than a duel, he did "not regret the system of living on the 
enemy's country. These men and women did not care how many were killed 
or maimed, so long as war did not come to their doors; but as soon as it did 
come, in the shape of loss of property, they earnestly prayed for its terraina- 
tiou." Furthermore, w^ar being a punishment and death the maximum punish- 
ment, "if we can, b}' reducing its advocates to poverty, end it quicker, we are on 
the side of humanity." Questionable conclusions, perhaps! But Sheridan's 
campaigns never saw such license resulting therefrom, as brought stains upon 
the bright honor of others. He took the best out of both his principles — 
showed what could be done by fighting the enemy's cavalry, and what by living 
off the country. 

For a few days after Grant's overland movement began, he was kept busy, 
guarding the left of the army, protecting its trains, and feeling its way for it, 
out of the Wilderness, to Spottsylvania. Then, cutting loose from the Army of 
the Potomac, with but a half-day's rations of forage, he started to "fight the 
enemy's cavalry," and — get supplies on the James! Making a wide detour to 
avoid Lee, he next turned straight for Lee's rear and for Eichmond. The Eebel 
cavalry could not comprehend his purpose, and frittered away its time in incon- 

* Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1867, Vol. I, p. 195. 

t Sheridan's Official Reports, Gov't Edition, p. 18. J Ibid, p. 31. 



518 Ohio in the Wak. I 

sequential attacks upon his rear, while his advance leisurelj^ walked across 
river after river, where the passage might have been strenuously resisted. At 
last he passed the Xorth Anna; then launching out a single division in all haste 
to Eeaver Dam Station, he captured a rich store of supplies,* and was hence- 
forth in no fear as to what might befall before he should reach his rations on 
the James. His horses' heads were turned into the open road to Eichmond — the 
Eebel cavalry following at first in bewilderment, then, as his purpose dawned 
upon them, bending every energy to interpose between his advancing column 
and their capital. They did not succeed till the guidons of the Yankee troopers 
were fluttering within six miles of the city. Here, at Yellow Tavern, came the 
first vigorous contest between the entire forces of cavalry of the contending 
armies. General J. E. B. Stuart, an old and distinguished cavalry commander, 
was Sheridan's antagonist. He committed the tactical error of dividing his 
force as he was about to receive the attack, sending a large column to effect a 
diversion iu Sheridan's rear. He paid for the error with his life. Sheridan left 
a small body to take care of the rear, and charged resistlessl}^ down upon Stu- 
art's position in front. The Eebel cavalry broke ; the part in front fled toward 
Eichmond, the column at the rear was driven northward ; and, with an open 
road before him, Sheridan ti^otted down till he was within the outer defenses of 
the city. Then, hearing from negroes that Butler, advancing up the James, 
was threatening Eichmond on the south, he determined to move along the defenses 
in such a manner as to render Butler whatever aid might be derived from a very 
efi'ectual and convincing demonstration. Accordingly he turned eastwai-d, the 
feet of his horses touching off the torpedoes as they moved, and made a night 
march along the passage between the outer and inner line of works'; the Eebel 
cavalry, meanwhile, curiously watching to see what crazy freak this new 
Yankee commander would next attempt. When he came to cross the Chicka- 
hominy, he found his passage obstructed, and the bridge partially destroyed. 
He repaired it under fire, crossed a division on it, and pursued the enemy to 
Gaines's Mill. Meantime the rest of his force had been attacked before crossing 
the river, and one of his divisions had been driven ; but the other was skillfully 
thrown in upon the surprised foe; the Eebels were routed and driven behind the 
inner breastworks of the city. What followed the unique official report shall 
tell us : " For the balance of the day we collected our wounded, buried our dead, 
gi-azed our horses, and read the Eichmond papers, two small newsboys having, 
with commendable enterprise, entered our lines, and sold to the officers and 
men !" 

Thus far the casualties had been four hundred and twenty-five. The diffi- 
culties of the movement were over, for crossings on the Chickahominy were 
easily secured, and the column marched, comparatively uninterrupted, through 
White Oak Swamp to Haxall's Landing, on the James. 

Here for three days they rested. They were to return to the Army of the 
Potomac; but where was it? To make sure of contingencies, Sheridan decided 
on marching far to the eastward, crossing the Pamunkey at White House, and 

* About a million and a half of rations, in all, besides medical stores, telegraph wire, etc. 



Philip H. Sheridan. 519 

feeling there foi- the missing army. The raih-oad bridge was supposed to be 
burnt, but on coming to examine it closely, Sheridan found he could make it 
passable if he only had plank. Mounted parties were at once sent out to scour 
the country; every man returned bearing a board; and before two divisions, 
sent out towards Eichmond to reconnoiter and to destroy Lee's railroad had 
returned, the bridge was ready for their passage. A few prisoners were taken ; 
the whereabouts of the contending armies was ascertained, and with little more 
difficulty they rejoined the Army of the Potomac. They had been gone sixteen 
days, had destroyed and captured many stores, temporarily broken the railroads, 
deepened the sense of insecurity at Eichmond, and kept the Eebel cavalry out 
of Grant's way. But beyond and above this, the movement had changed the 
mounted force of the Army of the Potomac into cavalry. Thenceforth, they had 
confidence in themselves and in their leader; were animated with the cavalry 
spirit, and were no longer doubtful of their power to compete with equal or 
superior forces of the enemy. 

They next moved to secure for the army the crossing of the Pamunkey. 
Beyond the river, and but three-quarters of a mile from the inftintry line, they 
had a hard fight with South Carolina cavalry, whom they finally drove. Next, 
they maneuvered for the possession of Cold Harbor, through which Grant 
wished to run his new line of supplies. Finally, they fought for it — first along 
an adjacent creek, then at Cold Harbor itself, where they drove a strong force 
of cavalry and infantry out of intrenchments. " The men were now beginning," 
says Sheridan, " to accept nothing less than victory." They were heavily at- 
tacked in their new position ; but behind their slight intrenchments they held it 
firmly till ten o'clock next morning, when the advance of the infantry arrived 
to relieve them. 

One of the systems of co-operative movements which Grant had so well 
arranged on paper (but which bitterly failed in execution) was now in progress. 
Sheridan, with two divisions, was ordered to assist it. General Hunter Avas 
expected to arrive at Charlottesville. Sheridan accordingly set out to cut the 
Virginia Central Eaih'oad, and join Hunter at this point— it being further 
expected that his movement would draw oif the Eebel cavalry from the flanks 
and trains of the Army of the Potomac. He carried a hundred rounds of am- 
munition, three days' rations, and two days' forage. For the rest he was to 
live off the country. As he started he received news that Breckinridge's 
infantry, and the whole Eebel cavalry, were moving westward on a route par- 
allel to his own. He encountered no difficulty till he reached Trevillian Station, 
where he had hard fighting. He now learned that Hunter was not at Char- 
lottesville but that Breckinridge was; that Ewell was still further westward; 
that Hunter, instead of marching to join him, was marching fiairly away from 
him, in the direction of Lynchburg. He had nearly exhausted his ammunition. 
He had five hundred wounded, and as many prisoners. Thus burdened and 
isolated, he was facing, without rations or forage, in an enemy's country, largely 
superior numbers, and was without powder and ball, and Avithout prospect of 
joining the co-operating column. He promptly decided to return ; broke up 



520 Ohio in the War. 

the railroad about Trevillian Station ; used almost his last round of ammu- 
nition in the fighting that accompanied this work; left ninety wounded who 
could not be moved, and with the rest in ambulances, struck out north-east- 
wardly on his return, bearing with him two thousand escaping slaves. There 
was some delay in feeling for the new positions of the Army of the Potomac ; 
and, finally, the column came safely out at White House. 

A new task awaited it — to conduct the great train left there to the south 
side of the James, whither the army had already gone. "The train should 
never have been left for us," says Sheridan rather curtly — indeed he seems on 
several occasions ill-satisfied with G-eneral Meade's management of affairs — but 
his tired troopers at once undertook the work. Heavy Eebel forces hung upon 
his flanks; and he had to fight a stubborn battle at St. Mary's, which ended in 
disorderly retreat, but lasted long enough to get the train out of harm's way. 
And so he came out on the James. 

Meanwhile General Meade had contrived to get Wilson's cavalry division, 
which Sheridan had left behind when he started on the Trevillian raid, into 
trouble. It had been sent south of Petersburg to cut railroads, had not been 
properly supported, and had been improperly instructed as to the forces it would 
encounter. Just as Sheridan was arranging for its relief it worried through, 
though with heavy loss. 

At last came a little rest. The cavalry had now been fighting and marching 
continuously for fifty-six consecutive days. It was given from the 2d to the 
26th of July to recuperate. Then followed a fresh movement to the north side 
of the James, to create a diversion in favor of the Burnside mine explosion. 
At Darbytown it came upon resistance, fought a brisk engagement, and came 
off with two hundred and fifty prisoners and two battle-flags. Then, with the 
supporting infantry, it drew in around the head of the bridge. At dark the 
floor was covered with moss and a division of the cavalry stealthilj^ moved over 
to the south side. At daybreak, dismounted, and with all the pomp of flutter- 
ing banners and beating drums, they came marching back. By such maneuvers 
the enemy was led to believe a continuous and formidable movement to the 
north side was in progress. Then — the mine explosion having ended in miser- 
able failure — he once more led back his cavalry to the lines around Petersburg. 
It was on the 30th of July he returned. On the 1st of August he was relieved, 
for harder duty on a wider field. 

Of the energetic and successful use made of the cavalry belonging to the 
Army of the Potomac during these busy months nothing can be said but praise. 
When Sheridan began he confronted superior forces, under the ablest cavalry 
leader of the rebellion. This leader* was killed in the first battle ; his troops, 
under subordinates so noted as Wade Hampton and Fitz Lee, were routed at 
almost every encounter, and when Sheridan turned his face northward, on the 
1st of August, he left behind him no Eebel cavalry worthy of the name. In all 
his more extended movements he had lived off the country ; but it is much to 
his credit that no outrages were permitted, and that, whenever they occurred, 

* General J. E. B. Stuart. 



Philip H. Sheeidan. 521 

efforts were made to bring the perpetrators to justice. He had captured dur- 
ing the campaign over two thousand prisoners; had placed liors de combat a 
force of the enemj" at least equal to his own casualties, and had lost in killed 
and wounded over five thousand. 

At the period which we have now reached "Washington was just recover- 
ing from the alarm of an attack which, under an enterprising commander, could 
scarcely have failed to result in its capture. But Early had frittered away his 
opportunity in feeble reconnoissances ; had suddenly found himself confronted 
by two corps ; had hastily retreated, and had been followed, rather than vigor- 
ously pursued, up the Shenandoah Yalley. Hitherto the troops and the terri- 
tory essential to the safety of the capital had been split up into four inde- 
pendent departments, for the convenience of the sorely beset President in find- 
ing places for his unemployed Major-Generals. General Grant now broke up 
this unmilitary ari-angement. He made one department of the four, and 
shortly afterward placed Sheridan at the head of it. 

The task here was two-fold: First, and always, to protect the capital 
and the North from these perpetual incursions or alarms about incursions, 
through the open gateway of the Shenandoah Valley ; and second, to defeat 
the Eebel army, drive it out, and prevent its return. For this work Sheridan 
had the Sixth and the Nineteenth Army Coi'ps, Crook's " Army of Western 
Yirginia," and two divisions of cavalry from the Army of the Potomac, making 
up an effective force, not stated in numbers officially by the General, though it 
could scarcely have fallen below thirty thousand. There seems little reason to 
doubt that Early, at the beginning of active operations, had at least twenty 
thousand.* 

*Some controversy having subsequently sprung up as to the relative strength of the opposing 
armies in this campaign, it may be well at the outset to say that there seem to be no official data 
lor arriving at Sheridan's exact strength. In his official report, describing the month's skirmish- 
ing before the battle of Opequan, lie says his " effective line-of-battle strength was eighteen 
thousand infantry and three thousand five hundred cavalry." But General Grant speaks (in his 
official report of general operations through the closing year of the war) of three brigades of 
cavalry sent to him, " numbering at least five thousand men and horses ;" and subsequently of 
sending also Torbert's and Wilson's divisions of cavalry from the Army of the Potomac. Sher- 
idan himself, in his report of cavalry operations, gives the effective strength of the Army of the 
Potomac in that arm at ten thousand. As he received two of the three divisions, the number thus 
added could hardly have been less than six thousand. He had, besides these, Averill's cavalry, 
connected with the Army of Western Virginia, which could scarcely have been less than one 
thousand strong. These figures would make an aggregate of twelve thousand cavalry. The 
Sixth Corps had numbered nearly thirty-five thousand at the beginning of Grant's Overland 
Campaign ; but after its passage through that protracted slaughter there appear to be no attain- 
able official data to show its strength; nor are there any to give the strength of the Nineteenth. 
Sheridan officially reports the casualties in his army through the entire campaign at sixteen thou- 
sand nine hundred and fifty-two (Gov't Edition, p. 48). Unless he lost over half his army 
in the campaign, this would involve a strength of at least thirty thousand at the outset, besides 
occasional re-enforcements. Swinton (History Army of the Potomac, p. 556) states Sheridan's 
entire effective strength at thirty thousand infantry and ten thousand cavalry. But there is a 
passage in a cipiier dispatch of Grant's to Halleck, brought out in the final Eeport Com. Con. War 
(Vol. II, Sheridan's Campaigns, p. 35), stating that Early had received re-enforcements, raising 



522 Ohio in the War. 

The region through which these rival forces were to contend was the- 
beautiful and fertile valley of the Shenandoah — that loveliest portion of Vir- 
ginia, lying between the Alleghanies on the west, and their outlying parallel 
range, the Blue Eidge on the east — rich, prosperous, abounding in food, and 
little harmed thus far by the war. 

The enem}^ lay at Martinsburg, pn the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad, which 
was the northern tei-minus of the great turnpike to Staunton, the leading arterj^ 
of the valley. Sheridan's forces were concentrated near Harper's Ferry. The 
distance between the two armies was not great. Between them, however, flowed 
the Opequan Creek. With the first signs of Sheridan's movement the enemy 
retreated up the turnpike to Winchester. Here Sheridan meant to attack him. 
But Early continued his retreat, and Sheridan, striking in on the pike behind 
him, pressed hard after. Thcs up the vallej'' they hastened, pursuers and pur- 
sued, till, near the bank of Cedar Creek — name which he was yet to make 
immortal — Sheridan was met by Colonel Chipman, from the Adjutant-General's 
office, who had ridden hard through Snicker's Gap, from Washington, to bear 
him an ominous dispatch from Grant: '-Inform General Sheridan that it is now 
certain two divisions of infantry have gone to Early, some cavalry, and twenty 
pieces of artillery. He must be cautious and act now on the defensive. Early's 
force, with this increase, can not exceed forty thousand men, but this is too 
much for General Sheridan to attack."* 

'■At once," Sheridan tells us, "I looked over the map of the valley for a 
defensive line." He could find but one — that at Halltown, in front of Harper's 
Ferry — and he subsequently expressed his belief that no other good line for 
resisting the approach of a superior force existed in the valley. Thither he at 
once retreated — having some cavalry fighting and much maneuvering on the 

his strength to " not over forty thousand — but this is too much for General Sheridan to attack." 
Greeley (American Conflict, Vol. II, p. 607) calls Sheridan's force "nearly thirty thousand;" and 
as will be seen from the sentence in the text, I have thought tliis about the number to which the 
variou.'i scraps of evidence point as correct. The matter is of importance in estimating the value 
of Slieridan's service, since it has been common, both in Rebel circles and in certain quarters at the 
North, to speak of his campaign in the Shenandoah Valley as fought against an antagonist hav- 
ing little more than one soldier to his four. General Early himself, in a letter written from 
Havana, and published in the newspapers in December, 1865, charged Sheridan with exaggera- 
tion and misrepresentation as to various matters in the valley campaign, and said: "At the 
battle of Winchester, or Opequan, ... my effective strength was about eight thousand five 
hundred muskets, three battalions of artillery, and less than three thousand cavalry." Unfor- 
tunate as he certainly was, General Early has hitherto been considered truthful ; and, at any 
rate, an officer having regard for his own reputation, would hardly commit himself to an untrue 
statement in a matter of this kind, when the means for correcting it must exist in the hands of 
several individuals, and are pretty sure, some day or another, to come out. But Sheridan's reply 
shuts us up to the belief either that Early's statement here was grossly incorrect, or that he must 
have displayed excessively bad generalship in fighting a great battle with only a part of his 
forces, or that he must have been in constant receipt of re-enforcements afterward. This reply 
was very simple. It consisted of a receipt from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Depart- 
ment, for thirteen thousand prisoners, captured from General Early's command during tlie 
valley campaign — two thousand more than Early represented as forming the entire effective 
strength of his army at Winchester ! 

* Final Rep. Com. Con. War. Vol. II, Sheridan's Campaigns, pp. 34, 35. 



Philip H. Sheridan. 523 

way. Under directions from General Grant, the wheat and hay throughout the 
portion of the valley thus reached, were destroyed, the order instructing -'officers 
in charge of this delicate but necessary duty to inform the people that the objeci 
is to make this valley untenable for the raiding parties of the Eebel army."* 

On the 21st of August Sheridan reached his defensive line of Halltovvn. 
Three days before, on the evening of the 17th, Early had reached "Winchester 
on his advance, and had been re-enforced by Kershaw's division of Longstreet's 
famous corps from the Army of Northern Virginia, and by two brigades of Fitz 
Lee's cavalry. Stttl there is no reason to believe that his force by any means 
reached General Grant's enormous estimate of forty thousand. Subsequent dis- 
patches indeed proved so confused and contradictory that Sheridan determined 
to find out for himself what force Early really had, and repeated reconnoissances 
were accordingly ordered. Some of these swelled into considerable engagements. 
They resulted in convincing the General that "the difference of strength be- 
tween the two opposing forces was but little."! Meanwhile he had learned that 
Kershaw's division was soon to be ordered back to Eichmond, and he decided to 
await its withdrawal. The country, he reasoned, could ill afford defeat, and no 
interests in the valley were injured by a little dela}- save those of the Baltimore 
and Ohio Eailroad— a corporation never likely to suffer long without making its 
wants abundantly known. :]: From the 2l8t of August, therefore, till the 3d of 
September, the army lay on the Halltown line, then until 19th September on 
positions in front of it toward Winchester. Through all this time the cavalry 
was kept at work, skirmishing with the enemy, and — a matter of far greater 
moment— learning to attack infantry in position. The territory between the 
advanced lines and the bank of Opequan Creek was thus continually scoured, 
and behind this impenetrable veil Sheridan hoped, when the time came, to con- 
ceal the movements of his infantry. 

At last, on the night of the 15th September, came news of the awaited 
return of Kershaw. The plan now conceived by Sheridan was bold and 
sagacious. He determined to abandon his own line, throw himself upon that 
of the enemy, on the valley turnpike behind him, and thus leave him without 
retreat. But as yet his orders from the Lieutenant-General did not contemplate 
bringing on a decisive battle. Grant, however, now came up from City Point to 
confer with Sheridan and decide what should be done. " He pointed out so 
distinctly how each army lay," says Granfr in his Annual Eeport, "what he 
could do the moment he was authorized, and expressed such confidence of suc- 
cess, that I saw there were but two words of instruction necessary — go in ! I 
asked him if he could get out his teams and supplies in time to make an attack 
on the ensuing Tuesday morning. His reply was that he could before daylight 
on Monday. He was off promptly to time," continues the General, "and I 
may here add that the result was such that I have never since deemed it neces- 
sary to visit General Sheridan before giving him orders." High compliment 
indeed — but we shall see how Sheridan won it. 

* Final Rep. Com. Con. War. Vol. II, Sheridan's Campaigns, pp. 34, 35. 
tibid, p. 37. tibid. 



524 



Ohio in the Wak. 



He was on the point of executing his bold movement to the enemy's rear, 
when word came to him that Early, keejDing half his army at Winchester, haa 
just sent the other half down to Martinsburg. Here then was an opportunity 
to beat him in detail. He would fall first upon the force at Winchester, then, 
after crushing it, would advance northward down the Yalley Pike against the 
Martinsburg column, which, thus cut off from its line of retreat, could have no 

escape. 

Beyond the Opequan stretched a narrow mountain gorge, through which 
lay the road Sheridan must take in advancing upon the rRebel positions at 
Winchester. Along this Wilson charged* with one division of the cavalry, 
sweeping out the Eebel defenders, capturing the work at the exit near Win- 
chester, and securing space for the deployment of the army. But Emory's 
Nineteenth Corps was unfortunately delayed by its blunder in allowing the 
wagon-train of the Sixth to precede it, and the difficult}^ of the roads increased 
the detention, so that it was nine o'clock before the lines were read}- to advance. 

Before this time Early had recalled 
the absent divisions, and concentrated 
his army. Moving up, therefore, to the 
attack with the Sixth and Nineteenth 
Corps, Sheridan met a heavy and obsti- 
nate resistance. He still held Crook in 
reserve, meaning, at the turning point in 
the battle, to throw him in on his left, 
and thus reach the Valley Pike, and still 
gain the enemj'^'s line of retreat. But 
now Early, hoping by a powerful attack 
to break through the National front, 
seize the gorge, and thus plant himself 
upon its line of retreat, made a desperate 
onset upon the center. The line was 
completely broken; toward the gorge 
began a rush of confused soldiery from 
half the regiments; the battle was almost 
lost. At this critical juncture Sheridan 
drew aside one of the brigades in the 
line, which had just missed the full force 
of the Rebel blow, and ordered it to 
reserve its fire. Early's attacking col- 
umn rushed on after the fleeing regiments 
till it had unwarily exposed its flank. 
Then, upspringing, the brigade poured 
SHERIDAN'S VALLEY CAMPAIGN. in its fire, and rushed upon the enemy's 
flank and rear. The diversion threw back the successful assaulting column; the 
corps commanders exerted themselves to re-form their lines, and bring back the 




INFANTR/ 
•CAVALRy 



19th September, 1864. 



Philip H. »Shekidan. 525 

thousands from the rear; and before Early could prepare to renew his venture, 
a compact wall of infantiy once more confronted him. 

Along the center fierce line-fighting progressed, each side lying close to 
cover, and firing with a deliberation and accuracy that the long ranks of corpses 
on the battle-field afterward attested. On the right, however, the storm 
increased; and Sheridan began to grow fearful that it would be turned. At last 
he determined to avert this danger by abandoning his original design of putting 
* Crook in on the left, and by using him instead as a turning column on the right. 
His attack was vehement and successful. Just as the en em}' began to flee, one 
looking down the Yalley Pike might see the rest of Sheridan's cavalry chai-ging 
up. They had made a long detour to the right, had routed the Eebel cavalry, and 
were now driving a confused mass of infantry and cavalry up the pike and into 
Winchester. In the open ground in front of the town Early made a last stand. 
But Wilson's cavalry was now pushing in on the left to gain the pike in his 
rear; Sheridan ordered a combined infantry and cavalry charge on the front; 
and the battle was over. It was five o'clock in the evening.* 

In his hasty dispatch to the War Department from the battle-field, Sheridan 
said: "We have just sent the enemy whirling through Winchester, and are 
after them to-morrow. This army behaved splendidly. We captured two 
thousand five hundred to three thousand prisoners, five pieces of artillery, nine 
battle-flags, and all the Eebel dead and wounded. Their wounded in Winches- 
ter amount to some three thousand."! He wrote exactly as he felt. He had 
been into the fight, had thrilled with the rapture of the charge, and the pride 
of the pursuit; and it was but putting the cavalry enthusiasm into words, when 
in his lively phrase he telegraphed to the listening Country, as he talked to the 
comrades around him, that they had sent the enemy whirling through Win- 
chester. How he fed on the fighting as on food a hundred stories of the battle are 
told to illustrate. But this bit of a picture from the pen of a regimental ofiicer 
must suffice. The general advance had just been ordered : "A mounted officer, 
followed by a single orderly, galloped up to us. As he reined in his horse a 
Rebel shell, one of the many which were now tearing through the wood, burst 
within a few feet of him, actually seeming to crown his head with its deadly 
halo of smoke and humming fragments. 'That's all right, boys,' he said, with a 
careless laugh. 'No matter, we can lick them.' The men laughed; then a 
whisper ran along the ranks that it was Sheridan! Then they burst into a 
spontaneous cheer. 'What regiment is this,' he asked; and dashed ofl" toward 
the firing." So it was that he was magnetizing these troops, who a month ago 
had scarcel}" heard of him, into the confidence that a month later, was to enable 

*In the statements of the General's plans, in the above, and generally in the account of 
this campaign, where other authorities are not quoted, I follow closely Sheridan's own official 
reports. 

t Early states that he had only eleven thousand five hundred effective force in this battle. 
Were the statement credible it would detract greatly from the glory of the victory, for Sheridan's 
force engaged could scarcely have been less than twenty-five thousand. See note on this sulyecl, 
'Jnte, p. 521. 



526 Ohio in the War. 

his simple presence among them to turn rout into sturdy resistance, and pres- 
ently into inspiring victory. 

In the morning after Opequan* the whole army pushed forward, and 
by nightfall the advance corps had found the enemy intrenched at Fisher's Hill, 
and had gone into position before him. Fisher's Hill is a steep bluff overhang- 
ing the south bank of the little stream known as Tumbling Eiver, and is 
impregnable to direct attack. The Yalley here contracts to a width of only three 
and a half miles. The enemy had intrenchments across it, and evidently con- 
sidered himself safe. But he was much weaker than at Winchester the day 
before, both by reason of his heavy losses in killed and wounded, and especially 
because of the dispiriting effect of the ghastly loss and the hurried retreat upon 
the survivors. Furthermore, he was very uneasy about his rear — protected by 
only a small cavalry force at a mountain gap, against one of Sheridan's splendid 
divisions which he knew to be assailing it. 

Throughout the succeeding day Sheridan maneuvered. The massing of his 
force on a small part of the enemy's front mystified Early; and on the morning 
of the 22d that commander was still further deceived by a movement of cavalry 
aa-ainst his skirmish-line, which he took for a turning column. Meantime 
Crook, whose force had been carefully concealed from observation, was now 
hurriedly and secretly thrown westward to the extreme edge of the valley, 
where he moved up unperceived, and struck Early's thin flank a blow that 
instantly rolled it backward. He then swung in on the rear ; the line on the 
front rushed forward, overrunning all opposition and forming a connection with 
his flank ; with a single dash the rout of the enemy was complete. 

But Sheridan seemed forever doomed to disappointment in the efforts to 
plant a force across the Valley Pike in the enemy's rear. Torbert should 
have forced his passage as had been expected. If he had, Sheridan's sanguine 
expectation of capturing the whole opposing army might well have been real- 
ized, for, in its rout from Fisher's Hill, it scarcely preserved the semblance of 
even a company organization. As it was, pursuit was instantly ordered through 
tlie darkness. At Harrisonburg Early got together fragments of his force and 
took a strong position ; but presently left again in great haste, as his flank began 
to be threatened. The pursuit was pushed hard, and finally Early took to the 
mountains at Brown's Gap, where, soon, Kershaw once more came to his 
assistance. Sheridan continued picking up prisoners, and sending out cavalry 
expeditions through the length and breadth of the Yalley, even penetrating 
to Staunton and Waynesboro'. 

The Yalley was clear; the Eebel column had disappeared. It was now, 
therefore, to be decided whether the army should push after it into the mountains, 
and advance on Charlottesville and Gordonsville. The Department evidently 
expected this, and it would appear that General Grant once desired it. " I was 
opposed to it," says Sheridan, frankly, in his report, "for many reasons, the 
most important of which was that it would require the opening of the Orange 
and Alexandria Eailroad, and to protect this road against the numerous guerrilla 

*20th September, 1864. 



Philip H. Sheridan. 527 

bands would have taken a corps of infantry. Besides, I would have been 
obliged to leave a small force in the Valkey to give security to the line of the 
Potomac. This would leave me but a small number of fighting men." And 
he further instances the danger of being overwhelmed in the mountains with 
this small force, by a sudden detachment from Lee's army, into the vicinit}' of 
which his march would be carrying him. He accordingly advised that the cam- 
paign in this direction be ended, and the bulk of the troops returned to the 
Army of the Potomac. Grant assented, and the march back again down the 
Valley began. 

When Sheridan assumed the command, scarcely two months before, the first 
orders he received were those under which his predecessor was acting : " In 
pushing up the Yalley, it is desirable that nothing should be left to invite the 
-enemy to return. Take all provisions, forage and stock wanted for the use of 
your command. Such as can not be consumed, destroy. It is not desirable 
that buildings should be destroyed — they should rather be protected; but the 
people should be informed that so long as an army can subsist among them, 
recurrences of these raids must be expected, and we are determined to stop 
them at all hazards." General Sheridan officially reports that, "fully coinciding 
in the views and instructions of the Lieutenant-General, that the Valley should 
be made a barren waste, I stretched the cavalry across, from the Blue Eidge to 
the eastern slope of the Alleghanies, with directions to burn all forage and drive 
off" all stock, etc., as they moved to the rear." 

But, unfortunately, he did more than "coincide." Here is his first account 
of the destruction in one of his dispatches from the field. "In moving back to 
this point, the whole country from the Blue Kidge to the ISToi'th Mountain has 
been made untenable for a Eebel army. I have destroyed over two thousand 
barns filled with wheat and hay and farming implements; over seventy mills 
filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of the army over four thousand 
head of stock, and have killed and issued to the troops not less than three thou- 
sand sheep." But it is to be observed, with pleasure, that "the most positive 
orders wei-e given not to burn dwellings." It would have been better if mills 
had been included in the exemption. To destroy these was to inflict vengeance 
on the country for manj- years to come, and it was not required by the terms of 
General Grant's order. For the rest, Sheridan is not responsible. It will, how- 
ever, be long regretted that this cruel devastation, at best of doubtful necessity, 
involved innocent and guilty in a common and dread calamity; while it proved 
unavailing to keep out the Eebels, who, a few weeks later, were driving his 
surprised army in confusion, from Cedar Creek. The laws of war admit such 
general destruction of food, in those special cases in ^hich "the advantage 
gained may seem adequate to the sufferings inflicted."^ It would be hard to 
show wherein such advantage was realized in the Shenandoah Valley. But it is 
to be said that General Sheridan did all he could to prevent riotous license from 
mingling with the stern destruction. In this he stands in enviable contrast with 
another, and not less distinguished Ohio General. "As he rode down the Mar- 

•' Twiss,-Law of Nation.*, Vol. I, p. 125. 



528 Ohio in the War. 

tinsburg Pike in his four-horse wagon," writes an admiring staff officer * " with 
heels on the front seat, and smoking a cigar, while behind him his cavalry was 
destroying the provender that could not be carried away, the inhabitants of the 
Yalley doubtless regarded him as history regards the Emperor who fiddled 
while Rome was burning, and would not now believe what is the simple truth, 
that this destruction was distasteful to him, and that he was moved by the dis- 
tress he was obliged to multiply upon these unfortunate people whose evil fate 
had left them in the ruinous track of war so long." 

As he retired, the Eebel cavalry, under a new leader, General Eosser, 
dogged his heels, and strove to prevent the destruction. Finally Sheridan 
halted; ordered Torbert to attack, and notified him that the infantry would 
wait till he had defeated them. "I thought it best," he telegraphed, "to make 
this delay of one day here and settle this new cavalry (general." And he goes 
on to tell how Torbert charged and drove him, and pursued him " on the jump 
twenty-six miles." 

About this time he received the notice of his appointment to the Brigadier- 
Generalship in the Regular Army, made vacant by the lamented death of his 
old classmate, McPherson. Here, indeed, was success. "Perhaps, in the 
chances of war, I maj^ win a Major's commission," he said in 1861. It was now 
only 1864; he had long been a Major-General of Volunteers; and now, in the 
inner circle of his and every West Pointer's idolatry, the regular service, he 
was a Brigadier, with an appointment that would last for life. But even this 
faintly conveyed to him the immense stride he had taken. General Grant had 
ordered a salute of a hundred guns "in honor of Sheridan'« great victory." 
'The War Department tendered him formal thanks, and emphasized the declara- 
tion that "your cavalry has become the efiicient arm in this country that it 
has proved in other countries, and is winning by its exploits the admiration of 
the country and Government." The country went wild over his successes ; great 
political calculations were based upon his achievements, and the important State 
and Presidential elections of the fall were largely influenced by his ringing 
dispatches from the field, which, to over half the nation, soon became familiar 
in their mouths as household words. Sheridan's pre-eminence as a cavalry 
officer was admiringly conceded on all hands. Not yet, however, had the public 
come to recognize the real breadth and strategic ability of the General's mind. 
In this respect, indeed, the very brilliancy of his exploits retarded the solid 
growth of his fame. 

We have seen that the victor of the Valley ajid those who controlled the 
conduct of the war differed as to the policy now to be pursued. Sheridan's vig- 
orous representations had gained an assent to his far-seeing and sagacious views ; 
but at Cedar Creek he was met by a dispatch from the marplot " Chief of Staff' 
at Washington, instructing him to "take a position far enough south to serve as 
a base for further operations upon Gordonsville and Charlottesville." which, 
furthermore, was to be " strongly fortified and provisioned." It was stated that 

'Colonel Newhall. With General Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 22, 23. 



Philip H. Sheeidan. 529 

this plan originated with G-rant, but Sheridan did not hesitate to repeat ms 
objections to it. Finally, Secretary Stanton telegraphed him* that a consul- 
tation on several jDoints was exceedingly desirable, and ordered him, if possi- 
ble, to go down to Washington. 

Sheridan spent a day in arranging the affairs of the army. The enemy 
had returned to Fisher's Hill, but was not thought likely to take the offensive. 
His army was placed at Cedar Creek ; the cavalry was started to Front Royal, 
on its march to the Army of the Potomac. Sheridan himself accompanied it 
thus far ; then turned off through Manassas Gap to Piedmont, and took rail for 
Washington. On the way waiming dispatches came to him from Wright, who 
was left in command. A message from Longstreet to Early had been taken off 
the Eebel signal-flag. It read : " Be ready to move as soon as my forces join 
you, and we will Crush Sheridan." Wright thought the enemy's cavalry might 
give some trouble, but he had no fears save for his right flank. Unfortunate 
misconception ! 

Sheridan thought the Rebel dispatch might prove a ruse, but at once 
ordered back the cavalry, sent instructions to Wright to call in all his forces and 
be watchful, and promised to be back not later than Tuesday. He spent but 
six hours in the consultations at Washington. Even then he was too late. 

On the night of the 18th, while Sheridan was approaching Winchester, on 
his retu.rn, Early and Longstreet were stealthily moving out from Fisher's Hill. 
So careful and minute were their arrangements for silence on the march that 
they even took away the canteens from their men, lest their rattle against the 
bayonet-sheaths or cartridge-boxes should be heard. Wright, as Ave have seen, 
was apprehensive about his right flank. His disposition of the entire cavalry 
there showed it, and the enemy at once profited by the disclosure. They moved 
rapidly +o the opposite flank. Here the front was scarcely protected at all. 
The exultant army that had followed the Rebels "whirling up the valley" was 
utterly incredulous as to the possibility of attack. They slept, ofiicers and men, 
the deep slumber of absolute confidence. Pickets were advanced but a short 
distance from the camp, so short a distance that the Rebel column crept around 
them, within six hundred yards of the main line ! Some pickets did report the 
sound of marching in the darkness on their front, and General Crook ordered 
men into the trenches ; but this report failed to arouse much apprehension, and 
they neglected to send out a reconnoissance. The front line Avas broken here 
and there by regiments sent out for picket-duty — even these gaps were until led. f 

* 13th of October, 1864. 

f These statements, of course, involve culpable negligence. Genei-al Crook, commanding 
this wing, proved himself so competent and valuable an officer throughout the war, that readers 
■will be glad to believe him not wholly responsible. General Wright had impressed the idea that 
the danger, if any existed, was on the other wing. General Crook had, however, insisted on 
having his flank covered by cavalry, and a division had been ordered to him, but had not yet 
arrived. In a subsequent portion of this work (Vol. II, Twenty-Tliird Infantry) it will be seen 
that the belief was current, botli among officers and men, that this cavalry had arrived, and that 
officers starting out under this supposition to join it were actually captured by the enemy. Gen- 
eral Crook himself, however, could hardly have been lulled into security by this belief. But 
much weightier responsibility attaches to General Wright. He created the impression that the 
Vol. I.— 34. 



530 Ohio in the War 

The dawn was obscured by fog. Through this these sudaenly came burst- 
ing the wild charging yells of the Eebel infantry— not Early's often beaten troops 
alone, but the flower of the Army of Northern Virginia. The extremity of 
Crook's line, taken thus by surprise in flank and rear, was doubled up in confu- 
sion precisely as, a few weeks before. Crook had himself doubled up Early's 
flank at Fisher's Hill. The enemy was into the trenches before all the muskets 
of the defenders were loaded ; the movement was quick, ordered, forceful, on 
the part of the assailants— hesitating and bewildered on the part of the confused 
troops thus rudely awaked from their dreams of security. In fifteen minutes 
the struggle was practically over. The Eebels, knowing perfectly their ground, 
and knowing, moreover, precisely what they wanted to do, drove forward their 
charging columns with a rapidity that to the surprised army seemed amazing. 
The Nineteenth Corps next gave way ; next, only a little more slowly, the 
Sixth. Long before this the tide of runaways had swept down the pike as far 
as Winchester, twenty miles away. The camps were abandoned, twenty-four 
pieces of artillery were lost, and the whole anny was in full retreat on Win- 
chester. Nearly five miles down the valley it began to come together, and Gen- 
eral Wright essayed the formation of a defensive line. He was presently inter- 
rupted by his Chief, who "here took the matter in hand." 

General Sheridan had arrived at Winchester the night before, on his way 
back from the consultation at Washington, to which he had been ordered. In 
the morning artillery firing was heard, but it was attributed to an intended 
reconnoissance, and nothing was thought of it. After an early breakfast, Sher- 
idan mounted and trotted quietly through Winchester, southward. A mile from 
me town the first fugitives from the lost field were encountered. He instantly 
gave orders to park the retreating trains on either side of the road, directed 
the greater part of his escort to follow as best it could, then, with only twenty 
cavalrymen accompanying him, he struck out in a swinging gallop for the scene 
of danger. As he dashed up the pike the crowds of stragglers grew thicker. 
He reproached none ; only, swinging his cap, with a cheery smile for all, he 
shouted : "Face the other way, boys; face the other way. We are going back 
to our camps. We are going to lick them out of their boots." Less classic, 
doubtless, than Napoleon's " My children, we will camp on the battle-field, as 
usual;" but the wounded raised their hoarse voices to cheer as he passed, and 
the masses of fugitives turned and followed him to the front. As he rode into 
the forming lines, the men quickened their pace back to the ranks, and every- 
where glad cheers went up. "Boys, this never should have happened if I had 
been here," he exclaimed to one and another regiment. "I tell you it never 
should have happened. And now we are going back to our camps. We are 
going to get a twist on them ; we '11 get the tightest twist on them yet that ever 
you saw. We '11 have all those camps and cannon back again ! " Thus he rode 

danger was on the other flank, failed to get the cavalry over when asked for, and, above all, com- 
pletely neglected the emphatic injunction sent him by Sheridan, on the first note of alarm— to 
call in the cavalry from Front Royal on the left. This cavalry was not called in, and between it 
and the left of the infantry Early and Longstreet passed for their sudden onset. 



Philip H. Sheridan. '^)3l 

along the lines, rectified the formation, cheered and animated the soldiers. 
Presently there grew up across that pike as compact a bod}^ of infantry and 
cavalry as that which, a month before, had sent the enemy "whirling through 
Winchester." His men had full faith in "the twist" he was "going to get" on 
the victorious foe ; his presence was inspiration, his commands were victory. 

While the line was thus re-established, he was in momentary expectation 
vf attack. Wright's Sixth Corps was some distance in the rear. One staff 
oflScer after another was sent after it. Finally Sheridan himself dashed dow-i 
to hurry it up ; then back to watch it going into position. As he thus stooo 
looking off from the left, he saw the enemy's columns once more moving up. 
Hurried warning was sent to the Nineteenth Corps on which it was evident the 
attack would fall. B}^ this time it was after three o'clock. 

The Nineteenth Corps, no longer taken by surprise, repulsed the enemy's 
onset. " Thank God for that," said Sheridan gayly. " Now tell General Emory, 
if the}^ attack him again, to go after them, and to follow them up. We'll get 
the tightest twist on them pretty soon they ever saw." The men heard and 
believed him ; the demoralization of the defeat was gone. But he still waited. 
Word had been sent in from the cavalry of danger from a heavy body moving 
on his flank. He doubted it, and at last determined to run the risk. At four 
o'clock the orders went out: "The whole line will advance. The Nineteenth 
Corps will move in connection with the Sixth. The right of the Nineteenth 
will swing toward the left." 

The enemy lay behind stone fences, and where these failed, breastworks of 
rails eked out his line. For a little he held this position firmly. His left over- 
lapped Siieridan's right, and seeing this advantage, he bent it down to renew 
the attack in flank. At this critical moment Sheridan ordered a charge of 
General McWilliams's brigade against the angle thus caused in the Eebel line. 
It forced its way through, and the Eebel flanking party was cut off. Custer's 
cavalry was sent swooping down upon it — it broke, and fled or surrendered, 
according to the agility of the individuals. Simultaneously the whole line 
charged along the front; the Eebel line was crowded back to the creek; the 
difficulties of the crossing embai-rassed it, and as the victorious ranks swept up 
it broke in utter confusion. 

Custer charged down in the fast gathering darkness to the west of the pike; 
Devin to the cast of it ; and on either flank of the fleeing rout they flung them- 
selves. Nearly all the Eebel transportation was captured, the camps and 
artillery were regained ; up to Fisher's Hill the road was jammed with artil- 
lery, caissons and ambulances ; prisoners came streaming back faster than the 
Provost-Marshal could provide for them. It was the end of Early's army; the 
end of campaigning in the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah. 

The effect upon the Government and the country was electric. The first 
rumors of disaster were painful and wide-spread. On the heels of these came 
Sheridan's dispatch, announcing the reverse and its retrieval, and giving a faint 
hint of the splendid prizes— artillery for an army, transportation, ammunition, 
small arms in a profusion that could scarcely be estimated. General Grant 



532 Ohio in the War. 

telegraphed from his position before Eiehmond : " I had a salute of a hundred 
guns from each of the armies here fired in honor of Sheridan's last victory. 
Turning what bid fair to be disaster into a glorious victory, stamps Sheridan 
what I always thought him, one of the ablest of Grenerals." The Secretary of 
"War indorsed and published this to the world. The resignation of General 
McClellan soon made a vacant Major-Generalship in the regular army, and to 
this highest prize in his profession Sheridan was promoted. 

It was a giddy height to which our modest little red-faced Captain, who 
thought he might yet be a Major, had risen ; but his head was not turned. He 
did not even give vent to his exultation in congratulations to his army. "Every 
one realized our success" — so he wrote soon after, in his official report — "con- 
gratulatory orders were unnecessary, and every officer and man was made to 
understand that when a victory was gained it was not more than their duty nor 
less than their country expected from her gallant sons." But the Country could 
at least make its own congratulations. The name of Cavalry Sheridan was in 
all mouths. His exploits became the favorite theme of speakers, the inspiration 
of poets,* the argument against all who held to the Chicago declaration that 
the war was a failure. Sherman had not yet fastened the gaze of the nation 
by his grander operations ; Grant had still to give Eiehmond as proof ot his 
title to the power with which he was vested ; and for the time Sheridan was 
the most popular of our generals. 

But even yet the public scarcelj^ rose to the true height in their apprecia- 
tion of him. His campaign in the Yalley justified their warmest plaudits ; but 
they attributed it all to his " dash," when far more was due to the breadth 

"•■• The noblest of the poems thus inspired, indeed, the noblest lyric of the war, has a special 
interest here, both by reason of its connection with Sheridan, and because of its Ohio authorship. 
Eeaders will be glad to find it given in connection with this sketch of its hero, and to have also 
an account of the circumstances under which it was written : 

"Mr. Murdoch, the tragedian, had devoted himself during the earlier years of our struggle, 
with a noble and selfjsacrificing patriotism, to the task of raising money for the Sanitary Com- 
mission, and all other benevolent projects intended for the benefit of 'our boys in blue.' He had 
delivered lectures and recitations all over the country, the proceeds going to the objects we have 
named ; and at length, as the war was drawing toward its close, his numerous friends in Cincinnati 
proposed a magnificent ovation for Mr. Murdoch's own benefit — his finances having somewhat 
suflfered from his unselfish and unsparing efforts in the cause of the soldier and the country. At 
breakfast on the morning of the benefit night, Mr. Murdoch, who was staying' at Mr. Thomas 
Buchanan Eead's house (and who had been chiefly, or at least very largely, reciting Mr. Eead's 
noble lyrics and battle sketches during the two years preceding), remarked to his poet friend: 
'I'm sorry, Read, that you did not give me some original poem for to-night. Something new 
and fresh that would arouse the audience and set the blood leaping through my own veins as I 
epoke. The fact is, I feel rather a dread of this occasion ; and without some stimulus of the kind 
can not speak as well for myself as I did for others.' Mr. Read suggested that it was not yet too 
late. If Murdoch really wished it, he would try his hand at something new. Murdoch, however, 
persisted that it was too late — firstly, because poets can not always write to order ; and secondly, 
because he, Murdoch, would require some hours to study whatever Mr. Read — even in the brief 
space allowed him — might find his Muse willing to offer. ' Nevertheless,' said Read, 'I'll try. 
That Ride of Sheridan's from Winchester to Cedar Creek we have just been reading about gives 
me a subject ; and if you stay here some few hours, I'll run up to my library and see what can 
be done.' In less than three hours he returned to the breakfast parlor and placed in the hands of 



Philip H. Sheridan. 533 

of lij« sound strategy, and his combination of all the qualities that go to 
make up a successful General. His performance at Cedar Creek went far to 
confirm this mistake. That remarkable battle was compared — justly enough — 
to Marengo. The points of similarity were striking. Marengo began as a 
defeat; so did Cedar Creek. The Austrians attacked at day-break at Marengo; 
the Rebels did the same at Cedar Creek. Napoleon did not arrive on the field 
till about eleven ; Sheridan's arrival was near the same hour. At the appear- 

tlie tragedian, equally delighted and astonished, the perfect manuscript of that noblest and most 
fiery of all our war-songs, ' Phil. Sheridan's Ride.' " 

SHERIDAN'S RIDE. 

Up from the South at break of day, 
Bringing from Winchester fresh dismay. 

The affrighted air with a shudder bore, 

Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door. 

The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar. 

Telling the battle was on once more. 
And Sheridan twenty miles away. 

And wider still those billows of war 

Thundered along the horizon's bar; 

And louder yet into Winchester rolled 

The roar of that red sea uncontrolled, 

Making the blood of the listener cold, 

As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray. 

And Sheridan twenty miles away. 

But there is a road from Winchester town, 

A good broad highway leading down ; 

And there, through the flush of the morning light, 

A steed as black as the steeds of night 

Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight, 

As if he knew the terrible need ; 

He stretched away with his utmost speed ; 

Hills rose and fell ; but his heart was gay. 

With Sheridan fifteen miles away. 

Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering south, 
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth : 
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster. 
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. 
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master 
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls, 
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls ; 
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play. 
With Sheridan only ten miles away. 

Under his spurning feet the road 

Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed. 

And the landscape sped away behind 

Like an ocean flying before the wind, 

And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire, 

Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire. 

But lo ! he is nearing his heart's desire ; 

He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray, 

With Sheridan only five miles away. 



534 Ohio in the Wae. 

ancc of their commanders, the armies — French and American alike — rallied. 
There followed with each a period of doubtful but steadying resistance. At 
four Napoleon ordered the attack that cost him Dessaix, and won him the 
field ; at the same hour Sheridan gave his orders for attack. Napoleon swept 
the enemy into and through ^Marengo, captured twenty pieces of artillery and 
aight standards; Sheridan swept the enemy across Cedar Creek and through 
Strasburg, captured fortj^-nine pieces of artillery and ten standards. Napo- 
leon's loss was eight thousand ; Sheridan's six thousand. Here^ however, the- 
parallel ends. Napoleon's victory was won b}^ the arrival of Dessaix's Corps ;i 
Sheridan's was won by the arrival of a General. 

It was this that the public forgot. It was not a mere dashing fighter who- 
re-established th^e lines of the routed army; who turned the enemy's flanking 
him into an opportunity; who skillfully combined his cavahy and infantrj^ in 
his final assault, and followed up the defeated army like a bloodhound. Nor 
was it a mere dashing fighter who saw at the outset of the campaign that his. 
plan was not to drive the enemy out of the Yallej^, but to crush and annihilate 
him in the Yalley ; who was ready to disappoint the public expectation of his 
dash and vigor by delaying, for a month, at Harper's Ferry for the opportune 
moment to strike; who held his army so in hand that he was ready to fight a 
pitched battle on twenty-four hour's notice ; who, in the full flush of his intoxi- 
cating success, drew rein at Woodstock, and assumed the responsibility of dis- 
appointing the General-in-Chief, the Government, and the country, by refusing 
to continue his movement to Charlottesville. 

These were strokes of military genius — worthy to be named beside the first 
in the war. On these, indeed, rather than on the brilliant "dash" of the 
fighting must Sheridan's position in history depend. For it is not to be for- 
gotten that results in war lose their brilliancy in proportion to the preponderance 

The first that the General saw were the groups 

Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops, 

What was done? what to do? a glance told him both, 

Then striiving his spurs, with a terrible oatli, 

He dashed down the lines, 'mid a storm of huzzas. 

And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because 

The siglit of the master compelled it to pause. 

With foam and with dust the black charger was gray; 

By the flash of his eye, and tlie red nostril's play, 

He seemed to the whole great army to say, 

"I have brought you Sheridan all' the way 

t rem Winchester, down to save the day ! " 

Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan! 

Hurrah ! hurrah I for horse and man ! 

And when their statues are placed on high, 

Under the dome of the Union sky, 

The American soldiers' Temple of Fame ; 

There with the glorious General's' name. 

Be it said, in letters both bold and bright, 

" Here is the steed that saved the day, 
By carrying Sheridan into the fight, 

From Winchester, twenty miles away ! " 



Philip H. Sheridan. 535 

of force in the hands of the commander, and not to be denied that Sheridan's 
preponderance of force was great.* The casualties of the campaign were sixteen 
tliousand nine hundred and fiftj^-two.f The number of prisoners taken from the 
enemy was thirteen thousand; of pieces of artillery, one hundred and one 
(besides twenty-four recaptured after being lost at Cedar Creek); of battle-flags, 
Ibrty-nine. 

While Sherman, heading northward from Savannah, was drawing nearer 
and nearer, the doomed arm}^ that still held its lines before Eichmond and 
Petersburg, Sheridan now started southward to complete what has often not 
inaptly been termed the Circle of the Hunt. His instructions contemplated the 
destruction of the Virginia Central Railroad and the James Eiver Canal — the 
irreat arteries that fed Richmond from the westward. He was then to take 
Lynchburg if possible, and to return to Winchester, or move southward to join 
Sherman, as circumstances should dictate. But General Sheridan had now 
risen to that point in the confidence of his commander and of the Government, 
that he could venture to form plans of his own whenever those formed for him 
seemed inferior. And so we shall see that his movement resulted quite, other- 
wise from the expectations entertained by the General-in-Chief. Ac the outset 
he found a feeble force under Early still keeping up a show of resistance. The 
route to Lynchburg was open, but he decided not to leave this force in his rear, 
and, accordingly, the head of his column was turned in this new direction. At 
Waynesboro' Early was found, his position was carried by the cavalry at a 
gallop, his men, sixteen hundred strong, threw down their arms — as Sheridan's 
unique report tells us — " with cheers at the suddenness with which they were 
captured;" and the train, eleven pieces of artillery and other valuable spoils, 
were taken with them. Parties were sent out to destro}' Rebel property collected 
at various depots through the country ; the railroad was reached at Charlottes- 
ville, and the destruction of the track was begun. 

Meantime heavy rains had deluged the land. The melting snow from the 
mountains swelled the freshets, and the spring thaw broke up the roads so that 
rapid movements were impossible, and only great energy could secure move- 
ment at all. Furthermore, during the delay for the action with Early, and that 
subsequently compelled by the roads, the enemy had time to concentrate at 
Lynchburg a considerable force. Sheridan now, therefore, decided to abandon 
the effort against that city, and likewise — since every bridge across the James 
between Lynchburg and Richmond was destroyed — to abandon the project of 
moving southward to join General Sherman. 

*See extended note on this point ante. 

t These casualties were divided as follows : 

Killed. Wounded. Missing. Total. 

Crook's command 301 1,947 637 2,885 

Sixth Corps 578 3,965 357 4,899 

Nineteenth Corps 586 3,093 1,361 5,020 

Cavalry 454 2,817 646 3,917 

Provisional Division 19 91 121 231 

Aggregate 1,938 11,893 3,121 16,952 



536 Ohio in the Wae. 

There remained in his instructions the return to Winchester. But he wag 
now, as ne said, '' master of all the country north of James Eiver." He thereupon 
decided to assume the responsibility of abandoning G-eneral Grant's instruc- 
tions — moving, instead, down the north bank of the James and essaj^ing the 
dangerous venture of a march, by the flank, past Richmond to the army before 
Petersburg. This would place his commantl where he knew it was wanted, and 
would give him further opportunities to make his destruction of the road and 
canal (from Eichmond westward) more complete. Till he reached the neigh- 
borhood of Eichmond he was safe. Then, indeed, it became him to use every 
precaution to protect his flank and rear, and secure a passage over the Pamun- 
key, the Chickahominy, and the James, in the face of the M'atchful enemy. To 
fail here would bring not merely defeat, but also disgrace, since it would be held 
that he had invited the disaster by assuming to disobey his orders. 

Pushing his advance, however, boldly down the river toward Eichmond, as 
if none of these things troubled him, he then suddenly drew it back, almost due 
northward, to the point on the Gordonsville and Eichmond Eailroad, whither 
the rest of his command had already hastened. He was now safely out of reach 
from Eichmond, without danger to his flank. But he was still far from the 
White House, where he hojDcd to find supj^lies and cross toward Grant; and to 
march directly thither would still expose his flank, while it would also disclose 
his intentions. He already knew that Longstreet wits preparing to ojjpose him. 
He determined, therefore, to hold that officer on his front by assuming a bold 
initiative. Turning straight toward Eichmond, his horsemen trotted down till 
they were within eleven miles of the city. Then, while a single brigade amused 
the gathering enemy, the rest of the command, behind its cover, made all haste 
north-eastwardly till the South and North Annas were crossed, and the column 
stood within easy distance of White House, with Longstreet still looking for it 
at Eichmond. These operations happily combined daring and skill. They 
carried the command safely through grave difficulties; and greatly aided the 
Lieutenant-General, by leaving the troops in good season at the place they 
were wanted, instead of forcing him to wait while they made the tedious march 
back to Winchester, and then down to the Array of the Potomac. The move- 
ment was as successful, therefore, in its ending as it had been throughout its 
progress. It left Eichmond without communication with the rich granaries of 
Bouth-western Virginia, by roads north of the James; destroyed enormous sup- 
plies,* and left no organized enemy along its track. 

* Nothing can so well show the injury inflicted upon the enemy by this march, as the bare 
list of property destroyed or captured, as furnished in the official report : 



46 canal locks. 

5 aqueducts. 
40 canal and road bridges. 

2 naval repair shops with machinery. 

2 steam canal dredges. 

1 machine shop. 

1 forge. 

9 portable forges. 

1 lumber yard. 

1 foundry. 
21 warehouses. 



6 government warehouses. 
606 hogsheads tobacco. 
500 kegs tobacco. 
58 boxes tobacco. 
8,000 pounds tobacco. 

1 tobacco factory, valued at $200,000. 
336 sacks salt. 
500 bushels salt. 
12 barrels potash. 

20 canal boats loaded with hospital, quar- 
termaster, com. stores and ammunition. 



Philip H. Sheridan 



537 



At last all eyes could see the approaching end. Scarcely fifty thousand 
men were left within the lines of Eichmond and Petersburg. Upon this hapless 
remnant of brave soldiery was fallen the defense of the Confederacy at the vital 
point. Looking southward, its far-seeing commander could behold but one 
loose-jointed organization, perhaps half as strong, to which he could turn for 
aid; looking in everj^ direction, he could behold the converging bayonets of the 
million soldiers of the Nation, against whose overwhelming force he still kept 
up the hopeless struggle. He yet might strike one blow with the old skill — then, 
under cover of that, escape. But other eyes saw the same one-sided conditions 
of the opening campaign. While Lee was maturing his attack, Grant was pre- 
paring for one more '-movement by the left, toward the South-Side Eailroad." 
With the success of such a movement must come the end, for there was no 
longer any other avenue for supplies to the doomed city and army When Lee's 
attack failed, Grant thrust out his turning column. 

The flying verge of this was Sheridan's cavalry, nine thousand strong. 
Covered with the laurels of the Shenandoah, the successor in the regular ser- 
vice to the Major-Generalship of the first and most distinguished leader of the 
Army of the Potomac, the commander of a great department, the most popular 
General, as we have seen, in the armies of the country, had cheerfully — from 
the love of fight that was in him, and the enthusiasm to share in the last strug- 
gle for the final triumph — dropped back into his old position at the head of the 
cavalry of this single army. But he was no longer subjected to the irksome 
necessity of taking commands from its little-liked chief He received his orders 
from General Grant alone. He was to cut loose from the advancing infantrj' ; 

barrels flour. 

wagon loads grain and com. stores, 
jail at Goochland, used lor imprison- 
ment of National soldiers, 
ambulances and wagons, 
wagons loaded with ammunition and 
stores, 
beel' cattle, 
feet bridge timber, 
cotton quilts, 
pounds bacon, 
water tanks. 

pounds fixed ammunition. 
Quantity of shell, 
wall tents, 
saddle trees, 
cavalry saddles, 
sides harness leather. 
sets harness, 
shelter tents, 
pieces rifled cannon, 
pieces rifled cannon with limbers, 
pieces rifled cannon, 
caissons, 
small arms. 
A quantity small arms, 
carbines. 

horses and mules. 

large and deep breaches made in James 
Eiver and Kanawha Canal. 



6 flat boats loaded with com and quar- 


600 


termaster stores. 


18 


41 miles railroad. 


1 


10 railroad depots, with tanks, buildings, 




etc. 


225 


400 feet railroad trestle work. 


98 


4 railroad cars. 




23 railroad bridges, averaging 400 feet 


75 


each. 


100,000 


6 railroad culverts. 


1,500 


400 cordg wood. 


1,000 


27 miles telegraph. 


7 


3,000 pairs pants. 


3,000 


2,000 shirts and drawers. 




50 kegs powder. 


500 


600,000 rounds rifle ammunition. 


500 


1 barrel oil. 


500 


400 gross buckles and rings. 


110 


3 saw mills. 


904 


7 flour and grist mills. 


1,000 


1 cloth mill filled with machinery, in full 


3 


operation, containing an immense am't 


5 


of Confederate gray cloth. 


9 


3 cotton mills with machinery. 


6 


1,500 pounds wool. 


1,900 


35 bales cotton. 




1 candle manufactory. 


60 


1,000 pounds candles. 


2,143 


3 tanneries filled with hides and leather. 


3 


1,500 bushels wheat 




1,000 grain sacks 





538 Ohio in the Wak. 

strike the South-Side Eailroad and destroy it; then return to the Army of the 
Fotomac, or sweep southward to Sherman, as circumstances might suggestZ-i^ 

On the 29th of March, 1865, the general movement began. Sheridan 
pushed forward vigorously, selecting his own roads. By nightfall he was in 
bivouac at Dinwiddie C. H., with the Rebel cavalry to the south of him, and 
forced to march around him to the westward, by a wearisome detour, before it 
could again get into position. Here came to him Grant's famous order: "1 
now feel like ending the matter before going back. I do not want you, there- 
fore, to cut loose and go after the enemy's roads at present. In the morning 
push around the enemy if you can, and get on his right rear."f At the same 
time came rain — first in gentle showers, then in a torrent. The wagon-trains 
everywhere stuck fast, the troops went supperless to bed, and all expected the 
movement to end as similar movements had, the season before, in utter defeat by 
the elements. But at daybreak General Sheridan decided to visit Grant, and 
consult with him as to the details of his notable plan for "ending the matter 
before going back." The rain was still pouring down, and everything on 
wheels was hopelessly swamped, as the cavahy leader rode back through the 
shivering, cowering crowds of infantr}^, to the bottomless sand-field in the midst 
of which stood the Lieutenant-General's tent. Grant thought, if cavalry could 
wade over the roads, he would like to have them move up a little — it would be 
better than absolutely standing still. Sheridan cheerfully assented, said good- 
bye to his chief — "as chirpily " — a staff- officer ;{: tells us, "as if the elements were 
smiling," and hurried off orders to the cavalry to move on Five Forks. It was 
his last interview with Grant (save a glimpse, one morning, at Jettersville), till, 
ten days later, he was able to turn over to him the flag of the Army of Noi'th- 
ern Yirginia. 

•' Grant and tiis Campaigns — Orders to Sheridan, p. 433. t Ibid, p. 436. 

J Colonel Newhall, of General Sheridan's staff. In his book "With Sheridan in Lee's Last 
Campaign," pp. 57-59, he gives a pleasant picture of the ride, and of this scene: 

"Wishing to have a perfectly clear idea of General Grant's proposed plan of ending the 
matter, General Sheridan, soon after daylight on the 30th, mounted his gray pacer (captured 
from Breckinridge's Adjutant-General at Mission Ridge), and paced rapidly over to the head-quar- 
ters of the Lieutenant-General, taking two or three staff-officers, with a dozen men for an escort. 
This little party raised an immense commotion on the picket-line of the army, and only after such 
persevering dumb-show as the friendly Friday made to Robinson Crusoe was it permitted to 
approach. Once inside, the pacer was let out again, and rein was drawn only when the horses 
slumped to their bellies in the quicksand-field, where General Grant had pitched his tent, from 
which he regarded the tempest with derision. 

About this time things certainly looked rather blue to a superficial observer; the troop, just 
out of comfortable winter-quarters, cowered under their scant shelters, or dragged themselves 
slowly along to their place in line, clogged with mud and weighed down with the drenching rain. 
In every by-way and in every field, wagons were hopelessly imbedded in the glutinous soil. 
Drivers and mules had given it up, and the former smoked their pipes calmly under the wagons, 
while the latter turned tail to the storm and clustered around the feed-box, where they had put 
their head.s together from habit, for there was nothing in the box to eat, and they must have been 
•05«es if they hoped the forage-wagons would get to the front that day. General Sheridan, water 
.iripping from every angle of his face and clothes, was ushered into the presence and councils of 
the Lieutenant-General; and between them they soon settled that, as it Avas within the limits of 
horse possibility for cavalry to move, they would move a little and see what came of it, if only 



Philip H. Shekidan. . 539 

Tne cavalry was now at Dinwiddle C. H. Six miles north lay Five Forks, 
a 2")oint covering tlie roads west from Lee's intrenchments and north to the 
South-Side Eailroad, and therefore a point to be jealously guarded. Dinwiddle 
and Five Forks were two angles of the triangle within which occurred the 
maneuvers that decided the fate of the army. The third angle was eastward, 
where the infantry advance was pressing upon the end of Lee's protracted line 
of intrenchments. If now the reader will fix this triangle in his mind he will 
have the geograjjhy of the contested region — apex at the westward end of Lee's 
Petersburg lines, one side leading thence south-westward along the Boydton 
Plank Eoad to Dinwiddle, the other side westward from the same point along 
the White-Oak Koad to Five Forks, and the third side formed bj'the Ford Eoad 
running north and south between Dinwiddle and Five Forks. 

At the eastward angle Grant's infantrj' advance faced Lee's. At the south- 
ern angle lay Sheridan. The westward angle Lee must protect, to cover the 
South-Side Eoad from Sheridan. Yet, to do it, he must either leave Grant's infan- 
try advance on his flank (at the eastward angle), while he faced Sheridan at 
Five Forks, or he must seek to sweep it out of the contest before going west- 
ward to Five Foi-ks. He determined upon the latter course, and vehemently 
assailed Warren, with such success as to throw back two of his three divisions 
in confusion. The disaster was, indeed, speedily remedied, for Warren's corps 
was skillfully posted en echelon, but Le6, not waiting for this (and probably not 
supposing it possible) hurried westward to Five Forks. Here Sheridan, 
advancing, found himself confronted by a force he could not hope to master — 
"Pickett's division, Wise's independent brigade, and Fitz Lee's, Eosser's, and 
W. H. F. Lee's cavalry commands," as he enumerated them in a subsequent 
note to the Lieutenant-General. While his advance held near Five Forks,* the 
eneni}" pushed westward around its flank, burst suddenly ujDon it, hurling it 

to pass the time, for on a day like this the most ardent man must find employment, or he will 
begin to think that he is a helpless party to a fiasco, which it must be acknowledged we all 
appeared to be just then. The only thing, probably, that could have amused the company on 
that inauspicious morning, would have been an excited horseman straining through the treacher- 
ous soil, waving his hat, and crying out that Lee would surrender to Grant, one hundred miles 
from there, in ten days from date. That would have been extremely amusing, and the toughest 
veteran would have smiled grimly. 

"Very hopeful, but somewhat incredulous, were the veterans, and it was ralher their fashion 
to scoff in the last year of the war. There were precedents for all sorts of campaigns except 
"the last," and the old troops were somewhat skeptical when that was predicted. They had 
something of the feeling of the man in "Used Up," who had been everywhere and seen every- 
thing — been up Mount Vesuvius, looked down the crater, and found nothing in it. Lee had 
escaped them by only so much as Tam O' Shanter's mare escaped at the bridge, and, possibly, for 
the reason that armies like witches are balked by streams, as the Potomac and Kappahannock 
would seem to testify. They had been in Burnside's "mud movement," and looking on this pic- 
ture and on 'bat they discovered tlie counterfeit presentment of two brothers, so far as it was 
given to them to see; but tlie Lieutenant-General and General Sheridan had not been in the other 
mud movement, and they are not men of routine to care for precedent, so the latter got into his 
wet saddle again, said good morning to the Lieutenant-General as chirpily as if the elements were 
smiling, and sent off a stafT-ofiicer by a short-cut to find General Merritt, on tlie road from Din- 
widdle to Five Forks, and tell him to move out a little further and stir up the animals. 

«-31.st of March, 1865. 



540 Ohio in the War. 

back eastward, and thus cut it completely off from Sheridan's main column in 
front of Dinwiddie. The force thus isolated and in danger of speedy capture 
consisted of three cavahy brigades. But Sheridan was never so plucky or full 
of resources as in the most dangerous crisis. Hastily sending word (by a lono- 
detour) to the dislocated brigades to continue their retreat through the woods 
till they struck the lower side of the triangle (the plank road leading to Din- 
widdie, by which they might return to him), he waited till the pursuing enemy, 
in ignorance of the force it was passing, had rushed on eastward after the flying 
brigades, exposing its rear to his columns about Dinwiddie. Then he fell fiercely 
upon them. They, of course, faced by the rear rank to meet this new danger, 
and abandoned their pursuit. The isolated brigades made their way around to 
Dinwiddie in safety; while Sheridan, dismounting his cavalry and throwing up 
fragments of hasty rail-breastworks, resisted the onsets of the whole Eebel 
force now concentrated upon himself Officers were hastil}'- dispatched to bring 
up Custer, who was still in the rear with the trains. The horse artillery was 
brought into position, and as soon as opportunity offered was used with effect. 
An attack of the Eebel cavalry was repulsed with a single volley. At last came, 
with the level rays of the setting sun, a charge upon this obstinate dismounted 
cavalry of Sheridan's, by the whole line of the Eebel infantry, not less than 
twelve thousand strong. There was no better infantry anywhere. As they 
advanced Sheridan, cap in hand, galloped along his lines, and from end to end 
rose the cheers of the confident cavalry. The group of horsemen drew the first 
fire of the enemy; the repeating carbines of the cavalry puffed out their 
responses; and till dark fierce musketry firing raged. But the enemy halted 
soon after entering the open fields before Sheridan's lines, apparently not choos- 
ing to drive such vigorous fighters to extremities without more daylight for the 
task. They wrapped themselves in their blankets, and sank down in line of 
battle on the bloody ground ; the cavalry did the same ; and darkness shut in 
assailed and assailants on the common field of Dinwiddie C. H.* 

But for the Cavalry General there -^as little rest that night. He waited 

* Colonel Newhall, of Sheridan's staff, thus describes the last onset. (With General Sheri- 
dan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 70, 72) : 

" The sun was nearly down now, but one more effort of the enemy was yet to be made to 
get possession of Dinwiddie C. H., and win some fruits of the hard day's work, which, so far, 
had borne but barren honor. The thundering salute to their cavalry had hardly ceased to echo 
through the woods when the long line of their infantry slowly debouched on the plain — infantry 
that was hard to beat. We used to think that living was such a poor life with them that thev 
did not much care to continue it. They had an air of abandon, a sort of devil-may-care swing in 
their long stride as they advanced over a field, that was rather disheartening to men that did 
not want to get shot. And these were some of their best — parts or all of Pickett's and Johnston's 
divisions of Anderson's corps. While they were still deploying, Pennington's brigade of Custer's 
division reached the field, and was immediately ordered to the right, to the support of Gibbes. 
Catching sight of the enemy, Pennington's men burst into a glorious cheer as they splashed 
through the miry road behind the rails, and from left to right the shout was passed along, while 
General Sheridan, cap in hand, galloped up the line with some of his staff and Generals Merriti 
and Custer, who were with him at the moment, and drew the first fire of the now advancing 
enemy. Mud and bullets flew, and an enthusiastic reporter of the New York Herald, who was 
carried away by his feelings at this juncture, was shot in the shoulder following the General, 



Philip H. Shekidan. 541 

till it seemed certain that the enemy would attack no more till morning ; then 
sat down in a little cabin filled with his wounded soldiers, and wrote to the 
Lieutenant-General what had occurred through the day, concluding: "This 
force is too strong for us. I will hold out at Dinwiddle C. H. until I am com- 
pelled to leave." Then came in the brigades that had been cut oif in the morn- 
ing, and they were conducted to their new positions and put into line. Mean- 
time, by ten o'clock Grant had received Sheridan's report, and by midnight his 
answer had arrived. AYarren was ordered to Sheridan's support — " should 
arrive by midnight" — and a thousand more cavalry were sent. The Lieutenant- 
General sjjecified the routes by which Warren was to move. One route would 
bring the force that took it into Sheridan's lines. The other would lead the 
force upon it square against the rear of the enemy's lines — an arrangement that 
would either bring on an engagement in the thick woods in the night or dis- 
close to the Eebel column in the morning that it had enemies on front and rear. 
Sheridan saw it and gloated over the prospect. But midnight passed, one 
o'clock passed, two, three — and still no word of "Warren. Then Sheridan wrote, 
assuming that at least the division on the enemy's rear had got into position :* 
"I understand that you have a division at J. Boisseau's ; if so, you are in rear 
of the enemy's line, and almost on his flanks. I will hold on here. Possibly 
they may attack here at daylight. If so, attack instantly and in full force. 
A-ttack at daylight anyhow. I will make an effort to get the road this side, . . 
and if I do, you can capture the whole of them." The hours passed away; no 
sounds of attack arose, and no word came from Warren. Dawn struggled 
through the dense fog, and disclosed an infantry line still facing the cavahy in 
their rail breastworks. f It was found to be — not Warren, as had seemed possi- 
ble — but the Rebel force, still holding on, in spite of the danger that, since the 
Lieutenant-General's orders to Warren, had been menacing his rear. Before 
the cavalry could move out against it, it wound into the woods and disappeared. 
The cavalry pushed in after it, and before long the patter of musketry told that 
the skirmishers were engaging its rear-guard. At last Warren was heard from. 
He had not thought it prudent to move down toward Dinwiddle through the 

Our artillery now opened, and at such short range could not fail to be destructive, and a moment 
later the carbines of five brigades were blazing in the twilight, the repeating Spensers puffing out 
their cartridges like Roman candles. The heavy fire from both sides continued for a few minutes, 
and, meanwhile, darkness settled down upon us. Gradually the fire from the enemy became 
fitful and irregular, and soon ceased altogether, for, as they advanced across the open ground, 
they seemed to count the cost of carrying our line, and weigh the advantages of holding the 
Court-House by such uncertain tenure as theirs would be, separated by miles from their own 
army, and liable to be annihilated before they could rejoin it. Acting on the conclusion of this 
sober second thought, they contented themselves with such glory as the day had brought, and, 
wrapping themselves up in it, lay down in their tracks to rest, as soon as the slacking of our fire 
permitted." 

* Sheridan's Official Eeport. 

t We have another pleasant picture, from Colonel Newhall's pen. (With General Sheridan 
in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 89, 91), describing the uncertainty here existing: 

"Meanwhile, before daybreak, General Sheridan and his staff might have been very indis- 



542 Ohio in the Wae. 

woods on the enemy's rear, in the darkness, while uncertain about the safety 
of his own rear, thus exposed to any force which Lee might suddenly order out 
from the Petersburg intrenchments. His ti'oops were accordingly directed to 
halt and get breakfast ; while — the chance at Dinwiddle being thus lost — the 
cavalry should push the enemy up to Five Forks, and see what better fate 
awaited them there. 

"I here determined," Sheridan tells us, "that I would drive the enemy, 
with cavalry, to Five Forks, press them inside their works, and make a 
feint to turn their right flank; and meanwhile quietly move up the Fifth 
Corps with a view to attacking their left flank, crush the whole force if 
possible, and drive westward those who might escape, thus isolating them 
from their array at Petersburg." It was a happy conception ; its successful 
execution made Five Forks forever memorable — if not as the virtual close of 
the war, at least as the most important in the quick series of blows which 
secured that close. 

The Eebel force now drawing back to Five Forks contained Pickett's divis- 
ion, seven thousand strong; Bushrod Johnson's, six thousand; and two small 
brigades besides — in all say fifteen thousand. It had doubtless discovered that 
its contest was no longer with Sheridan's ten thousand cavalry, but with a for- 
midable infantry corps as well; and it is quite probable that through the night 
a considerable portion of its numbers had already been withdi-awn, in fear of the 

tinctly seen emerging from the Dinwiddle Hotel and mounting their trusty steeds. It was a very 
foggy morning ; even after the hour of sunrise heavy vapors rendered only indistinctness per- 
ceptible, and when we reached the picket-line of Custer's division, which was in front, beyond 
Dinwiddie, the most straining eyes could not see many yards beyond the works, which our men 
had strengthened during the night, and were now fit to resist horse, foot, or dragoons. Gradu- 
ally the fog lifted, and Generals Sheridan, Merritt, and Custer, each with staff and escort, pro- 
ceeded to make a reconnoissance, which soon developed a long line of infantry, with skirmishers 
to the front, and mounted officers prancing gaily about. The que-^tion then arose under which 
king this line was marshaled. We had heard nothing of the Fifth Corps, which was to attack 
at daylight, and it seemed very possible that the enemy might have stolen away in the night, 
declining to be sandwiched between General Warren's command and our cavalry, and this, then, 
might be the Fifth Corps confronting' us. There was a great division of opinion. Field-glasses 
were leveled and eyes were shaded to discover whether the line was friend or foe. Some cried 
'They're blue!' and some 'They're gray!' but for awhile nobody was sufficiently certain to ven- 
ture any nearer; already we were within easy musket range, but not a shot was fired — still the 
line did not advance, neither did it retire, and the anxiety for some sort of demonstration was 
growing painful, when one of Custer's staff discovered, through his glass, most unmistakable blue, 
and dashed boldly down toward a mounted officer, who was caracoling his horse on the neutral 
ground between our party and his skirmishers. We heard a 'Halt !' a question and an answer, 
and then the sharp report of a pistol, and Custer's officer came galloping back through the muddy 
field, and was able to report positively that the line was gray— a very gray gentleman having 
shot at him and called him some highly improper names. Our cavalry was at once ordered 
forward, and while the order was being carried back to the troops the stolid line faced to the 
right and coiled itself rapidly into the woods, only giving us time to send after it our compli- 
ments in a couple of rifled shells, which were fired partly for the sake of the damage they 
might do, but principally as a signal to General Warren that we were on the move, with the 
enemy in front of us. But as he had hardly yet started from his last night's encampment, we 
might well have saved the ammunition." 



Philip H. Sheeidan. 543 

-danger menaced by Warren's ability to march upon its rear.* Against this 
-fifteen thousand Sheridan was bringing the Fifth Corps, say thirteen thousand 
strong, and ten thousand cavahy — overbalancing the enemy's strength by a 
surplus of eight thousand. Under the stress of this hostile superiority, it was 
natural that the enemy should draw into his intrenchments without verj^ vigor- 
ous opposition to the hard-pressing cavahy. By two o'clock his skirmish-line 
was driven in, and around his front the enveloping cavahy drew its cloud. 
Behind, Sheridan was free to develop his plan. 

Warren was now ordered up from the neighborhood of Dinwiddie. While 
his movement went on, the cavalry was to occupy the enemy's attention on 
the front, Warren was to advance (on the Gravelly Eun Road which carried him 
to the east of Five Forks,) till, reaching the northern side of the triangle, ho 
struck the White Oak Road, leading out to Five Forks. Here he was to turn 
sharp west, with a left-wheel, and burst straight upon the flank and rear of the 
unsuspecting enemy, who was still focing southward against the cavalry. 

Sheridan remained on the front with the cavalry, repeating and re-repeat- 
ing to General Merritt (the immediate commander) his plans for co-operation 
with the infantry attack. Then leaving the cavalry to demonstrate to the 
westward of the enemy's line, he rode off eastward to where the infantry should 
now be going into position on the flank. He was disappointed in finding the 
corps not so far advanced as he had hoped. Warren sat on a log sending out 
his orders and enjoining haste. Sheridan could not bear this standing off and 
giving orders — he thought it was an occasion for the energizing effects of the 
corps commander's own presence. Three or four times he urged the necessity 
of speedy movements upon Warren with a manner sufficiently indicative of a 
brewing storm, and those who knpw him best watched his eyes as they began 
to glare in rage, and foreboded ill-luck for the officer who should fail to satisfy 
his demands for swift execution of orders. t Meanwhile he found a relief for 
his restlessness in providing for a new danger that threatened from the direction 
of Lee's fortified lines on the eastward about Petei'sburg. Some anxiety had 
begun to be felt there, it would seem, for the situation of Pickett and Johnson 
.at Five Forks, and a small column was now moving out to their aid. To meet 
this Sheridan sent Mackenzie with a thousand cavalry in hot haste — to hurl ii 
back, and then return to aid in the impending conflict. 

At last Warren's corps was up. Wheeling westward, it had before it the 
flank and rear of the hapless body of fifteen thousand Rebels in Five Forks. 
It interposed between them and their army, stood on their line of retreat, and 

* In tlie acrimonious discussions that have sprung out of Sheridan's act in relieving Warren 
at the close of the battle of Five Forks, there has been much dispute on this point. Warren's 
friends have maintained that the enemy retreated from Dinwiddie during the night; Sheridan's 
that he retreated next morning before the cavalry. The matter does not possess the importance 
with which these discussions have invested it ; but the probability seems to be that at daybreak 
nothing but a strong rear-guard was facing Sheridan at Dinwiddie. In any event it is plain that 
the purpose of retiring to Five Forks had been formed before the cavalry began their movement 
on that day. — See Warren's pamphlet, " The Fifth Corps at Five Forks." 

t With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 98, 99. 



544 Ohio in the Wae. 

was ready to drive them upon — Sheridan's cavalry! It was four o'clock when 
the movement began. Sheridan cantered out before the infantry line — his head- 
quarters' flag fluttering in the breeze — and pushed hard, up toward the skir- 
mishers in his eagerness. Just then Mackenzie came galloping back. He had 
driven the Eebel column that was coming out fi-oni the Petersburg lines, had 
brought back his command, and was ready for the greater fight in hand. 

Presently the left of the Fifth Corps struck the Eebel flank, the center and 
right overlapping it and enveloping its rear to the northward. They were moving 
through dense woods, and this gave rise to some confusion. Two or three regi- 
ments became unsteady and finally broke. Just then Sheridan came dashing in, 
and the magnetism that had turned Cedar Creek into a victory soon checked 
the untimely alarm. But he noted, with baleful look, that "Warren was not on 
the spot at the critical moment. As the line steadied he seized his head-quar- 
ters' flag and with it rushed forward to head the advance. They struck the 
enemy's left, doubled it up, and under orders that there should be no stojiping 
in the whirl of victory to re-form lines, leaped forward upon his center. The 
opening roar of musketry was the signal to the cavalry on the front, and pres- 
ently the crack of their repeaters came to swell the diapason of the circling bat- 
tle. Meantime th'e center and right of "Warren's line bent up 'around the 
enemy's flank, and now came in upon his rear. "What men might do, these vet- 
erans of the army of Northern Yirginia did. Facing at once to rear and front, 
they made a gallant effort to keep up the unequal contest. "Warren, leading his 
center and right, had gained the Ford Eoad leading from Five Forks northward to 
the railroad depot, and now came down this. A short crotchet of the line here 
met them, and for a little the disordered assailants were thrown back. Then 
Warren, calling on his men to follow, dashed forward. His hoi-se was shot 
within a few yards of the Eebel breastworks. But the position was carried, 
and the line swept down to the Forks. Simultaneously, the part of his corps 
which with Sheridan had borne the brunt of the fighting, came up the Eebel 
line, fairly elbowing its defenders out of their woi-ks, and the cavahy, charging 
in from the south, reached over on their line of retreat. Five thousand men 
threw down their arms ; the rest were torn from their connection with Lee's 
army and driven westward, pursued and harassed till long after dark by the 
insatiable cavalry. 

But before the pursuit began General Sheridan's displeasure with Genei-al 
Warren had culminated. He thought that officer should have exerted himself 
to inspire confidence among the men at the first breaking of the line; he had 
seen nothing of his splendid behavior subsequently (which, indeed, was not 
displayed at the critical point), and savagely recalling the disappointment the 
night before at Dinwiddie, he resolved to have his subordinates imbued with 
more energy and dash. He accordingly relieved "Warren from the command of 
the corps. It was a power which had come to him unsolicited; its exercise had 
been provoked by the tardiness which kept him from striking the enemy at Din- 
widdie, and by the aggravation of the subsequent delays. Yet one who remem- 
bers how prudent much of "Warren's conduct really was, and how frequently 



Philip H. Shekidan. 545 

past expei-ience bad vindicated its wisdom, and who recalls the splendid gal- 
lantry and often-proved ability of the man, can not but regret that, as he disen- 
tangled himself from the hoi'se that had been shot under him within a stone's 
throw of the last Eebel breastwork, he should have been met with an order that 
sent him from the field in disgrace.* 

General Grant, in his annual report, out of these brilliant operations, sin- 
gled Sheridan's conduct at Dinwiddie C. H. for special commendation. "He 
here displayed," said Grant, "great generalship" by fighting, "instead of 
retreating with his Avhole command on the main army to tell the stor}' of supe- 
rior forces encountered." Unquestionably Sheridan's conduct at Dinwiddie was 
handsome, but it furnished a conspicuous exhibition of his invincible pugnacity 
rather than of signally brilliant generalship. It was the next day, in the per- 
fect plan of Five Forks, that he displayed a capacity for large movements, for 
which not even the Shenandoah campaign had given him credit with the public. 
High authorities have pronounced Five Forks the most perfect battle, in its 
tactics, ever delivered in Virginia — Virginia, that had witnessed the efforts of 
well-nigh every General who rose to distinction in the Eastern service. The 
victory was indeed won with a considerable preponderance of forces, but this 
does not detract from the unsurpassed plan, and the almost equally unsurpassed 
execution. 

The battle of Five Forks was fought on the 1st of April. On the 2d Grant 
broke through Lee's meager lines before Petersburg. That night Lee drew 
across the Appomattox and retreated westward. On the morning of the 3d 
Sheridan was off in pursuit. There had been some busj^ marching of the cav- 
alry on the 2d, and Sheridan regretted that he had not retained the infantry to 
aid him ; but the issue was already decided along the close-locked lines before 
Petersburg. Sheridan was now without orders, but he never doubted for one m.o- 
ment what to do. Lee was going to Danville. It was his business to head him 
off — not to harass his rear, or delay with his sti-agglers, but head him off! So he 
took a line of march parallel to Lee's. The Eebel cavalry was encountered and 
brushed aside; stragglers were picked up, and a little artillery was captured. 
But there was no serious opposition. The Eebel soldiers had everywhere, in 
their retreat, declared the failure of the Confederacy ; the inhabitants seemed 
anxious to stand well with the Yankees; even an old negro, in reply to Sheri- 

* There is no occasion to enter here into the points of this much-vexed controversy. Gen- 
eral Warren demanded a Court of Inquiry, which General Grant refused — so far indorsing Gen- 
eral Sheridan's conduct in removing him. Subsequently General Grant assigned him to other 
esponsible duty — thereby saying to the world that the reasons of his removal did not touok 
Warren's honor as a soldier, nor his unquestioned capacity. There can be little doubt that Gen- 
eral Grant's course was judicious. Sheridan's blood was up ; he had the enemy at advantage, 
knew it, and demanded from every .subordinate the same ceaseless exertions and undoubting faith 
in the result that he himself displayed. Warren was an engineer, by nature and by profession 
cautious ; he had been accustomed to a large share in the confidence of his superiors ; had greatly 
aided in forming the plans for previous movements, and on more than one occasion had not hes- 
itated to take the responsibility of changing them upon his own judgment. At a time like this 
Warren was no fit subordinate for Sheridan. 
Vol. I.— 35. 



546 Ohio in the War. 

dan's question where the Kebels had gone, said, " Siftin' souf, sah, siftin' souf." 
Meantime the scouts were busy ; and on the morning of the 4th, from their 
reports and from the general indications, Sheridan had made up his mind that 
Lee was heading for Amelia C. H., on the railroad to Danville. A few miles 
south of Amelia, on the same road, is Jettersville. Thither Sheridan turned his 
column, straining every nerve to reach it before Lee could strike Amelia. His 
success (if only he could hold the point) would end the retreat toward Danville. 
There was a little cavalry fighting through the day, and a number of wagons 
were snatched from the enemy, but by five the several divisions were entering 
Jettersville, and Sheridan was sending back a staff oflficer with orders to ride 
his horse down in bearing swiftly to Meade the news that he was across the 
enemy's path ; that Lee would doubtless attempt to break through ; that be 
would do all in his power to hold the ground, and that he implored the infantry 
to hurry up and force a surrender. 

All through the night Sheridan watched for attack, and sent back renewed 
messages for the infantry. Day broke peacefully, the sun had moved well up 
the sky, and still Lee, lying quietly five miles off, failed to improve his opportu- 
nity and break through the cavalry curtain that alone stood between him and 
the open road to Danville. If he had— but history need only record that he did 
not, and that he so missed his only chance for escape.* The Fifth Corps — the 
head of which had got up the night before — was soon in position ; the Second 
came up early in the afternoon, and Lee's retreat to Danville was an impossi- 
bilityr Thenceforward there w^as no hope of junction with Jos. E. Johnston. 
Meanwhile Sheridan, suspicious that the quiet about Amelia might be conceal- 
ing an effort to steal away, sent out some cavalry westward. This speedily fell 
upon a train and captured one hundred and eighty wagons, a thousand prisoners, 
and five pieces of artillery at a dash. The spoils were sent safely to the rear ; 
but the cavalry soon found that the enemy was not yet powerless. A heavy 
force was sent out from Amelia to cut them off, and they had hard fighting to 
get in again. 

Next morning t Meade assumed command of the infantry. Sheridan pushed 
out his cavalry to the westward, and it was shortly discovered that the roads 
were filled with trains. Lee had abandoned a direct movement toward Dan- 
ville, and was heading south-westward. Crook, who was in the advance, dashed 
at the tempting prizes, but speedily recoiled. The trains belched put sulphur- 
ous sn\oke and death ; they were heavily guarded by the best infantry of the 
Army of Northern Virginia. Then Sheridan gave his orders. Each division 
was in turn to try an attack on the trains, while the others pushed ahead to try 
in turn at new points. If anywhere in those long, exposed lines Lee had left 
one unguarded point, this style of movement would find it. By noon it was 
found. At Sailor's Creek Custer planted himself fairly upon a section of the 

«In point of fact, he could not. He had expected rations at Amelia C. H., and had been 
cruelly disappointed by the blundering of subordinates. He was accordingly compelled to halt 
and send out foraging parties to .-^eek food for his exhausted soldiers. 

1 6th April. 



Philip H. Sheridan. 547 

train. Crook and Devin came galloping up to his support, and they took six- 
teen pieces of artillery, besides four hundred wagons and some prisoners. 

Meantime Sheridan himself waited behind. Some cavalry and a battery 
he kept with him, and the last he set to work practicing on the passing wagon 
covers. Then sitting down on a stump, he took out his pocket field-book and 
scratched off a dispatch to the Lieutenant-General : "From present indications 
the retreat of the enemy is rapidly becoming a rout. We are shelling their 
trains and preparing to attack their infantry. Our troops are moving on their 
left flank, and I think we can break and disperse them. Everj^thing should be 
hurried forward with the utmost speed." With this an aid dashed off at a 
gallop in the direction of Amelia C. H., where the Lieutenant-General had 
been left. In a moment the restless Cavalryman, boiling over with energy and 
impatience as he watched the Rebel wagons go by, had whipped out his field- 
book and was writing again : " The enemy's trains and army were moving all 
last night, and are very short of provisions and very tired indeed. I think 
that now is the time to attack them with all your infantry. They are reported 
to have begged provisions of the people of the country all along the road as 
they passed." With this another aid went off galloping. Then Sheridan, wait- 
ing still for the Sixth Corps, which had been directed to repoi't to him, ordered 
his little brigade of cavalry to fill up the time with a charge. They made it 
gallantly, and though the men lined the front of the enemy's position with 
dead horses, they came back satisfied at seeing the movement of the Rebel 
infantry arrested while their commanders should look for the meaning of this 
wild assault. It was a fortunate delay; for just then Crook and the rest, a 
couple of miles further on, were beginning their break into the lines. 

The head of the Sixth Corps appeared as the little brigade of cavalry came 
back from its charge. It at once attacked under Sheridan's personal leader- 
ship, carried the road, then formed on either side of it, with Sheridan himself 
and his escort on the center; and so, with hot skirmishing and the incessant 
crackle of musketry mingling with the rush of the regiments through the 
woods, advanced for a mile or more. Then came the open ground about Sailor's 
Creek; across it a force of the enemy in strong position, with skirmishers obsti- 
nateh' holding the ground on the hither side ; beyond, columns of smoke blur- 
ring the beauties of the spring landscaf)e. Sheridan grasped the situation 
instantly. His cavalry divisions in advance had planted themselves where the 
smoke (from the burning trains) was rising, across the road along which the 
force he was pursuing retreated, and had thus cut them off. He foi-thwith 
hastened the prepai-ations for attack. Just then a young cavalryman, quiet 
and resolute-looking, in spite of the peril he had just defied, broke through the 
enemy's skirmishers and galloped up to Sheridan. He was one of Custer's men, 
had charged with his division, and, ahead of his comrades, had leaped his horse 
over the enemy's breastwork. Unable to get back, he had dashed thx-ough to 
the other side ; and here he was to tell General Sheridan that his cavalry had 
already captured guns, wagons, and prisoners, and was now on the opposite 
side of this Rebel force, pressing hard the attack. He rode off quietly as he 



548 Ohio in the Wae. 

finished his story, and doubtless thought he had done only an ordinary thing j 
but Sheridan takes care to tell us that "this gallant young soldier was private 
Wm. K. Kichardson, company A, Second Ohio Yeteran Cavalry." 

At last then the remorseless enei-gy of this pursuit had brought a portion 
of the flying army to a compulsory stand. Sheridan hastened his preparations 
to attack. Wright with the inftmtry (Sixth Corps) moved up on the enemy's 
left; the single brigade of cavalry which the General had kept back went in on 
the extreme right. As the inftmtry crossed the creek they were met with a 
terrific fire. Part of them fell back in disorder to the water, and the Eebels 
dashed up in pursuit. But here they were caught by the enfilading fire of the 
divisions which had not been repulsed; to go back was more dangerous than to 
go forward, and they surrendered. The repulsed portion of the line swung up 
again ; just then Custer and Crook and the rest came whirling through the pine- 
woods on the other side; for a moment the surrounded Eebels fought wildly, 
then their arms were thrown down and ten thousand surrendered. At their 
head stood a corps commander, identified with the history of their soldierly 
army, who, since Stonewall Jackson's day, could be named second to Longstreet 
alone; and besides General Ewell, there were Kershaw and Custis Lee, and half 
a dozen others of note. Such were the rich prizes of the quick-fought battle 
of Sailor's Creek. 

The cavalry pursued the escaping fragment's of Ewell's force for a few 
miles. Sheridan dictated dispatches to the Lieutenant-General, then lay down 
on his back before a camp-fire and snatched an hour's sleep while supper was 
preparing, took Ewell and the rest to supper with him, got another hour's sleep 
before daybreak, and then, up with the earliest, trotted out again in the gray 
dawn on his westward road.* This day (April 7th) he swung more to the 

* Colonel Newhall gives a life-like sketch of the scenes at head-quarters this evening. (With 
Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign), pp. 187, 188: 

"When we struck off into these digressive paths, General Sheridan was sitting by his camp- 
fire in the plain on top of the crest where tlie fighting had ended, and now he is on the broad of 
his back on a blanket, with his feet to the fire, in a condition of sleepy wakefulness which can 
only be attained through excessive fatigue and a sense of responsibility. Clustered about are 
blue uniforms and gray in equal numbers, and immediately around our camp-fire are most of 
the Confederate generals who have just been captured. General Ewell is the principal figure in 
the group, and attracts, though he seems to avoid, attention. He has plainly admitted that there 
is no hope now for General Lee, and has begged General Sheridan to send him a flag of truce 
and demand his surrender, in order to save any further sacrifice, but the General has made no 
further response to this than to urge General Grant to push on faster. Ewell is sitting on the 
ground hugging his knees, with his face bent down between his arms, and if anything could add 
force to hil words, the utter despondency of his air would do it. The others are mostly staid, 
middle-aged men, tired to death nearly, and in no humor for a chat; and so the party is rather a 
quiet one, for our fellows are about done over too, and half starved. To this sprawling party, 
enter Sandy Forsyth, aid-de-camp, to announce that he has established head-quarters in a lovely 
orchard, where tents are up and supper is cooking; so we follow the beaming colonel down the 
road for' a mile and find ourselves quartered just in rear of Getty, who has gone into position 
for the night, Devin in front of him reporting no enemy. 

"We carried the Confederate generals with us and shared our suppers and blankets with 
them, as we would be done by, and after a sleep of hardly an hour, took breakfast in their com- 
pany 'and then parted with it as we followed the general's swallow-tailed flag down the road." 



Philip H. Sheeidan. 549 

southward to foreclose possibilities of escape, leaving to the infantr}' the inner 
and shorter lines. Failing to find the enemy at Prince Edward's C. H., he then 
decided (for he was entirel}' without orders) to push columns north-westward 
toward Farniville and Prospect Station, feeling sure that here he must find the 
head of the fleeing column. At Farmville Crook struck them, and again at the 
crossing of the Appomattox. All the while Sheridan kept restlessly consulting 
his maps, questioning the natives as to roads and bodies of troops seen pass- 
ino-,* sending out his orders to his various divisions, and reports to his Chief. 

Next morning (8th of April) he sends off a dispatch to the Lieutenant- 
General: "I shall move on Appomattox C. H. Should we not intercept the 
enemy, and he be forced into Lynchburg, surrender there is beyond question." 
A few hours later a scout meets him on the road, with word that four trains of 
cars, laden with provisions, are at Appomattox Depot, five miles south of the 
Court-House, awaiting General Lee. He deflects his columns a little, and 
strikes out on the keen trot for Appomattox Depot, twenty -five miles distant. 
Only once the column halts a little for rest and water; by five o'clock it is near 
the depot, and Custer, in advance, has caught sight of the smoke from the four 
waitiniT locomotives. He circles down through the woods, comes up on the 
other side with a whirl, siezes the trains before the startled engineers have time 
to comprehend the situation, and backs them southward toward the rest of the 

®A good sample of his way of dealing with refractory "natives" is told by Colonel 
Newhall. It occurred at Prince Edward's C. H. (With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 
192-194): 

"The General dismounted here, at the fence of a stiff old gentleman, who was sitting on his 
high piazza and scowling severely as we rode up. He was the typical Southerner of fifty years; 
his lono- gray hair fell over the collar of his coat behind his ears; he was arrayed in the swallow- 
tail of a by -gone mode, a buff linen vest, cut low, and nankeen pantaloons springing far over the 
foot that was neatly incased in morocco slippers; a bristling shirt-frill adorned his bosom, and 
from the embrasure of his wall-like collar he shot defiant glances at us as we clattered up the 
walk to his house. Prince Edward C. H. was a stranger to war, and our indignant friend was 
looking now for the first time on the like of us, and certainly he didn't seem to like our look. 
He bowed in a dignified way to the General, who bobbed at him carelessly and sat down on a 
step, drew out his inevitable map, lighted a fresh cigar, and asked our host if any of Lee's troops 
had been seen about here to-day. 'Sir,' he answered, 'as I can truly say that none have been 
seen bv me I will say so ; but if I had seen any, I should feel it my duty to refuse to reply to 
your question. I can not give you any information which might work to the disadvantage of 
General Lee.' This neat little speech, clothed in unexceptionable diction, which no doubt had 
been awaiting us from the time we tied our horses at the gate, missed fire badly. It was very 
patriotic and all that ; but the General was not in a humor to chop patriotism just then, so he 
only gave a soft whistle of surprise, and returned to the attack quite unscathed. 

" 'How far is it to Buffalo River?' 

'"Sir, I don't know.' 

"'The devil you don't! how long have you lived here?' 

"'All my life.' 

'"Very well, sir, it's time you did know. Captain, put this gentleman in charge of a guard, 
and when we move, walk him down to Buffalo River and show it to him.' 

"And so he was marched off, leaving us a savage glare at parting; and that evening tramped 
five miles away from home to look at a river which was as faiuiliar to him as his own family. 
Doubtless, to this day he regales the neighbors with the story of this insult that was put upon 
him, and still brings up his children in the faith for whose dogmas he suffered. Doubtless, too, 
he considers General Sheridan a perfect gentleman." 



550 Ohio in the War. 

advancing cavalry. He stirs up a very hornet's nest in doing so, for there in 
the woods lie portions of Lee's famished advance, awaiting the issue of their 
suppers from those very trains. For a little there rages fierce firing, then thei 
Eebels are driven north toward the Conrt-House, leaving twenty-five pieces of 
artillery behind them. Sheridan sits down in the nearest little house, dispatches 
the Lieutenant-General that, if he can push up, "we will perhaps finish the job 
in the morning;" arranges to hold his ground against any attack, and then 
stretches himself on the floor for a few hours' slumber. 

By daybreak the infantry is trotting past. The cavalry has already been 
pushed up almost to the Court-House. Bitter fighting breaks out; then as Sher- 
idan gallops to the front it slackens. He has ordered the cavalry to fell slowly 
back. The enemy advances, evidently resolved to break through; when lo ? 
from out the silent woods glide the long lines of our infantry. He shrinks back 
in horror — it is only against brigades of flying cavalry that this once compact 
Army of Northern Yirginia can stand. Sheridan silently draws off his horse ta 
charge on the right; the infantry advances; before them, in the valley about the 
Court-House, lie the broken fragments of the once great army. A single charge 
will sweep out the whole confused mass. But the uplifted hand is stayed. -'Out 
from the enemy's lines comes a rider, 'bound on bound,' bearing a white flag of 
truce to ask for time to consummate surrender."* 

Then followed the hasty dash toward Joseph E. Johnston, to repair any mis- 

* Sheridan's lines held fasten Lee's front till interviews between Grant and Lee were over. 

The narrative ends, in the text, with the close of Sheridan's active control of the move- 
ments that brought about the surrender. Readers will be glad, however, to have from the 
graphic pen of General Sheridan's staff officer, whom we have so often quoted already, an ac- 
count of the interviews with the Rebel commanders, and of Grant's appearance on the stage. 
Colonel Newhall says: 

"General Gordon asked for a suspension of hostilities, and said that General Lee was pre- 
pared to surrender his army and would immediately send to General Grant a communication ta 
that effect. General Sheridan replied that he was very anxious to avoid further loss of life, but the 
efi'ort of the morning had n't looked like an intention to surrender, and he must have some certain 
assurance that this was a bona fide proposition, and not a make-shift to gain time and advantage. 
Both General Gordon and General Wilcox earnestly declared their entire good faith, and said 
Lee's case was hopeless now, and he must surrender and would. There could be no doubt of 
their sincerity or of the pass to which Lee had come, and so General Sheridan agreed to wait for 
further developments, and returned to our lines, promising to meet these officers again at the 
Court-House in half an hour. 

"Meanwhile General Ord came up, and others began to gather from riglit to left; but there 
was no excitement at all. After the first clieer, the tired troops had stretched themselves on the 
ground at full length, and were calmly surveying the novel scene of a harmless enemy in front. 
Indians couldn't have conducted themselves with more propriety, or have observed a more serene 
indifference in the face of a matter of surpassing interest; and a stranger arriving on the ground 
would have said the halt was only a rest, tliat nothing unusual had occurred, and that tlie march 
would be resumed after coffee. As the generals rode up there was some liand-shaking, more 
smiles than are often seen in line of battle, but nobody was very demonstrative. If we believe that 
men of rough natures have underlying them some finer sensibilities which do not openly find 
expressions, let us say that all this quiet was the index of a feeling of overpowering gratitude to 
Heaven that on this Sabbath day they were permitted to see the sun shining on the dowufall of 
rebellion, and gilding the hope of country restored, friends reunited, and enemies disarmed. 

"When the half hour was up, General Ord and General Sheridan, together with several 
other officers of rank, rode through the pickets again, and met the Confederate Generals at the 



Philip H. Shekidan. 551 

chief Sherman's negotiations might have wrought; and then the leisurely return 
to Washington. But long before the cavalry, rejoicing in the old name of con- 
tumely, came marching up Pennsylvania Avenue in the grand review, proclaim- 
ing itself to all inquirers as " Sheridan's Eobbers," the chief who had redeemed 
it fx'om contempt, and linked its name indissolubly with the most crowded and 

Court-House. General Longstreet was there this time — a grisly-looking man, disabled in one 
arm, and bearing all over the evidences of hard campaigns and traces of disappointment in his 
troubled face — and he bore a dispatch from Lee to General Grant. It was in answer to one that 
the Lieutenant-General had sent to him stating the terms on which he would receive his 
surrender. 

"With this dispatch General Sheridan immediately sent oft" a staff" officer to find Gen- 
eral Grant, who was reported to be on his way from General Meade to Appomattox C. H. 
Taking a wood-road leading off in the direction from which the Lieutenant-General would 
come, the officer rode fast on his errand, and after galloping some five or six miles and striking 
the main road on which we had marched the day before, fortunately met General Grant just 
beyond the intersection, rapidly pacing down this road in search of General Sheridan. Turning 
off" into the woods at a lively trot, the party was not long in reaching the Court-House ( and 
would have gained it sooner but for stupidly missing the way and almost wandering into Lee's 
lines), and there it was found that the second interview had not been much longer than the first, 
and that all of our officers had come back inside the pickets. As General Grant rode up. Gen- 
erals Ord and Sheridan and the rest were strolling on foot at the end of the broad grassy street 
which intersects the Court-House — that is, the town. The Lieutenant-General dismounted, came 
forward, and said: 'How are you, Sheridan?' To Avhich, in a pert manner, the General replied: 
'First-rate, thank you; how are you?' 'Is General Lee up there?' 'Yes.' 'Well, then, we'll 
go up.' 

"This is all that was said at that time, and the conversation, in view of all the circum- 
stances, would illustrate a statement that we are not a very demonstrative or dramatic people. 
In effective groupings and treatment of remarkable occasions, the people of the other continent 
can give us heavy odds. How poor this seems by the side of the Prussian King and Bismarck 
hunting over the field of Sadowa for the Crown Prince, whom, when found, the King grapples 
to his soul, decorates his manly bosom with beautiful insignia of honor and glory; and tben 
their feelings master them, and king and prince and Bismarck burst out crying, field and staflT 
officers joining in. And yet our field of Appomattox C. H. was more than the field of 
Sadowa. What recollections had they there of years of alternate disaster and victory ; what 
memories of hard campaigns and well-contested fields; of friendship cemented by the trials of 
camp and battle; of patient watching and anxious thought; of the fierce attack and the stubborn 
defense; of waiting, and work, and war? If they had had any such thronging into their minds, 
and had met on the evening of Sadowa, as our generals met now, it is painful to contemplate 
what they might have done. 

"So Generals Grant, Ord, and Sheridan, with three or four staff officers each, went up to the 
Court-House, and of our staff there went three, a senior aid, the chief of staff, and the Adjutant- 
General. The town consists of about five houses, a tavern, and a court-house, all on one street, 
and that was boarded up at one end to keep the cows out. On the right hand side as we went in 
was the principal residence, owned by Mr. McLean, and to his house General Grant was con- 
ducted to meet General Lee. At the fence the whole party dismounted, and walking over a nar- 
row grass-plot to the house noticed General Lee's gray horse nibbling there in charge of an 
orderly, who was holding his own as well. General Gmint entered the house with one or two of 
his staff, and the rest of us sat down on the piazza and waited. Mr. McLean was out there, too, 
but was so much excited by his appreciation of passing events that he did n't know where his 
pump was, or if he had any, and if not, could n't tell us where there was a spring. In a moment 
Colonel Babcock came out, smiling, whirled his hat round his head once, and beckoned Generals 
Ord and Sheridan to come in. They walked the floor silently, as people do who have first peep 
at a baby, and after awhile General Lee came out and signaled to his orderly to bridle iiia 
horse. While this was being done, he stood on the lowest step of the piazza (we had all risen 
respectfully as he passed down), and looking over into the valley toward his army, smote his 



552 Ohio in the War. 

stirring campaign of the war, and with the great Peace that ensued, was turning 
his back on the triumphs that followed the victor}-. Around the young Captain 
who thought the chances of war might bring him a Major's commission, now 
rose multitudinous voices of praise. The Grovernment, the General-in-Chief, 
the Public, hastened to cover him with eulogies. His native State, through her 
lecfislative assembly, voted him unanimous thanks, and recorded her pride in 
the unrivaled achievements of her son. But, while the grateful crowds were 
showering his subordinates with boquets, as they rode in the grand pageant 

hands together several times in an absent sort of way, utterly unconscious of the people about 
him, and seeming to see notliing till his horse was led in front of him. As he stood there he 
appeared to be about sixty years of age, a tall, soldierly figure of a man, with a full gray beard, 
a new suit of gray clothes, a high gray-felt hat, with a cord, long buckskin gauntlets, high riding 
boots, and a beautiful sword. He was all that our fancy had painted him; and he had the 
sympathy of us all as he rode away. Just as he gathered up his bridle. General Grant went 
down the steps, and, passing in front of his horse, touched his hat to General Lee, who made a 
similar salute, and then left the yard and returned to his own lines with his orderly and the 
single staff officer who had accompanied him to the interview, and wlio was said to have been 
Colonel Marshall, his chief of staff, a quiet-looking man, in spectacles, looking more like one of 
thought than of action. General Grant presented something of a contrast to General Lee in the 
way of uniform, not only in color, but in style and general eflect. He had on a sugar-loaf hat, 
almost peculiar to himself, a frock coat, unbuttoned and splashed with mud, a dark vest, dark- 
blue pantaloons tucked into top-boots, muddy, also, and no sword. His countenance was n't 
relaxed at all, and not a muscle of his face told tales on his thoughts. If he was very much 
pleased with the surrender of Lee, nothing in his air or manner indicated it. The joyful occa- 
sion didn't seem to awaken in him a responsive echo, and he went and mounted his horse and 
rode away silently, to send oflT a dispatch which should electrify the North and set all the church- 
bells ringing jubilant vespers on this happy Sunday evening. 

"Meanwhile there was a great stir in General Lee's army, and they were still cheering wildly 
as we left McLean's house to find a camp for ourselves. Of course his intention to surrender had 
been noised abroad, and as he returned from his interview witli General Grant he was greeted 
with the applause we were now hearing. Cheer after cheer marked his progress through the old 
ranks that had. supported him so gallantly; but what or why they were cheering seems not to be 
fully decided. The Southern writers of the day agreed that they applauded General Lee thus 
to show for him their sympathy in his misfortunes, and their devotion to him and the lost cause. 
Tlie latter reason is possible, but the former is not probable ; sympathy for sorrow and calamity 
does not find such loud expression in crowds any more than it does in individuals. Nobody 
would give three cheers for a man who'had lost his father, with the idea of soothing him. When 
Queen Victoria made her first public appearance in England, after the death of the Prince Con- 
sort, it was reported that as her carriage moved down the Strand, the thousands who had gath- 
ered there to welcome her suppressed the rising cheer, and stood all silent with one consent as 
she passed by ; and will any body say that the army of the Confederacy was less sympathetic than 
an English crowd, and less keenly alive to a proper regard for misfortune? Doubtless Lee's 
army was sorry for him, because his loss was theirs, and when his hope foundered theirs went 
down too; but it was not because of his loss that they cheered so long and loud. It was because 
he had surrendered ; because he had confessed defeat at last, though all they had known he was 
defeated long before ; because they saw in surrender some hope of beginning life anew to repair 
the blunder of the Confederacy ; and, thanking him for this, the brave fellows who stood by him 
to the last, and would have died rather than desert the cause, cheered him rapturously as he 
returned to tell them that they were set at liberty. 

" In the evening we sent rations for tlie twenty thousand men into his hungry camp, and 
he released our hungry prisoners, who came joyfully into our lines, with Irvine Gregg at the 
head of them, serene as usual, but with a good appetite. Then we went to bed, and had a good 
niglit's rest, and tried to appreciate the great blessing of peace that had suddenly descended 
upon us." (With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign, pp. 214, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224.) 



Philip H. Sheeidan. 553 

through the streets of the caiiital, Sheridan himself was hurrying to a remote 
region, where was hope neither of fame nor fighting, in cheerful and prompt obe- 
dience to theo-'ders requiring him to look after the surrender in the South-West. 

Into the campaign which he then undertook we can not enter. As we 
write it is scarcely finished. But from Five Forks the blindest of prophets might 
have forecast the end of Appomattox C. H. So from the successes by the 
way in this campaign we could forecast its triumphant close. His first task 
was to reduce the reckless bands of the Tx-ans-Mississijipi to Lee's terms of 
surrender ; he was next to preserve order and maintain the laws in the chaotic 
confusion of Louisiana and Texas, to keep the peace along the Mexican border, 
and finally to pi-eside, under regulations of Congress, in the reorganization of 
civil government throughout the troubled limits of his great command. 

The Trans-Mississippi shrank into peace at the noise of his coming. 

To jjreserve order was a more diflicult task. But the bloody riots in New 
Orleans, which broke out during his absence in Texas, were never repeated. 
He chafed under the necessity of tolerating the continuance in office of their 
authors. When the President proposed that the "Attorney-General" should 
supersede the " Governor," and that Sheridan should aid him in the reorganiza- 
tion, he telegraphed an indignant protest. His commission was at the service 
of the Government, but he would not be disgraced by taking orders from an 
ex-Eebel General ! When Congress gave him the power, he turned this Rebel 
out of his civil office, turned out the Mayor who had brought on the riot, and 
finally turned out the " Governor," whose treachery and double-dealing with all 
parties had helped to inflame it. 

In Texas he was hampered again by the Executive. The Provisional-Gov- 
ernor had for his standard of loyalty, "Abhorrence for the Eebellion and Glory 
in its Defeat." In the abortive reconstruction this officer was succeeded by 
another, who had for his standard of loyalty, "Pride in the Eebellion ; a right- 
eous but lost cause ; overpowered but not subdued." Each of these '• Governors " 
he was required to support. It was little wonder that he found the task embar- 
rassing, or that, when the power came to him, he was hindered by few scruples 
in doing to Throckmorton, of Texas, even as he had done to Wells, of Louisiana. 

Troubles sprang up along the border ; once, in fact. United States troops 
crossed it for a little to check a scene of pillage and lawless bloodshed. He did 
not hesitate to proclaim his entire sympathy with the brave Eepublicans who 
were struggling for their imperiled independence; and to denounce as an 
"Imperial Buccaneer" the Prince who was now striving to overthrow the legiti- 
mate Government of Mexico, and to secure armed emigration from the Eebels 
of the South. Encouraged by this sympathy, and looking upon the heavy 
re-enforcements thrown into Texas as virtual allies, the Eepublicans took fresh 
courage, and the Imperial standards, under the stimulus of this moral aid, were 
speedily pressed back to the valley of Mexico. 

The poor freedmen had in him a judicious friend. He would not encourage 
a disposition, once or twice shown, to enforce their claims by riotous manifesta- 
tions ; if they did not disperse he would sweep them from the streets with grape 



554 Opiio in the Wak. 

and canister. But he upheld the hands of the Freedmen's Bureau in protecting 
their rights ; moi'e than once called Eebel officials to a stern account for outrages 
they had concealed; and curtly rei^orted to the General-in-Chief that* over a 
single white man killed by Indians on the frontier the Texans would raise a 
great excitement, but over many freedmen killed in the settlements nothing 
would be done — that, in fact, the trial of a white man in Texas for the murder 
of a freedman would be a farce. 

He enforced the law of Congress for reconstruction fairly and honestly. 
When he was conditionally directed to obey the Attorney-General's explaining- 
away of that law, he did not hesitate to pronounce it the opening of a broad, 
macadamized road for fraud and perjury. He faced the President's displeasure 
in this straightforward and honest performance of his duty; but no one step 
that he took showed any disposition to provide for his own safety or advance- 
ment by compromising the interests committed to his care. At last the Presi- 
dent, with a wrathful determination to defeat the policy of Congress at any 
cost, removed him from the command and ordered him to duty on the frontier. 
General Grant carried his earnest protests against this course to the very verge 
of subordination to the Constitutional Commander-in-Chief The people hailed 
the removed Department General as a victor. 

And here we leave him. We have thus far studiously avoided many woi-ds 
of praise. We have preferred to tell what he did. 

But now, as we look back over this wonderful career, how little is there that 
we can not praise — how little, indeed, that does not bear with it its own eulogy ! 
Once more we recur to that wise saying of Marshal Turenne's: "Whoever has 
committed no errors has not made war." But where are Sheridan's errors? 

We may, indeed, regret his absence from New Orleans during the riots, 
although he had reason to believe there would be no disturbance. We may 
regret his failure to bring the murderers in the guise of policemen to condign 
punishment, for which there seems less apology. Going further back, we may 
deplore the devastation of the Shenandoah — ordered, indeed, by his superiors, 
but carried to an extent for which the orders did not strictly call. We may 
criticise the delay at Winchester, by which the morning was lost before line of 
battle was formed beyond the gorge, and Early's whole army was therefore met 
instead of the half of it. We may wish that, if not actually unjust, he had 
at least been less unkind to Warren at Five Forks. We may wish that he 
had shown better taste, in his official reports, than to sneer at Banks and 
Butler as commanders "who appeared to have more ability in civil than in 
military matters, and left the results of that ability for" him "to settle;" 
at Meade about his cavalry orders ; or even at poor Early for entering Eich- 
mond, followed from a lost field by a single orderly, "after a campaign in which 
he had lost nearly the whole of his army, together with his battle-flags, nearly 
every piece of artillery which his troops fired upon us, and also a large jiart of 
his transportation." 

* Sheridan's Reports — "Condition of Louisiana and Texas," Gov't. Edition, p. 76. 



Philip H. Sheridan. 555 

But what are these? It is a career stretching from Boonville to Appomat- 
tox C. H., and the administration in the South-West, of which we speali — a 
career that includes the superb fighting of Stone Eiver and Mission Ridge ; the 
bewildering successes of the Shenandoah Valley; the recovery of the lost battle 
at Cedar Creek; the obstinate defense of Dinwiddle, and the handsome tactics 
of Five Forks ; the magnificent pursuit of Lee, and the final reception of his 
surrender; the success in civil affairs that followed ; the remarkable exhibition 
of this flushed Cavahyman suddenly transforming himself into a grave political 
officer, and proving as sagacious and clear-sighted in questions of politics and 
statesmanship as he had been dashing in the attack or relentless in the pursuit. 
What, in a career like this, are such paltry questions of possible errors in the 
opening details of a victory won, or of taste in the naive official expression of 
opinions or prejudices honestly Q^itertained? Were they more frequent — did 
they obtrude themselves so often as to appear part of the warj) and woof of the 
man's character, they might suggest, not indeed less praise for the past, but less 
trust for the future. As rare instances of those lapses which no man who makes 
war — most of all no man who makes war vigorously, from Napoleon downward — 
ma}' hope to escape, they only serve to illustrate the brightness of the fame they 
can not dim. 

It will be seen then that we judge Sheridan worthy of high rank among the 
foremost of our Generals. We think, indeed, that for large and uniform suc- 
cess, dependent not merely upon a faithful good fortune, but upon sound military 
judgment, rapidity of forming correct plans at critical moments, and enormous 
energ}' of execution, no General of the war, on either of its sides, can be placed 
before him. Stonewall Jackson — unlike as the two were in their personal char- 
acteristics — furnishes, perhaps, his nearest military parallel. The one fought 
almost exclusively with infantry; the other either with a judicious combination, 
of the two, or with cavalry alone; but both carried into their campaigns the 
same methods of preparation and of attack. Both based their plans upon 
exhaustive topographical knowledge of the countrj' in which they operated. 
Both acted upon the broadest and soundest application of military rules, tem- 
pered by an insight into the character of the opposing commander that instinct- 
ively told how far his neglect of the same rules might be reckoned upon. Both 
began their movements with distinctly defined plans ; both were ready, on the 
instant, to abandon them as circumstances might dictate; both bad that rare 
genius which rises to its best inspirations at the most dangerous conjunctures, 
and delivers its calmest judgments amid the ebb and flow and whirl of the bat- 
tle. Both believed in aggressive rather than defensive campaigns; both were 
resistless in attatk ; both amazingly energetic in pursuit. To both came that 
sublime confidence in success that does more for securing it than many re-en- 
forcements. From both went out that personal magnetism that imbues soldiers 
with this same confidence, and disciplines them on the faith of success. Neither 
was ever worthily opposed. Against each efficient commanders sometimes 
operated, but never with efficient support. 

But here the parallel ends. Stonewall Jackson won his most brilliant vie- 



556 Ohio in the Wak. 

tories against superior numbers. Sheridan, after Booneville, rarely, in his inde- 
pendent commands, opposed even equal numbers. 

Among our own Generals, a comparison with Sherman most readily sug- 
gests itself. Each is warlike by nature, and each has the genius of war. Each 
has familiarity with the rules of military science, and each uses these as the 
master of them rather than the slave of them. Each has the topographical eye; 
each moves large forces over great spaces with wonderful ease. Each is full of 
restless energy; but the energy of Sheridan directed itself solely upon the 
enemy, while that of Sherman found time to wage war upon the sanitary com- 
missions and the State agents, to argue against laws of Congress, to prepare off- 
hand opinions on reconstruction, and to volunteer advice on a hundred points 
that did not concern him. Each won great and brilliant success ; but the suc- 
cess of Sherman was often tempered by revevses or embittered by waste of life, 
while Sheridan never encountered a repulse,* and rarely gave the life of a sol- 
dier without receiving an equivalent. Each won his victories over inferior num- 
bers ; but vSheridan never had such preponderance of force as had Sherman; 
and Sheridan, in his most memorable campaign, destroyed the army of his 
antagonist, while Sherman, in his corresponding campaign, only outflanked his 
opposing army, and left it with a smaller percentage of losses sustained than his 
own when he entered Atlanta. Each was brilliant in war, but Sheridan, in 
addition, was safe. But it must be remembered that he was never tried on so 
grand a scale as the great soldier with whom we are comparing him, that so 
formidable difficulties never beset him, and that he was never matched against 
so astute an antagonist. 

But whoever should undertake to rate Sheridan's capacity must remember 
that he has uniformly risen to every task that has yet been set him. More than 
•once the outside public, which in spite of its admiration for his dash has never 
fully appreciated him, has been apprehensive that the confident friendship of 
.Grant was assigning too weighty burdens to the young Cavalryman. Yet, 
whether in the Shenandoah, on the pursuit of Lee, or in the complex administra- 
tion of the great department of the South-West, he has proved equal to every 
emergency and to every command ; so that, at last, we may be almost ready 
to take up with the declaration attributed to his admiring chief, that '• Sheridan 
has the ability to command as large an army as the United States ever mus- 
tered, or all of her armies." Certainly it may, at the least, be said of him that 
he is the most uniformly successful soldier of the war, and the one on whom 
now the Country may rightfiillj'^ base the largest hopes whenever there may be 
need of soldiers in the future. 

In person Sheridan is short, muscular, and deep-chested-^his figui-e indi- 
cating great powers of endurance. His head is disproportionately large, and 
the developments back of the ears are enormous, to the great inconvenience of his 
hatter. His temperament is sanguine ; his hair is dai'k, shading off into the 
color of his full beard, which is reddish ; and his face " is flushed, not with wine, 

* Of course this is said of his career as an independent commander, and upon the view that 
he was not responsible for the initial repulse at Cedar Creek. 



Thilip H. Sheridan. 557 

but with life.'"* In private circles, and especially in the genial ease of his own 
head-quarters when off duty, he is an unassuming, chatty companion, silent as 
to his own exploits, but full of admiring jsraise for many of his great rivals, 
delighted with reminiscences of the old frontier life, fond of a joke or a story, 
and the ideal of a college boy's expression, " A good fellow." Like Grant, he 

*Some personal descriptions of Sheridan by acute observers may be here appended. 

Mr. Shanks, in his graphic Keminiscences of Distinguished Generals, says : "Sheridan's 
appearance, like that of Grant, is apt to disappoint one who had not seen hini previous to his 
liaving become famous. He has none of the qualities which are popularly attributed by the 
imagination to heroes. 'Little Phil ' is the title of endearment given him by his soldiers in the 
West, and is descriptive of his personal appearance. He is shorter than Grant, but somewhat 
stouter built ; and being several years younger and of a different temperament, is more active and 
w^iry. The smallness of his stature is soon forgotten when he is seen mounted. He seems then 
to develop physically as he does mentally after a short acquaintance. Unlike many of our heroes, 
Sheridan does not dwindle as one approaches him. Distance lends neither his character nor 
personal appearance any enchantment. He talks more frequently and more fluently than 
Grant does, and his quick and slightly nervous gestures partake somewhat of the manner of Sher- 
man. His body is stout but wiry, and set on short, heavy, but active legs. His broad shoulders, 
short, stiff hair, and the features' of his face betray the Milesian descent ; but no brogue can be 
traced in his voice. His eyes are gray, and being small, are sharp and piercing and full of tire. 
When maddened with excitement or passion, these glare fearfully. His age is thirty-four, but 
long service in the field has bronzed him into the appearance of forty. He heartily despises a 
council of war, and never forms part of one if he can avoid it. He executes, not originates 
plans ; or, as Kosecrans once expressed it, ' He fights — he fights ! ' Whatever is given Sheri- 
dan to do is accomplished thoroughly. He will not stop to criticise the practicability of an order 
in its details, but does not hesitate to vary his movements when he finds those laid down for him 
are not practicable. He does not abandon the task because the mode which has been ordered is 
rendered impossible by any unexpected event. If the result is accomplished, Sheridan does not 
care whose means were employed, or on whom the credit is reflected. He grasps the result and 
congratulates himself, the strategist of the occasion, and the men, with equal gratification and 
every evidence of delight. His generous care for the reputation of his subordinates, his freedom 
from all petty jealousy, his honesty of purpose, and the nobleness of his ambition to serve the 
country and not himself, his geniality and general good-humor, and the brevity of his black 
storms of anger, make him, like Grant, not only a well-beloved leader, but one that the country 
can safely trust to guard its honor and preserve its existence. It is easy for one who knows 
either of the two — Grant and Sheridan — to believe it possible that, during all the period in which 
they have held such supreme power in our armies, not a single thought of how they might 
achieve greatness, power, and position, at the expense of cotmtry, has ever suggested itself to 
their minds. There is only one other character known in profane history of whom the same 
thing can be truly said. Sheridan goes into the heat of battle not from necessity merely. The 
first smell of powder arouses him, and he rushes to the front of the field." 

A staff oflBcer once wrote of him : "Some one has called him an ' emphatic human sylla- 
ble.' If so, nature's compositor set him up in the black face, broad letter, sometimes seen in 
'jobs' and advertisements. It is 'solid' at that. Sheridan is barely five feet six inches in height. 
His body is stout ; his lower limbs rather short. He is what would be called ' stocky ' in horse- 
jockey phraseology. Deep and broad in the chest, compact and firm in muscle, active and vig- 
orous in motion, there was not a pound of superfluous flesh on his body at the time we write. 
His face and head showed his Celtic origin. Head long, well balanced in shape, and covered 
with a full crop of close curling dark hair. His forehead moderately high, but quite broad, per- 
ceptives well developed, high cheek-bones, dark beard, closely covering a square lower jaw, and 
firm-lined mouth, clear dark eyes, which were of a most kindly character, completed the tout 
ensemble memory gives at the call. Always neat in person, and generally dressed in uniform, 
Captain Sheridan looked as he was, a quiet, unassuming, but determined officer and gentleman, 
whose modesty would always have been a barrier to great renown had not the golden gates of 



558 Ohio in the Wak. 

bears public attention uneasily ; the fire of opera-glasses disconcerts him more 
than that of artillery ; and although the ladies now pronounce him charm- 
ing, he has not wholly escaped the old bashfulness that used to make him blush 
scarlet to the temples at an introduction to one. Public speaking is too much 
for him, but he writes with soldierly directness and frankness. Long before he 

opportunity been unbarred for his passage. Almost the opposite of the Lieutenant-General in 
his intellectual traits, yet like him in many social characteristics, it would have been difficult for 
so great a General to have found a more vigorous subordinate, or a more daring executive of the 
stupendous plans he formed." 

Colonel Newhall, from whom we have often quoted already, says : " His face is flushed, not 
with wine, but with life, and his eyes twinkle like stars ; the ends of his moustache curl up with 
decision, and his mouche hides the sharp outline of his chin ; his uniform coat is buttoned to the 
throat, across a square deep chest, which rightly indicates his -physical power, and he is very 
simply dressed throughout, with nothing of the gay cavalier about him. He talks slowly and 
very quietly, smiling now, and working his mouth crosswise. If excited on the field, he won't 
bluster, but may swear, and be not so careful of the elegancies of speech as are some dilettante 
people, who never have many thoughts of their own to express and never mingle in stirring 
events ; one of whom, 

' That never set a squadron in the field 
Nor the division of a battle knows,' 

might perhaps be shocked in these fiery moments, but if he has a chance for a quiet chat with 
the General, will think him' rather gentle than otherwise, and begin to doubt the terrible oaths 
and fierce imprecations of song and story ; will find him proud of the achievements of his vari- 
ous commands, but modest about his own performances, and as silent as a pyramid if a speech is 
to be made. Accustomed to reserve, and not having the faculty of hiding himself in words, 
he resorts to the unusual expedient of silence, and the public never would have known him but 
for the great events which called him out. With them he can grapple, but a serenading party 
is too much for him." 

Once more from the same author: " The General is short in stature — below the medium — 
with nothing superfluous about him, square-shouldered, muscular, wiry to the last degree, and 
as nearly insensible to hardship and fatigue as is consistent with humanity. He has a strangely- 
shaped head, with a large bump of something or other — combativeness probably — behind the 
ears, which inconveniences him almost as much as it does his enemies in the field, for there being 
no general demand for hats that would fit him, the General never has one that will stay on his 
head. This leads him to take his hat in his hand very often ; that action probably suggests 
cheering something on, and, a fight being in progress and troops needing encouragement, by a 
simple sequence he usually finds himself among them, where he risks the valuable life of the 
commanding General, not to mention casualties to stafi" officers." 

"Being rather reserved, he does not care much for general society, but when comfortably 
established in head-quartefs, is hospitable, lives well, and likes to have congenial guests drop in 
upon his mess. He seems to care most for the company of the placid and easy-going, and is fond 
of a quiet chat about old times on the frontier with such boon companions as General D. McM. 
Gregg of the cavalry, General George Crook of the Army of West Virginia, and the gallant 
General David Kussell of the Sixth Corps, who was killed at the battle of the Opequan, and 
whose death General Sheridan felt extremely. 

' These the tents 
Which he frequents,' 

and in such society he forgets his usual reticence, and talks by the hour about West Point life and 
' larks ' on the Pacific Coast. Occasionally, when the old associations come back to the party 
very strongly, they lapse into the Indian tongue, which they all understand, and, with speech 
clothed in this disguise, they can safely revive recollections which, may be, if told in plain Eng- 



I 



Philip H. Sheeidan. 559 

was distinguished it used to be said of him that he wrote his reports and even 
his indorsements on official papers precisely as he would talk in the freedom of 
the cavalry camp, in discussing the subject with his intimates. This conversa- 
tional tone still clings to his official style, and sometimes leads to misconceptions. 
He has developed an unexpected studiousness of habit sometimes in the South- 
West ; his office work is always kept well uj) ; his reports to his superiors are 
frequent and minute ; and the remark is common among those who see the most 
of him that he is constantly growing and broadening in intellectual grasp. He 
is still a Eoman Catholic in religion, though perhaps not so devout as the rest 
of the family. But the popular impression of him as a reckless dare-devil of a 
frontiersman is grossly incorrect ; his manners are those of a quiet, cultivated 
gentleman ; he is always well dressed, wherein he differs notably from Grant and 
Sherman ; and though he is certainly not a " Son of Temperance," or a devotee 
of total abstinence, his habits are unexceptionable. At the age of thirty-six, he 
is one of the four Major-Generals of the regular army, and is still a bachelor. 

Before the war he was a Democrat; but he differed from most army 
officers in having no sympathy with Southern institutions. He was loyally 
devoted to the Government whose soldier he was ; he rejoiced in the principles 
that triumphed in the triumph of the Government; and he resolved that so far 

lish, would astonish the audience, for it is only of late that they have been obliged to sustain the 
dignity of Major-Generals commanding. 

" Though always easy of approach, the General has little to say in busy times. Set teeth and 
a quick way tell when tilings do not go as they ought, and he has a manner on such occasions 
that stirs to activity all within sight, for a row seems to be brewing that nobody wants to be 
under when it bursts. Notwithstanding his handsome reputation for cursing, he is rather 
remarkably low-voiced, particularly on the field, where, as sometimes happens, almost every- 
body else is screaming. ' Damn you, sir, don't yell at me,' he once said to an officer who came 
galloping up with some bad news, and was roaring it, out above the din of battle. In such 
moments the General leans forward on his horse's neck, and hunching his shoulders up to his 
ears, gives most softly-spoken orders in a slow, deliberate way, as if there were niches for all the 
words in his hearer's memory, and they must be measured very carefully to fit exactly, that none 
of them be lost in the carrying. This is a pleasing way to have orders dealt out, especially 
under fire. 

" When he sees things going wrong in any part of the field, he has a trick of moving for- 
ward restlessly in his saddle, as if he would go and put them to rights if he could take leave of 
his better judgment and follow his inclination ; but a serious check or reverse afiects him pecu- 
liarly. To most temperaments disaster is disheartening, but it passes by General Sheridan as an 
eddy glides around a pier; his equanimity is not afiected by it, and he is not depressed for a 
moment, for he is a man of much variety and quick resource, and to his aid comes a defiant 
spirit, which twinkles in his eye when he is called upon to retrieve disaster. Victor Hugo's 
brave Frenchman in the Old Guard at Waterloo had no more contempt for the enemy than he, 
but he shows it rather by a talent for ignoring defeat and compelling success than by permit- 
tino- a useless sacrifice. He never would acknowledge to the most confidential recess of his own 
bosom that his command was past redemption, and there was nothing to do but go and die like a 
demio-od. But it is not because he is impassive that he can not be stampeded by reports or 
events, for he is keenly alive to the situation in whatever shape it presents itself. Show him an 
opening promising success, and he will go in and widen it while an impa.ssive man would be 
thinking about It. But he is slow to confess defeat; a peculiar organization, so acute in most 
of its perceptions, and yet so dull in realizing failure. The prominence of this quality must be 
apparent to all who know anything of him in the war, where his wizard fingers snatched a great 
victorv from the enemy just as they were passing it to history as theirs." 



560 Ohio in the Wae. 

as his power went, no cunning devices of peace should steal away the fruits of 
the war. Beyond this soldierly resolve he can Bot be said to have any political 
position. He is an earnest friend to General G-rant, to whom he traces most of 
his promotions. Between these two there has never passed a shadow of unkind- 
nes8. With Sherman, and indeed with most of the army officers, his relations 
are cordial. His most intimate friendships are with subordinates in the cavalry 
service, and with comrades in the old Indian-fighting days on the frontier. 



James B. McPheeson. 561 



MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES B. McPHERSON. 



nVTO name is held in more affectionate remembrance by the people of Ohio 
\ than that of General McPherson, He was not conspicuous as a director 
of campaigns. He was not recognized as the author of any great vic- 
, ; tory. He was not ranked among the foremost of the country's generals. He 

(was great in his possibilities rather than in his actual achievements. He was 
young and scarcely known in person to the public. 

But his soldiers knew him to be superbly gallant; and his commanders 
knew him to be eminently able, prudent, and skillful. Borne forward by their 
applause, he rapidly reached almost the highest promotion that his profession 
' offered. So loveable was the nature of the man, so simple, so sincere, so manly, 
11 that the admiration of the public was heightened in his army into love. Then 
' in the midst of battle, and only a little before great triumphs, he fell. Thence- 
forward he was a martyr, whose loss was to be deplored as a public calamity; 
whose memory was to be cherished as a priceless possession of the State. No 
(| other oflScer from Ohio, of equal rank and command, fell throughout the four 
years of the war. He thus became a solitary martyr, our greatest sacrifice, our 
saddest loss. It is in this light only that the people of the State regard him, 
and in this spirit only that we can now attempt to trace his career. 

James Birdseye McPherson wa"s born at Clyde, Sandusky County, Ohio, (in 
the northern part of the State, and but a few miles from Lake Erie), on the 14th 
of November, 1828. His mother, Cynthia Eussell, was a native of Massa- 
chusetts. His father, Wm. McPherson, was of Scotch-Irish descent. The pair 
were married near Canandaigua, New York; but in a short time they removed 
to Ohio. Here the father settled on a tract of one hundred and sixty acres of 
woodland, near where the village of Clyde now stands, built a little frame house 
and a blacksmith shop, worked at his trade when work offered, and employed 
his leisure time in clearing his farm; and here, four years later, the son was 
born, who was to be so famous and so mourned. 

The boy grew up in the hardy, laborious, backwoods life .of the time and 
region. He was never much employed in his father's blacksmith shop; but he 
was taught to pick brush, to pile wood, to drive horses, and, by-and-by, to 
plow and chop. Meantime the father became involved in his business affairs, 
and in the laborious efforts to clear the farm his health broke down. Poor and 
an invalid, he thus left his growing family to the struggles of his wife, with 
such aid as four children, the oldest of them only thirteen, could offer. But 
this oldest was eager to do all he could, and his character as a bright, manly 

Vol. L— 36. 



562 Ohio in the War. 

Jittle fellow, perfectly upright aud trustworthy, was so well known in the 
neighborhood that he easily secured employment. The postmaster and store- 
keeper of the next village, that of Green Spring, wanted a store-boy. A friend 
of the family, who knew James' anxiety to get some employment by which he 
might diminish his mother's burdens, recommended him. He was at once en- 
gaged; and for the next six years he remained, first as store-boy, then as clerk 
in the establishment of Mr. Eobert Smith. 

"I can recall very well his appearance at that time," writes a member of 
the family.* " He had a full, round, bright face, large gray eyes, and light 
brown hair, with a manner that was at once frank and modest, even to bashful- 
ness." What a struggle it cost this pleasant-charactered boy to leave his toiling 
mother, and his little brother and sisters, we learn from the same source: "I 
believe it was during his last visit here, previous to going to California, that I 
heard him relate, with one of his hearty laughs, how terrible was the feeling of 
home-sickness and the sense of 'being cast out into the wide, wide world ' that 
came over him at parting with his mother and the younger children to come to 
this village. The whole family were in tears when he bade them good-by; and 
taking up his little bundle, commenced his journey of five miles afoot and alone. 
After walking boldly forward for some distance he looked back and saw them 
all at the door watching him and weeping. To shut out the painful sight he 
clutched his bundle tighter, and ran as fast as his young feet could carry him 
until he reached the woods, where he sat down and wept abundantly. Then he 
took up his bundle again and came on to Green Spring." 

Here he presently gained the confidence of his employei-, and of all with 
whom he came in contact. Indeed, to quote from the same source again, "from 
the time of his first making his home here, I remember hearing him spoken of 
by the older people as a remarkable boy — remarkable for his industry, his un- 
varied cheerfulness, his earnest application to study, and his freedom from even 
the ordinary vanities and follies of youth." And then we have this pleasant 
picture of the sensitive blacksmith's boy, as he came to be known in his new 
sphere.f " I doubt if he ever spoke a profane word. I at least never heard him 
utter even an unkind or an ungracious one, or knew of his doing an ungracious 
deed. ... He always possessed the wonderful faculty, which seems to have 
distinguished him in maturer years, of attracting to himself as attached friends 
all with whom he came in contact, high or low. ... He was fond of all 
out-door sports and manly games. We had a large green yard, which, during 
the summer evenings, was the delightful resort of the children of the neighbor- 
hood. 'Touch the base' was the favorite game, and of all who engaged in the 
romp, none were more eager or happy than 'Jimmy.' He often recurred to 
these scenes in after life. In a letter written during the war, he says: 'God 
grant I may live to come back and tell you how dear your friendship is, and has' 
been to me during the many years that have rolled around since we romped in 
merry glee in the old yard.' ... I remember being in the store one even- 

* Private letter from Green Spring, furnishing accounts of McPherson's early life for thia 
sketch. tibid. 



James B. McPherson. 563 

ing when they were nailing up some boxes. James was assisting with his usual 
cheerfulness. As he pushed a board to its place he said that 'it ought to come 
up closter: 'Closter !' said one; 'why do n't you speak more correctly, James? 
Why do n't you say closer?' I can see at this moment how painfully confused 
and disturbed the poor child was at this rebuke. I dare venture to say he never 
used the word closter again in all his life. . . . After the first year or two in 
the store he went to school each winter. It was a source of disquiet to him not 
to be able to attend school more regularly, for he was very ambitious for the 
acquisition of knowledge. ... He was a very fast reader, which, when he read 
aloud, became a serious fault. He gradually improved in this as he grew older. 
His penmanship was, for a boy, remarkably fine, and was greatly relied on when 
he feared whether his scholarship was sufficient to enable him to pass muster at 
the examination for entering West Point." 

Thus far the pleasant gossip of the good friends with whom the boy grew 
up. Doubtless they have somewhat idealized their recollections of the lad, 
since he came to be so famous — who of us is there that would not be likely to 
do the same? But it is clear that he was a good, manly, hearty fellow, marked 
for more than usual capacity and loved for more than usual sweetness of dis- 
position. 

We have seen that he was anxious for a better education. While in the 
store he had been a faithful reader. In those days when people spent money 
for a book it was pretty sure to be for one that the verdict of a good many 
critics and years had pronounced good ; and so it happened that the well-stored 
book-case to which the clerk had access was mainly filled with standard authors. 
He pored over Plutarch's Lives, every volume of which he devoured. Gib- 
bon's Decline and Fall came next in his course ; then Marshall's Life of Wash- 
ington, and Buffon's Natural History. Poetry came later in his way; and then 
some standard works of fiction. At last the promise of an appointment to West 
Point, which his fine character and the esteem it won him had secured, induced 
him to give up his position in the store, and enter the Norwalk Academy for a 
couple of sessions' preparatory study. He was now nineteen years old, and he 
was fearful of being rejected on account of his age. So limited had been his 
opportunities for study that he was likewise apprehensive of failure at the 
examination for admission. 

But all difficulties were happily passed ; and a few months before attaining 
his majority the blacksmith's boy was fairly established at West Point. Among 
the classmates with whom he was here brought in competition, were Schofield, 
Terrill, Sill, and Tyler. Toward the close of his academic career there was 
another one— Philip H. Sheridan.* And among the Southern members was 
one in conflict with whom our young Cadet was afterward to fall — James B. 
Hood. 

Among these rivals the backwoods store-clerk, who had been afraid that 
his acquirements would prove so limited that he could not enter at all, at once 

* Sheridan had been one class in advance, but was thrown back by his suspension for violat- 
ing the rules of the Academy in flogging a Cadet who had insulted him. 



564 Ohio in the Wak. 

took rank next to the highest. "He stood always at the head of his class in 
scientific studies," Professor Mahan tells us, " and except the first year, when he 
stood second, owing to his want of facility in acquiring the French language, he 
always held the first place in general merit." And in the records of the academy 
we find him marked second in his class in 1850, first in 1851, first in 1852, and 
graduated at the head of the class in 1853. "We looked upon him," Professor 
Mahan goes on, " as one among the ablest men sent forth from the institution, 
being remarkable for the clearness and prompt working of his mental powei'S. 
His conduct was of an unexceptionable character. These endowments he carried 
with him in the performance of his duties as an engineer officer, winning the 
confidence of his superiors, as a most reliable man. His brilliant after-career 
in the field surprised no one who had known him intimately." 

Graduated at the head of his class, he was, in accordance with the common 
rule, assigned to the Engineers. But, so highly were his accomplishments rated, 
that, instead of being sent out on duty, he was retained at the academy as 
Assistant-Professor of Practical Engineering ; in which position he remained 
for a year. This seems to have disappointed him a little. But after a hurried 
visit to his mother, and the home friends, he says — the flourishing, round, "boy's 
hand," which the poor dead fingers traced, lies before us as we write— "I have had 
a good time since I came back— found a number of my old acquaintances here, 
besides three classmates. Most, however, have left, to make ready their winter- 
quarters, and I miss them very much. In fact I would not object very strongly 
to going myself This is but the beginning of a military life— a glorious state 
of uncertainty, truly. However, I do not let it trouble me any. ' Sufficient 
unto the day is the evil thereof is my motto." * 

From the period we have now reached till the outbreak of the war, the 
story of McPherson's services might be very briefly told. He taught for a year 
in West Point. For three years he was engaged on engineering-duty on the 
Atlantic coast— in New York harbor for all but six months of the time. For 
three and a half years he was in charge of the fortifications in the harbor of 
San Francisco. And then came the war. 

Meantime the bashful clerk of the country store, and the studious cadet of 
West Point, had developed into an accomplished engineer, and a man of the 
world. Before he started for West Point his father had died, and the younger 
members of the family had grown into an ability to take care of themselves. 
But he was still the same aff"ectionate lad that had shed tears at the thought of 
leaving them to go five miles from home ; and while he remained on the Atlantic 
coast he rarely missed making a short visit every season to the family that had 
crowded weeping to the door to watch him as he went. With his old school- 
mates, and the pleasant Green Spring friends, too, he kept up the warmest 
friendships. He was not very faithful as a correspondent, but the letters he did 
write run over with expressions of delight at recalling " the good times we used 
to have." From them, indeed, we catch the clearest glimpses of his life at this 
formative period. 

* From collection of McPherson's private letters, furnished for this sketch. 



James B. McPheeson. 565 

Social attractions seem at first to have largely engrossed him. Young, 
handsome, genial, a regular army officer, with the honors of his class, he could 
scarcely fail to be a welcome guest anywhere. He has enough to do in New 
York, he says, to keep him from feeling lonely and to make a rainy day tolera- 
ble. "Besides, I am acquainted with a great many influential persons in the 
city, as well as a number of highly-accomplished and interesting ladies, whose 
smile is as cheering as a ray of sunshine would be after an Arctic night." and, 
as was natural, he was highlj^ pleased with the change from West Point. But 
this was only in 1854. Tjpo or three years later, while as much devoted to 
society as ever, he was less bojash in boasting of his influential and accom- 
plished acquaintances. In 1856 we find him giving instead a half-pleased, half- 
bored account of his experience in making New Year's calls. The day "was 
everything that a person could wish. I was industriously engaged from ten 
o'clock in the morning till nine in the evening. I succeeded in making seventy- 
five calls, and then did not get around all my acquaintances. But I concluded 
to stop, as I was slightly leg-weary, though the visions of loveliness floating 
before my mind were more than sufficient to buoy me up." In another place he 
gives a page to an account of his enjoyment of New Year's Eve "with some 
charming young ladies," of an apparition that appeared as the mystic hour 
approached, and was resolved into "an indubitably honest ghost," to-wit: a 
bowl of egg-nog, and of the good time they had shaking hands all around, and 
clinking the glasses as they drank the old year out and the new year in. Again 
he tells of being pretty closely confined by his duties at the forts — this is over 
a 5^ear later — but has "managed to run out of town Saturday afternoons and 
back early Monday mornings." "It is perfectly elegant," he continues, "to 
escape from the cares of business, the mire and dust of the city, and rest in the 
delights of the country — surrounded by charming friends." He has grown still 
more discreet, it will be observed ; but he is frank enough to add that he believes 
the friends rather than the country make the excursions so pleasant. At last, 
however, comes the confession. " I tell you, John, I have about come to the 
conclusion that it is not good for man to be alone. Do n't be alarmed. I am 
not going to desert the ranks of bachelordom yet. No ; I am still afloat — not 
yet having found the pearl of great price." "We have scarcely looked into one 
of the letters of those days without finding it full of phrases like these. In 
fact — to quote from the old friend and schoolmate of McPherson's, to whom we 
are indebted for most of the youthful correspondence before us * — " to appreciate 
his letters fully, one should able to recall the expression of his eye, and the 
joyousness of the laugh with which he would always refer to 'the good times 
we used to have calling on the girls.' " But it was a pure, manly regard for the 
sex to which his mother and his sisters belonged that the hearty young fellow 
cherished, a regard that made all mothers trustful and from which no pure 
woman shrank. 

What with building of forts, and purchase of materials, and calling on the 
young ladies, he found his time very much occupied. " There are so many 

* George E. Haynes, Esq., of Toledo. 



566 Ohio in the Wak. 

things to do," he writes, three years after his graduation, "and so many ways 
to enjoy myself that it is with the utmost difficulty I can settle myself down to 
anything like a calm, steady, and instructive course of reading or studying. 
However, I satisfy myself with the reflection that a knowledge of men and 
of business is quite as essential in this rapid, go-a-head country of ours as a 
knowledge of books." 

The cheerful, sunny-tempered boy naturally developed into a man wha 
preferred to look on the bright side of things: "My duties have brought me 
in contact with persons of almost every walk of lif§ ;" he writes in 1856, "and 
though I find much to condemn, still there is vastly more to admii-e. It only 
requires one to be firm and decided in his principles (which must have integrity 
for their basis) to get along well, command the respect and confidence of the 
community, and render the shafts of unprincipled men perfectly harmless." 

Political matters seem to have attracted his attention a good deal. He 
could scarcely have passed through West Point in those daj^s without absorbing 
the Southern notions which prevailed, and the hearty dislike which officers of 
the regular army particularly chose to affect toward the Abolitionists. But he 
avowed such prejudices — rather than opinions — with a zeal quite in contrast 
with the equable regard which he bestowed upon other matters outside his pro- 
fession. Within a month or two after leaving West Point he was writing to a 
friend: "Do you have much to do with politics? I hear that matters have 
come to a pretty bad pass in our State, and that it is really discreditable to go 
to the Legislature. ... I thinkthe sooner a reform takes place, the better. 
I believe, if I were to meddle with politics, I would be a 'Know -Nothing.'" A 
year later he had come to discuss the sins of the Abolitionists with greater unc- 
tion and at greater length. "Not a few are highly gratified at the result of the 
recent elections in Massachusetts and this State, which have been such a signal 
rebuke to Seward and his Abolition supporters." "It is very seldom," he con- 
tinues in a half apologetic vein, "that military men meddle with politics, except 
when broad, sound, National principles are assailed, and then they feel it a 
duty to place themselves in the van and rally to the support of the Union. I 
have felt a good deal of interest in politics since I have seen the efforts which 
have been made to form a sectional party — a party with but one idea, and that 
one calculated to awake a feeling of animosity from one extreme of the Union 
to the other, the fatal effects of which neither you nor I can predict. When I 
see men who are endowed with superior powers of mind, and occupying high 
stations, putting forward their utmost energies to excite dissension, and not only 
dissension but absolute hatred between the different sections of our country, I 
feel it is time they were shorn of their strength and rendered powerless to com- 
mit evil. Could I believe in their sincerity or patriotism, and that motives of 
humanity actuate them, I might be a little more charitable. But when such 
men as Salmon P. Chase, whose position gives him influence, gets up before a 
public assembly in Maine or any other State, and declares that there is a deep 
feeling of hatred between the North and the South, that 'the Allies do not hate 
the Russians or the Russians the Allies, any more than the people of the North 



James B. McPhekson. 567 

"hate the people of the South,' or the people of the South hate the people of the 
Korth,' it is time all candid men should act to defeat the schemes and machi- 
nations of such demagogues. I do not hesitate to say that I am gratified at 
the result of the elections ; and I believe that every Union Whig, Henry Clay and 
Daniel Webster Whig, can say the same." The italics and capitals are given 
above as Mr. McPherson used them to show the strength of his sage conviction. 
The elections over which the young man rejoiced were among the last defeats 
of the Republican party, prior to that one which made Mr. James Buchanan 
President of the United States. 

Engineering he understood; and the regular army and society, and the 
pi'ejudices of both. With these prejudices he was content so far as j^olitics 
were concerned. A year later he had learned no more wisdom than this: 
"From what I can hear from Ohio, I suppose it will go for Fremont. Fillmore 
is my choice, and had I the casting vote he would be the man to take the Pres- 
idential chair on the 4th of March. jS^ext to Fillmore I prefer Buchanan, al- 
though many of his principles are of a different school from that in which I was 
educated." "But the time has come, John," he continues, in appeal to hift 
friend, "when good and ti-ue men must rally round the Constitution and the 
Union, and stay the tide of sectionalism and fonaticism which is spreading like 
wildfire throughout certain parts of the country." 

His rhetoric was badlj^ involved, but his principles were clear. He stood 
by the Constitution and the Union. Full of his "West Point training, and of the 
prejudices of such New York society as a handsome young West Pointer was 
likely to see, it was very natural that he should be mistaken as to who were 
the real assailants of the Constitution and the Union. But when he found out, 
there came back the ringing sound of the pure metal. From the fortifications 
of Alcatras Island, in San Francisco Harbor, he writes to his mother in the 
winter of 1860-61 : "My mind is perfectly made up, and I can see that I have 
but one duty to perform, and that is, to stand by the Union and the support of 
the General Government. I left home when I was quite young, was educated 
at the expense of the Government, received my commission and have drawn 
my pay from the same source to the present time, and I think it would 
be traitorous for me, now that the Government is really in danger, to de- 
cline to serve and resign my commission. ISTot that I expect any service of 
mine can avail much; but such as it is it shall be wielded in behalf of the 
Union, whether James Buchanan or Abraham Lincoln is in the Presidential 
chair." And soon after we find him writing again to his mother: "However 
men may have differed in politics, there is but one course now. Since the trai- 
tors have initiated hostilities and threatened to seize the National Capital, give 
them blow for blow and shot for shot, until they are effectually humbled. I do 
not know whether I shall be kept here or ordered East; but one thing I do 
know, and that is, that I am ready and willing to go where I can be of the 
most service in upholding the honor of the Government, and assisting in crush- 
ing out the rebellion ; and I have faith to believe that you will see the day 
when the glorious old flag will wave more triumphantly than ever. I wish I 



Uhio in the Wak. 

was at home now to join the Ohio volunteers T .^ 

on reading the telegraphic mcssacre of r„v. 7°* "^ '"" '"°'''' ""'■' ""'^ 

will not furniah, Ohio will r ^ " Govnor Dennison: "What Kentucky 

they will not be permitted to die out nntil'j ffD^ '"^ T ''""'''^' ' ^°P^ 
tors are in Washington to be tried fLt """ '''''' '"""o^ oonspira- 

nam, Hried. condemned, and eteclld '"T""' "■ " ""^ "*"«™«» o'' »"" P"*. 

p..er Lrrit;:t::,':xie^^^^^ ^^ *™ ''^^ '- ">- --- 

from the old life to which t e^b ong I 'l ;™ 1° -f ""^ """ *'™<'»'- ^"''^ 
and listening to conservative ^nt^secfi'onaTT , > "'"^^ ^''"'''' '"' ''"•'°™ 

ories and calling on the girls-tav f !„ T K "' "'" '"''''"^ "P ''"-^ »-"■ 
Whence he is not to emerge ^avirZ :^Ltd:t;:;ro:r"- ^^ 

-I •: z ti:ir^:^^z^ r^ ^ ^^-r -' °^ ^--- -*■ ™^ 

Btill manly and handsome and s„„nv tem ' 7" l^"'^''^" ^^^ "^ "««. was 
to a lady in Baltimore. To the outJde Tubli! h '"'""''■"^•^. though engaged 
he was not much talked of; but he Ld s^ d Z'" '""'™""- '" '^' «™y 
field, who had spoken well 'of hi^' '^ Zt F ^T '"'""■ ^^J"' ^^'- 

engineering operations to the entire s7ff, ^''"""'"o ^^ ^ad conducted his 
ho was to be considered a goorand::fr:r°"''w''"-'"'^"*- ^"°«^*'>-. 
personal application, he obtaled orde^ o comrLt 1^""°"' '""' ''^'- 
he was assigned to engineer duty in Bol!, 7v. ^^ '™""''' "f 18«I> 

McClellan was a Major Generalf the re T "' """■ '" ^"S"^* ^^^-^fe 

had be^me Major-oincralsr::,::rryt;::eT; r rV™'^ °' '"°^''^^'- 

rnsr "'■ "-'-' — -— -- t:ttrit ~ 

At last his time came Whpn TToii i ^^ 

regular army officers around hm Am„f "m"' ''' '' "^■'*^'' " ""-bor of 
engineer who had been at work for a y"a, 1. , '"''' '^ '''^S'" "^ '^^ ^"""g 
been practicing law in the city of San V '" ' '"*"' "'■''^ '^^ ''"d 

accordingly promoted to a Lieufenant Onl , °"?- °''P"''" MePherson was 
duty on General Halleck's ^ff »"'-°°'°""''y "' ™'-teers, and assigned to 

This was on the 12th of November ISBl K , 
of July, 1864, a period of less than th ^^''" *'"'* '''"'' ^-^ the 22d 

to us to tell of McPherson "' ^'"'' "^' '='°^<'^'' "" that it remains 

the 'n^^f^f^tctlilLad' Z^Z^Tr '"''■ --™-'' ^'^»- along 
the department. ' ''''P'" '" "'S^"^^^ troops as they came into 

-gh't"^;~Jr:t^^;f-^^ °^'— ^^^ the otten. 

that full instructions would come t; IZiZ' Tl'T' "f ''' '''^^'^'"^ ' 

-d himself in the person of "-hllTLd!^ :f 50^::^-- 



James B. McPherson. 569 

and assigned as chief engineer of the expeditionary forces. There thus began 
the association which was soon to prove so helpful to the young staff officer. 

At first there was little for him to do. Admiral Foote captured Fort Henry 
before Grant got up. When the army reached Donelson, however, McPherson 
was kept busy enough tracing the lines along which Grant had determined to 
conduct a siege. The exposure through that terrible weather was a rough com- 
mencement for campaigning, and McPherson, unused for many years to expo- 
sure, broke down under it. An old affection of the throat and lungs returned, 
and he Avas forced, in fear in fact of his life, to hasten back to St. Louis for 
medical assistance. When, in the first days of March, he was able to return to 
the field, he bore with him the instructions to General Grant for the movement 
up the Tennessee. 

The frightful blunder in which this expedition ended at Pittsburg Landing- 
does not seem in any way traceable to McPherson. It was indeed specially 
within the scope of his engineering duties to have set forth the objections to the 
encampment on the wrong side of the river in the face of a superior foe, to the 
confused jumbling of the several divisions, and to the lack of defensive prepa- 
rations. But an old friend of Grant's, Colonel Webster, was the chief engineer 
on the staff, and the young officer might well, under such circumstances, be 
chary of offering unasked advice. When the blow fell, through all the confu- 
sion of the fateful Sunday of Pittsburg Landing, and the better fortune that 
came with the morrow, he did staff-duty efficiently and gallantly. So well was 
Grant pleased that, swiftly following after the brevet of Major in the engineers, 
came that of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was at the same time promoted to a full 
Colonelcy in his volunteer rank, and again assigned to duty on Halleck's staff, 
this time as chief engineer to the combined armies now concentrated against 
Corinth. 

For the amazing engineering delays that retarded the advance on Corinth 
to a rate of about a quarter of a mile per day, he was as little responsible as for 
the previous lack of such precautions. General Halleck was himself an engi- 
neer. What he required of his subordinate was not advice, but work. This 
McPherson did, and, new as he was to such tasks, did so well that to this day 
the lines drawn about Corinth have scarcely been surpassed. But he con- 
demned the orders he obeyed, considered the unusual delays needless, and while 
he filled the woods between Corinth and the river with miles upon miles of 
parapets, would, if allowed to exercise his own judgment, have been marching 
toward the enemy's works.* 

When Halleck was summoned to Washington as Genei'al-in-Chief, his staff 

officer remained behind, and presently, on the recommendation of General Grant, 

I who now commanded the department, was promoted to a Brigadier-Generalship of 

volunteers, for the purpose of assuming the position (for which his engineering 

capacity was supposed to give him peculiar fitness) of military superintendent 

* This statement T make on the authority of General Hickenlooper, subsequently chief engi- 
neer on General McPherson's staff. 



570 



Ohio in the War. 



of railroads. He remained, however, in active duty on General Grant's staff until 
after the battle of luka. He had just begun his work of repairing the railroads 
when the battle of Corinth came on. A dispatch from Grant notified him that tel- 
egraphic communication with Eosecrans at Corinth was cut off, that the Rebels- 
were probably making an attack, and that he was anxious to have McPherson 
conduct re-enforcements at once to the assailed garrison. He immediately mus- 
tered his engineer regiment from the railroad, and with the other troops sent 
him by Grant — enough to make up a good brigade — moved rapidly down the- 
road. As he approached Corinth the sounds of heavy firing grew plainer and 
plainer, till suddenly, a little after four o'clock, they ceased altogether. Mc- 
Pherson was puzzled. Which side was successful? On which side was the 
enemy, and how was this single brigade to move so as surely to avoid Price and 
Van Dorn, and reach Eosecrans? No intelligence whatever could be secui-ed 
from the battle-field. Throwing skirmishers well to the front, and moving cau- 
tiously, he advanced on the north side of the railroad. At last Eosecrans's^ 
pickets were reached ; and just as the' triumphant commander was galloping 
over the field, congratulating the men and giving orders for the pursuit in the 
morning, McPherson was marching into the town. 

" Eeturning from this " (the ride over the field and orders to the troops) " I 
found the gallant McPherson with a fresh brigade on the public square, and 
gave him the same notice, with orders to take the advance." This is all Eose- 
crans says in his official report. Staff officers, however, still have vivid recol- 
lections of the sharp passage between McPherson and his chief which preceded 
his first movement upon the enemy in the actual command of troops. The 
order sent to McPherson after Eosecrans's verbal instructions, ran thus : " The 
General commanding directs that you furnish your command with three days' 
rations and one hundred rounds of ammunition. Let your animals be well wa- 
tered and supi^lied with forage, or turned out to graze. Be prepared to move at 
daylight." At daylight Eosecrans came galloping up, full of that nervous excite- 
ment that inflamed him on such occasions, and demanded why McPherson 
had not, in accordance with orders, moved out in pursuit. McPherson replied 
that he had received no such orders, and was awaiting them. "Yes, you have 
received them," said the impatient Eosecrans, sharply. McPherson deliber- 
ately and calmly repeated his denial, at the same time producing the written 
order to ^'^ be prepared" to move, and calling the General's attention to the fact , 
that he was prepared. Eosecrans apologized and gave the order. It was a 
little thing, and, though exciting enough for the moment, ended very pleasantly ; 
but it serves to show at this outset of his career, the combined promptness and 
caution of McPherson's character. Most men, breathing the air of pursuit that 
filled all Corinth that night, would have moved with the first streak of dawn 
on such orders as McPherson already had. Not so our prudent young engi- 
neer. He was ordered to be prepared to move, and prepared to move he Avas.* 



*The facts of the above passage. between Eosecrans and McPherson are derived from a MS. 
outline of McPherson's military services, furnished me by General Hickenlooper of his staff. 



i 



James B, McPherson. 571 

A little later he gave another taste of his quality. A flag of truce came 
back from the rear of the hard-pressed, retreating column, and with it a large 
burial-party. The manifest object was to delay the pursuit; the ostensible one 
to care for the wounded and bury the dead. McPherson directed it to stand 
aside and await orders, while with redoubled energy he pushed the pursuit. 
Fighting was going on, he said, and he did not propose to suspend it unless 
ordered to do so by the General commanding.* At the crossing of the Hatchie 
he struck the enemy's rear with vigor, captured a baggage-train and large quan- 
tities of war materiel, and scattered the retreating force in all directions. 

It was his first handling of troops in action. So fully was it supposed to- 
illustrate his ability that, a few da3's later, another promotion came to crown 
the series of his fast-growing honors. A year before he had been a Captain of 
Engineers. Then had come a Lieutenant-Colonelcy of Volunteers; then, after 
Pittsburg Landing, a Colonelcy, — after the evacuation of Corinth a Brigadier- 
Generalship. Now, on his return from this pursuit of Price and Yan Dorn, he 
was met with news of his appointment to a Major-Generalship! Still, he could 
not but feel that it was rather because of the promise of ability he had given 
than for actual achievements that he was thus advanced; rather because Grant 
believed him capable of great things than because of any great things that he 
had done. 

Meantime, with every widening of his sphere his personal popularity had 
widened. Now, as he gave up his control of the railroads to enter upon his 
duties as Major-General, he was made to see very pleasantly the attachment 
and regard of his railroad subordinates. They gave him a parting supper, at 
which Grant, Logan, and a large number of the rising officers who have since 
become famous, were guests, and when the party was all assembled, presented 
him with a horse, saddle, bridle, and sword. He sought to reply to the compli- 
ments of the presentation speech, but the occasion was too much for him, and he 
came near breaking completely down. Palpably the new Major-General was 
no orator. 

McPherson proceeded at once to the District of Bolivar, to the command 
of which he had been assigned. He devoted himself to the organization and 
equipment of his troops; kept a keen eye upon the movements along his front; 
and succeeded in furnishing General Grant with much of the information that 
went to shape the campaign upon Holly Springs and thence toward the rear of 
Yicksburg. Finally, f he Avas ordered to make a reconnoissance in force toward 
Holly Springs, to develop the enemy's strength. He was to be joined, en route, 
by Quimby's division, from Grand Junction. Next morning he moved out. 
Quimby failed to join him, but he pushed on, and, about ten miles south of Old 
Lamar, encountered the enemy in force. He at once disposed his infantry in 
front, and swung the cavalry around on the enemy's right flank and rear. As 
the infantry advanced in front the cavalry charged upon the rear ; and the 
enemy, after a short resistance, broke and fled in confusion. Hoping still to 
hear from Quimby, McPherson now allowed the infantry to advance slowly- ; but 

Rosecrans's Test. Com. Con. War. Series 1865, Vol. Ill, p. 22. t On 7th November, 1862. 



572 Ohio in the Wak. 

with the cavalry he pushed, on in person, sharply following the retreat, and pres- 
ently developing the full strength of the Eebels behind their fortified positions on 
the Coldwater. Then, after making a careful reconnoissance, he retired, with 
about a hundred prisoners as the fruits of his fighting, and such information as 
to the Eebel strength and positions as satisfied Grant that the time for his| 
advance had come. 

This was the first considerable action in which McPherson was engaged in i' 
prominent command. His dispositions were admirable, and the promptness andi, 
vigor of his attack dispelled the fear of excessive caution which was commonly 
entertained at the beginning of every engineer's career in active command. So 
fully was McPherson now trusted that he was given the entire right wing of the 
Army of the Tennessee, and assigned to the advance. In this position he led 
the movement down toward Jackson and the rear of Yicksburg, till, when his 
cavalry had reached Cofifeeville and the route seemed clear, the whole army was 
suddenly thrown back by the surrender of Holly Springs, and the consequent 
loss of the supplies for the campaign. In the return McPherson held the rear 
tlirough all the exhausting march over the flooded country — his troops living 
cheerfully on quarter-rations and patiently enduring the fatigues, when they saw 
their commander asking no sacrifice of them which he did not make himself. 
Day and night he kept the saddle. Whenever a difficulty or danger was encoun- 
tered he lingered — never leaving till the last man or the last wagon was safely 
over; and through all the privations and dangers he continued so affable, so 
cheerful, with such kind words and pleasant looks for all, that on that march he 
fairly mastered the hearts of his command. Thenceforward its morale was per- 
fect, for it believed in its Greneral. 

There now began the movement against Vicksburg by the way of the Mis- 
sissippi Eiver. While Grant, with the rest of the army, hastened down, 
McPherson lay at Memphis reorganizing and refitting his command. On his 
way thither he had narrowly escaped a great danger. He occupied the rear 
car, while the rest of his train was filled with the sick and wounded from one 
of his divisions. In a cold, disagreeable winter night, as the train was passing 
a shai'p curve, every car save the last was thrown from the track, and hurled 
to the bottom of the high embankment. The poor wounded men were again 
horribly mangled and mutilated. McPherson did eveiything in his power for 
their comfort — then leaving them in the charge of his Medical Director, took the 
locomotive (which still remained upon the track) and hurried forward to send 
back further relief 

By the 22d of February his command was ready for the field ; and on the 
23d its advance arrived at Lake Providence ; while he himself hurried on down 
to the front of Yicksburg to see General Gi-ant, and receive his orders. Grant 
was now in the height of the ditch-digging campaign. The canal across the 
peninsula before Vicksburg was not yet a failure, and some hopes were en- 
tertained of the route through the bayous from Milliken's Bend. To McPher- 
son was assigned a less promising route. He was to try to open a passage 
through the sluggish wastes of water that, at flood-time, filled the gaps and 



James B. McPheeson. 673 

I connected Lake Providence, Bajou Macon, and the Tensas and Red Eivers. 

It was a pi'oject of extraordinary wildness. "We find no traces of any opinion 

(expressed by McPherson as to its feasibility; but he went to work vigorously 

,,|| to attempt the execution of his orders. In two weeks he had the levees cut 

iti'l ' 

Sand the water from the Mississippi rushing at a furious rate into Lake Provi- 

, I dence. Weeks were then spent in seeking to open the tortuous passages between 

I and along the bayous. Meantime Grant's other projects for evading the Yieks- 

. ijburg batteries had failed, and he had risen to the height of the audacious con- 

iception that was to bring him the most worth ilj^-earned honor of his career. 

jMcPherson's report as to the impracticability of his route was, therefore, all the 

;i! more readily accepted; and on the 16th of April his command moved down 

jthe river to unite with the rest of the army in the movement below Yicksburg 

■ upon its rear. 

Six daj^s were spent in corduroying the roads across the peninsula and 
down the Louisiana bank of the river. Then, through swamps still almost bot- 
tomless, the troops began their toilsome march. McClernand had the advance ; 
McPherson followed. On the 30th of April the column reached Hard Times 
Landing, and began the crossing to Bruinsburg. Next morning, as MePherson's 
I command rapidlj^ disembarked on the Vicksburg side, without knapsacks or 
ij encumbrances of any kind, the guns of McClernand's division could already be 
I heard. The enemy's forces below Yicksburg were resisting the advance. 
: McPherson pushed rapidl}^ forward at the head of his troops. 

As he approached the scene of action. Grant met him. What followed 
curiously illustrates the matter of fjict way in which battles are apt to be fought, 
as contrasted with the enthusiasm and general heroics of the poets. "Mack," 
'said Grant, " Ostherhaus is over there on the left, pegging away, but can 't quite 
make the riffle. Go over and see what you can do."* 

In obedience to this rather vague order McPherson put in a division to 

support McClernand's center. With the other he moved up on the left, and 

speedily became severely engaged. The battle (since known as Port Gibson} 

lasted for several hours yet; but finally the enemy was driven, and the army 

pushed forward till it was stopped by Bayou Pierre. Next day the bayou was 

; bridged, and McPherson once more took the advance. He held it, bridging 

;|Ba3'ou Pierre at another crossing as he progressed, till he followed the flying 

jEebels across the bridge they had not time to burn, at Hankinson's Ferry, on 

' the Big Black. Demonstrations and feints ensued for two or three days, while 

Grant got up his supplies, and was ready to push northward. 

Then, while Sherman and McClernand hugged the Big Black, McPherson 
launched out far to the eastward. By three o'clock on the afternoon of the 12th, 
he had encountered a force of the enemy near Raymond. Its jiosition gave it 
considerable advantage, and at the time it was thought to comprise formidable 
numbers; but it has been since ascertained to have consisted of Gregg's and W. 
H. T. Walker's Rebel brigades only. McPherson deployed his advance rapidly 
and began the attack. The contest raged for between two and three hours, 

*MS. Memorandum of General Hickenlooper. 



574 Ohio in the Wae. 

when the Eebels retreated, Logan's division having borne the brunt of the 
fighting. 

Just as the issue of the battle began to seem clear, MePherson's Adjutaut- 
G-eneral af)proached him with a dispatch which he had prepared for General 
Grant, and which only awaited MePherson's signature to be sent off. It set forth 
that he "had met the enemy in immensely superior force, but had defeated him 
most disastrously, and was now in full pursuit." McPherson quietly tore it i 
up, took the field-book of the Adjutant, and wrote instead : "We met the enemy 
about three P. M. to-day ; have had a hard fight and up to this time have the 
advantage." 

When Grant received this, he straightway changed the direction of Sher- 
man's and McClernand's columns, so that the whole force might converge upon 
MePherson's objective — Jackson. For while no fears were entertained about t 
his ability to drive the enemy he had already defeated, yet it was known that I 
on his front, at Jackson, Rebel re-enforcements were arriving, and that John- 
ston was likely to essay the offensive speedily. Meantime the next day Mc- 
Pherson pushed on, with only light skirmishing to impede him, and before dark ! 
had struck the railroad between Vicksburg and Jackson at Canton, capturing i 
telegraphic correspondence between Pemberton and Johnston. The latter : 
ordered Pemberton to move out and attack Grant's rear. Pemberton promised 
to obey. This was immediately forwarded to Grant. Meantime the Seventh 
Missouri regiment was sent out along the railroad toward Yicksburg to destroy 
it as far as possible, with the chief engineer on the staff to supervise their 
labors. They worked all night, and at daybreak were back in Clinton to move 
with the army. 

MePherson's orders were now to take Jackson without delay. The march 
was made through an unusually heavy rain-storm, which swelled the rivulets 
along the road till the ammunition had to be raised from the beds of the wagons • 
to prevent it from being destroyed. By daylight the movement had begun ; 
before noon it was checked by artiller}^ firing that raked the road on which 
the}'^ were advancing. A little time was given to artillery firing in replj^; then 
the skirmish line was advanced, and presently General Johnston's position was 
developed — along a commanding ridge in front of the town. Then Ci'ocker's 
division, which held the advance, was formed in echelon, and the line moved 
forward to the attack — slowly at first, gradually increasing their speed till, 
finally, as they received the enemy's fire, they gave a wild cheer and dashed : 
forward at a charge. The contest was short and bloody. The enemy broke. 
Crocker pushed hard after them. They did not even halt when they reached 
their breastworks surrounding the city, but pushing through them and aban- 
doning their artillery and munitions made good their escape. The retreat was 
doubtless hastened by the discovery that Sherman was already upon their 
rear. 

As the victorious troops marched in, Grant met his subordinates, McPher- 
son and Sherman, at the hotel. A brief consultation was held, as the result of 
which McPherson turned westward, and, facing Yicksburg, was on his march 



James B. McPhekson. 575 

before dajdight ine next morning* He moved all day without resistance, and 
at night went into bivouack near Bolton's Station. The game was now in his 
hands. Johnston's scattered forces were hopelesslj^ in the rear; Pemberton, 
confused between his desire to stand guard over the earthworks of Vicksburg, 
to cut Grant's suppositious lines of communication, and to obey Johnston, 
who had peremptorily ordered the abandonment of Vicksburg, marched hither 
and thither and did nothing. And before McPherson, scarcely thirty miles 
away, lay Vicksburg. With the earliest dawn of the next morning, the 16th, 
Grant hurried him forward. Meantime Pemberton was at last striving to 
obey Johnston's orders by marching north-eastwai-d to join him. But his tardy 
•obedience was worse than his previous blundering — for his line of march led 
him directl}' across McPherson's front, and he presently found himself forced 
in all haste to halt and form line of battle to protect his flank. His line 
stretched from the heights of Champion Hills across a gentle slope southward, 
.and terminated in a series of abrupt knolls and ravines. 

Here, by eleven o'clock, McPherson had come and was sharply skirmish- 
ing. Grant wanted to bi'ing McClernand up before the battle should begin, and 
sent back messenger after messenger to hasten his advance. But McPherson's 
troops were impetuous and full of confidence, and presently the skirmish had 
swelled into battle before McClernand was ready. Hovey's division attacked 
the hill, and though once and again re-enforced with such brigades as could be 
thrown in was finally repulsed. But meantime Logan had been pushing down 
through the ravines on the enemy's left, and presently began to threaten their 
rear. McPherson then sent forward again the rallying divisions which had 
been repulsed; and the enemy finding his position compromised, fled in a con- 
fusion which soon became utter rout. Seventeen pieces of artillery were cap- 
tured and two thousand prisoners; but it was at a cost of over two thousand 
killed and wounded. 

McClernand now took the advance, and McPherson, following in support, 
encountered no resistance. At the Big Black he built two bridges, one of them 
a floating pathway laid on cotton bales. Crossing on these,f he followed in 
Sherman's course, and rapidly deployed before the fortifications of Vicksburg. 
The next day he participated in the hasty assault; two days later in the more 
elaborate and determined one; and did his full share in each to beat back the 
inevitable failure. 

Then, when the siege began, holding the center opposite the strongest 
works of the enemy, he called into play all his old engineering skill. In less 
than ten days his batteries were inflicting severe damage; he i*aked the enemy's 
intrenched lines on both flanks, and had a reverse fire upon a large bastioned 
fort on Sherman's front. Meantime his sharp-shooters were pushed up so close 
that they soon succeeded in almost entirely silencing the artillery fire from the 
opposing works. 

By the 22d June his Chief Engineer, Captain (afterward Brigadier-General) 
Hickenlooper, reported to him that the sap had reached the Eebel ditch in fi-ont 

■'15th M;iy, 1863. tl8th May. 



576 Ohio in the War 

of Fort Hill, and that he was ready to commence mining operations. Thus far 
mines had not been attempted in any of the operations of the war. Greneral 
MePherson pushed forward the experiment, and in two days reported to Gen- 
eral Grant his readiness to attempt the explosion. A main gallery had been 
run for some sixty feet directly under the Rebel fort, and from this smaller 
galleries branched oif on either side. In the several galleries twenty- two hun- 
dred pounds of powder were deposited. 

The explosion was fixed for three o'clock on the afternoon of the 25th. An 
hour before that time, one watching the scene from Battery Hickenlooper would 
have been struck with the splendor and the death-like stillness of the scene. For 
miles to right and left could be seen the long lines of blue filing into the in- 
trenchments. Beyond them came huinying detachments with supplies of artil- 
lery ammunition. Near by stood the storming column of a hundred picked 
men, on whose set featui-es was read the anxiety that the bravest must feel in 
such an hour of suspense. A little before three Sherman and Grant came into 
the battery to watch with MePherson the result. 

At precisely three the match was fired. There was a moment of suspense; 
then the Rebel fort confronting them rose like a huge leviathan. As it entered 
the air it began to break into fragments ; finally, at the height of about a hun- 
dred feet, it seemed to dissolve, and only the great cloud of sulphureous smoke 
could be seen. Through this roared thrice ten thousand muskets, and the great 
guns along miles of intrenchments. Through it, too, dashed the devoted hundred 
of the storming column, followed close by their supports. They plunged into 
the crater, fought right and left and hand to hand with the Rebels behind par- 
apets on either side. Between the opponents, for that whole evening and the 
night that followed, was only a crest of earth scarcely ten feet in width. They 
took twenty-four pound shells, with five-second fuses, lighted them and rolled 
them over. So near were thej^ that sometimes the Rebels caught and hurled 
back these shells before thej^ exploded. They raised the butts of their muskets 
over their heads when they sought to fire, for it was certain death to lift their 
heads. All the next day this state of affairs continued; then artillery was so 
planted as to secure the ground that had been won, and the men were with- 
drawn to the ditch. 

MePherson next had another gallery run out under the part of Fort Hill 
still held by the enemy. On the 1st of July this was exploded with consider- 
able success. Of the garrison seven were thrown within our lines, but only one 
of them, a negro, lived, and, as Chief Engineer Hickenlooper said, he was so 
much astonished that whatever he had known about the situation inside the 
enemy's lines was driven out of his head. 

The result of these several engineering operations was the possession of 
the work which constituted the key to the Rebel lines. Pemberton, who at 
any rate was nearly starved out, and who had finally despaired of aid from 
Johnston, became convinced that the damage was irreparable, and asked for an 
armistice to consider terms of surrender. 

Throughout the siege MePherson had held the center and had conducted 



James B. McPpiekson. 577 

the most important operations. It was no less a natural than a deserved com- 
pliment, therefore, that he should be awarded the honor of occupying the 
captured city. 

In the various opei-ations thus happily ended, General McPherson had 
exhibited every leading qualification of a good corps General. He had been 
prompt and skillful in obeying orders, judicious when left to his own resources, 
ftir-sighted and enterprising in counsel, masterly in handling his troops upon 
the battle-field, and in exhausting the resources of scientific engineering in the 
siege. He was the youngest of the corps Generals, and the least experienced. 
Indeed, when he marched out from Bruinsburg to take part in the battle of 
Port Gibson at the outset of the campaign, he was really going to the first con- 
siderable battle of his military life. In the great engagements of Grant's 
earlier career he had been only a staff oflScer; at Corinth he arrived after the 
battle was over; in the pursuit his attack at the Hatchie amounted to little 
more than a skirmish, and in the movement beyond Holly Springs his only 
action occurred in driving back the resistance to an armed reconnoissance. 
Practically, he was a beginner in the art of handling troops in battle when he 
began the campaign from the south against Vicksburg. At its close none would 
have thought of comparing him with one of his associate corps commanders, 
and if a comparison with the other had been suggested, it would only have been 
to express the doubt as to whether McPherson's lucid judgment and perfect 
command of all his resources, or Sherman's nervous energy and flashes of war- 
like inspiration were really the more desirable. In a two months' campaign he 
had thus risen to rank beside one who then stood 'second to no corps commander 
in the armies of the Nation. 

In some quarters even higher place was awarded him. Neither among his 
enemies nor with his own people had General Grant at that time any large recog- 
nition. The campaign to the rear of Vicksburg was so brilliant a contrast to 
all his previous career that men refused to give him credit for its authorship, 
and in looking for the good genius that had inspired him, they settled, North 
and South, with considerable unanimity, upon his old staff officer whom he had 
raised to be one of his corps commanders. We can now see that there was very 
little justice in this ; but it serves to show what impression the abilities of Mc- 
Pherson had made upon those most engaged in weighing and estimating the 
qualit}^ of our officers, when they were ready to believe him the author of a 
campaign which they considered Grant unable to devise. 

General Grant himself was foremost in giving praise to the gifted subordi- 
nate whom others were thus seeking to elevate into his rival. Among the first 
occupations of his leisure, after the surrender, was the preparation of two letters 
to the authorities at "Washington. One recited the services and merits of Sher- 
man ; the other the services and merits of McPherson, and each recommended its 
subject for promotion to Brigadier-Generalship in the regular army. The lan- 
guage of Grant's letter concerning McPherson was as just as it was generous. 

"He has been with me," he wrote, "in every battle since the commence- 
ment of the rebellion, except Belmont. At Forts Henry and Donelson, Pitts- 
VoL. I.— 37. 



578 Ohio in the War. 

bui'g Landing, and the siege of Corinth, as a staff officer and engineer, his serv- 
ices were conspicuous and highlj'^ meritorious. At the second battle of Corinth 
his skill as a soldier was displayed in successfully carrying re -enforcements to 
the besieged garrison, when the enemy was between him and the point to be 
reached. 

"In the advance through Central Mississippi, General McPherson com- 
manded one vving of the army with all the ability possible to show, he having 
the lead in the advance, and the rear in retiring. 

"In the campaign and siege terminating in the fall of Vicksburg, General 
McPherson has filled a conspicuous part. At the battle of Port Gibson it was 
under his direction that the enemy was driven late in the afternoon from a posi- 
tion they had succeeded in holding all day against an obstinate attack. His 
corps, the advance, always under his immediate eye, were the pioneers in the 
movement from Port Gibson to Hankinson's Ferry. 

"From the North Fork of the Bayou Pierre to Black Eiver, it was a con- 
stant skirmish, the whole skillfully managed. The enemy was so closely pressed 
as to be unable to destroy their bridge of boats after them. From Hankinson's 
Ferry to Jackson the Seventeenth Army Corj)s marched roads not traveled by 
other troops, fighting the entire battle of Raymond alone ; and the bulk of John- 
ston's army was fought by this corps, entirely under the management of Gen- 
eral McPherson. At Champion Hills the Seventeenth Army Corps and General 
McPherson were conspicuous. All that could be termed a battle there was 
fought b}' General McPherson's corps and General Hovey's division of the Thir- 
teenth Corps. In the assault of the 23d of May on the fortifications of Yicks- 
burg, and during the entire siege, General McPherson and his command took 
unfading laurels. 

"He is one of the ablest engineers and most skillful Generals. I would 
respectfully but urgently recommend his promotion to the position of Brigadier- 
General in the regular army." 

The nomination thus warmly urged was promptly made. The confirma- 
tion, however, was for a little uncertain. During the siege no little had been 
said about the indecorous expression of pro-slavery sentiments by General Sher- 
man, Admiral Porter, and others ; and General McPhei'Son was supposed to hold 
views in sympathy with theirs. There had been something said, too, of undue 
sympathy for Eebel prisoners — the whole culminating in a general charge of 
Eebel sympathies which seemed likely to be brought against him in the Senate 
when his nomination should come up for confirmation. " I never saw McPher- 
son angry before," writes a staff officer. =5^ "I shall never forget his appearance 
or his rage when for the first time he heard of such a charge." It was an officer 
high in rank and one of McPherson's preceptors at West Point who gave him 
information of this strange accusation. His reply was simple and manly. He 
had done nothing to justify the suspicion of Rebel sympathies, save what the 
dictates of humanity suggested and what, under similar circumstances, he should 
do again. He was not disposed to complain, however, if the Senate should 

*• General Hickenlooper. 



James B. McPhekson. 579 

refuse to confirm the high rank in the regular service to which he had been pro- 
moted. All he sought was that he might have the opportunity to serve the 
Government wherever and however his services might be valuable. In due 
time the matter passed quietly over, and the confirmation was easily secured. 

Meantime a distinction, probably more valued at the time, was conferred 
upon him. It Avas the Gold Medal of Honor awarded by the "Board of Honor," 
composed of fellow- soldiers in Grant's army, in testimony of the appreciation 
in which he and his work were held by those who knew both the best. 

Shortly after the surrender of Vicksburg, General McPherson sent a brigade 
under General Eansom to Natchez, to prevent the crossing of cattle for the 
Eastern armies of the Confederac}^, and the return of ammunition for the "West- 
ern. This expedition captured a number of prisoners, five thousand head of 
Texas cattle, and two million two hundi-ed and sixty-eight thousand rounds of 
ammunition. Soon after this his troops began to be scattered ; some were sent 
to General Banks; others were called for in Arkansas. The territorial limits 
of his department were at the same time ext.ended from Helena, Arkansas, to 
the mouth of Red Eiver. 

In October he moved out toward Canton and Jackson, in the hope that a 
demonstration in that direction might tend a little to relieve the pressure on 
Eosecrans at Chattanooga. No important results, however, were attained. 

With one exception, this constituted his only important military movement 
after the fall of Vicksburg until the opening of the Atlanta Campaign. The 
winter of 1863-4 he spent in the varied duties of his department, and in the 
earnest effort to secure the re-enlistment for the war of his command. In this 
he was successful — ^thanks to the confidence the men had in him, and to the 
soldierly feeling he had done so much to inspire — and When he reported to the 
Secretary of War that the entire Seventeenth Corps had become "veterans," he 
was able to make such an announcement as no other corps General in the 
country could then equal. By the 3d of February, 1864, he was able to issue 
his congratulatory order: 

" True to yourselves and your country, and the dearest interests of humanity, you have nobly 
come forward and enrolled yourselves as veterans under the brightest banner that ever floated 
over the troops of any nation, with a firm resolve to stand by the flag of your fathers, which you 
have carried so triumphantly through many a bloody battle, until an American nationality is 
placed beyond the reach of designing Rebels, and high above the scofls and insults of the proud- 
est empire of the world. 

" To men who have been so thoroughly tried, no appeal is necessary, but simply the announce- 
ment of the feet that your services are now needed. Your country calls you, and your General 
knows how you will respond. This expedition will be short, as your strong arms and stout hearts 
will demonstrate. The pledges given you will be fulfilled, and you will soon bear to your homes 
the accumulated honors of another campaign, glorious as that in which you earned your title, the 
* Heroes of Vicksburg.' 

" Patient on the march, invincible in battle, let your brilliant record remain untarnished, 
and the Seventeenth Army C!orps will thus stand proudly before the world, the pride of your 
General and the glory of your country." 

The expedition thus referred to as of suflScient importance as to warrant 



580 Ohio in the War. 

for a little a delay in giving them the vetei^an furloughs which had been prom- ; 
ised, was the movement on Meridian. High things would seem to have been i 
expected of it ; but, partly because the cavalry failed to co-operate, partly also, 
perhaps, because very brilliant results were not attainable, it scarcely fulfilled 
the expectations that had been excited. McPherson's corps, however, destroj-ed 
sixty miles of railroad track, four miles of trestle-work, six bridges, twenty-one 
locomotives, one hundred cars, ten depots, one thousand seven hundred car 
wheels, three turn-tables, five mills, one hundi-ed and fifty wagons, one thou- 
sand small arms, and considerable quantities of other property valuable to the 
enemy. The losses in killed, wounded, and missing fell within a hundred. The 
troops then went home on their veteran furlough. Before they started they,; 
knew that their favorite G-eneral was promoted to the command of the Arm 
of the Tennessee, preparatory to the great campaign soon to open. 

We are approaching the close. Between McPherson at the head of a great 
army, ready to sweep down toward Atlanta, and McPherson borne back dead, 
while his name, coupled with the call for revenge, forms the watchword of his 
enraged men and leads them still to victory, there lies but a short campaign of 
less than a hundred days. j 

On the 25th of April, 1864, General McPherson moved over from Vicksburg 
to Huntsville, Alabama, where he established his head-quarters. He had a brief .' 
interview with Sherman at ISTashville ; there followed hurried preparations fori! 
the field; and on the 3d of May he moved down to Chattanooga with the Army 
of the Tennessee, twenty-four thousand strong.* Two days later he was em- 
barked on his last campaign. 

We have seen, in a previous part of this work, that the plan which General 
Sherman had resolved upon for forcing Johnston out of his impregnable in- 
trenchments at Dalton was to occupy him with a strong feint on his front, while 
a force moving by his flank on the westward should plant itself on the railroad 
in his rear. Then, as Johnston should march southward to drive off this new 
danger, the force that was to make the feint on his front should follow after him 
through Dalton, unite with the column that had come in on the flank, and thus 
deliver the decisive battle on open ground. 

But in the execution of this plan the feint was committed to Thomas, with 
sixty thousand; the turning movement, on which every thing depended, to Mc- 
Pherson, with twenty-four thousand. 

McPherson moved promptly and rapidly on his detour. He passed Ship's 
Gap undisturbed; passed through Yillanow, where Kilpatrick's cavalry joined 
him; pushed on to Snake Gap, below Johnston's flank, and here struck a brigade 
of rebel infantr}^ He attacked vigorously, and after two hour's fighting drove 
them. Before him now lay the open road to Eesaca, but a few miles distant, on 
the enemy's railroad and line of retreat. 

But he here learned that the wary antagonist had prepared for such an 
emergency. A new road had been cut through the woods from the enemy's 

*The exact strength was: Infantry, 22,437; Artillery, 1,404; Cavalry, 624; guns, 96. 



James B. McPhekson. 581 

[fortified position, twelve miles north, at Dalton, by which the flank or rear of 
my force marching on Resaca could be struck. By another road the enemy 
l^uld likewise throw re-enforcements directly into Dalton. And now the scouts 
[came in with word that Johnston was evacuating Dalton, and moving by these 
Iroads southward upon this isolated force of twenty-four thousand. 

Manifestly the only safety for McPherson lay in the sjDeed with which his 
^ movements should be executed. In this spirit he ordered General Dodge for- 
ward with all haste to make the attack upon Eesaca; while with the Fifteenth 
Arm}^ Corps he covered the left flank of this column against the threatened 
attack by the roads leading down from Dalton. The movement seemed unac- 
countably dela^^ed. McPherson chafed restlessly a little ; then ordered a staff 
officer up to hasten it. The officer found General Sweeney, commanding Dodge's 
advance, quietly seated on a log, upbraiding some prisoners for being in arms 
against their Government. The importance of instant movement was explained 
and General McPherson's orders were delivered. General Sweeney explained 
that his men were re-forming and that he would move in a few minutes. A 
•quarter of an hour passed. The staff officer again urged haste upon Sweeney 
and remonstrated at the vexatious delay. Still the movement lingered. Then, 
galloping back, he reported the facts to McPherson. In a few moments the 
General himself came dashing to the front. He at once started the column; 
then summoned General Dodge, explained to him the urgency of the situa- 
tion, and ordered him to lose not a moment in the advance to Eesaca, and to 
:assault vigorously on his arrival. He then returned to j)i'epare the Fifteenth 
Corps for receiving the expected attack in flank. 

But he was struggling against too great odds — against not merely the in- 
herent weakness of the plan that had been made for him, but against the tardi- 
ness of subordinates also. Dodge indeed moved forward at last, but, as a staff 
officer^^ describes it, "with little spirit, making only a weak attack, then return- 
ing to McPherson and reporting that the j^osition could not be carried, that the 
enemy had more troops in position, outside of their works, than he had in his 
entire command." It was now nearly five o'clock. There was no time in the 
remnant of the short afternoon to make a new disposition of the forces ; where 
they stood they were in imminent danger, as has been seen, of attack on the 
flank from Dalton; and, estopped from going forward by this failure before 
Eesaca, there was nothing left for them but to go backward. McPherson ac- 
cordingly ordered back the ti'oops to the Gap, where they strengthened the 
position and went into bivouac, while he dispatched word of the result to 
Sherman. 

With the tardy wisdom that always seems so clear of vision after the event, 
we can now see how it was perhaps in McPherson's power, when he first carried 
the Gap, by a vigorous dash with all his forces to have taken Eesaca, and thus 
changed the whole face of the Atlanta campaign. But this would have belonged 
to that class of operations which, taking great risks, result either in great suc- 

■•■ General Hickenlooper, of McPherson's staff, whose account of these delays is followed 
throughout this notice of the movement on Resaca. 



# 



582 Ohio in the War. 

cess or in great disaster; and he may well be excused for judging that at the 
outset of the cami^aign, and in view of the instructions he had received, there * 
was no such stress laid upon him as to justify so hazardous an experiment. 
Moreover, trains Were constantly running between Dal ton and Eesaca, bringing- 
down fresh Eebel re-enforcements for the threatened jDoint from the moment 
that the guns at Snak6 Gap had disclosed to Johnston the danger. Even if, 
when the men burst through the gap, the}' might, by running the risk of anni- 
hilation from the flank, have swept everything before them into Eesaca, it by 
no means follows that, after Dodge's and Sweeney's delays, and Dodge's abortive 
trial, the same thing would still have been possible. And besides, the initial 
fault of the movement laj^ not in McPherson's caution, but in Sherman's plan 
of making the feint with the bulk of his army, and committing to this small 
column the burden of the real attack. So he himself seems to have regarded it;' 
for, although, as he said, "greatly disappointed," he never uttered a word in 
complaint of McPherson, but, remedying his own error, he hastened down to 
McPherson's support with the greater part of the army. ;|i 

From the moment that McPherson was thus re-enforced Dalton fell without 
a blow, and Johnston, hastening down to Eesaca, opposed a fresh front to the 
force thus menacingly planted upon his flank. Then followed the battle of 
Eesaca. McPherson pushed forward against the central portion of the enemy's 
position, forced the line of Camp Creek (in front of Eesaca), driving Polk's 
Eebel corps before him. He succeeded in effecting a lodgment upon the ^ 
enemy's works commanding the railroad and the trestle bridge. Meantime, 
Thomas had formed on his left, and Schofield on Thomas's" left. Both attacked . ^ 
Vigorously, but without much success. Along a part of the line, in fact, the}' ' 

were driven back under a furious onset from Hood. But McPherson, holding 
fast all he had won, was now throwing Sweeney's division six or eight miles 
further down, to lay a pontoon bridge, eff'ect a crossing (at Loy's Ferry), and 
strike the railroad in Johnston's rear. This was successfully accomplished. 
Then, once more, the circumspect Eebel commander jJerceived his position 
endangered, and hastily withdrew. 

Skill and good fortune combined, in these operations, to make McPherson 
the conspicuous figure in the battle of Eesaca. It was he who forced the cross- 
ing of Camp Creek, who held fast on the Eebel fortifications, who controlled 
the railroad. And finally, after the others portions of the army had been sub- 
stantially checked, it was he who secured the ferry below, and, planting a force 
upon Johnston's line of retreat, forced an evacuation. Doubtless Thomas or 
Schofield might have done as well with McPherson's opportunity; but it was 
McPherson who did it, and he fairly earned the high encomiums it brought. 

Early discovering Johnston's retreat, McPherson was the first to profit by 
it. He pushed up under cover of the heavy artillery-fire he had ordered, and 
secured one of the bridges across the Oostenaula ; being too late to save the 
other. Then, drawing back, he hastened south to his pontoon bridge at Loy's 
Ferry, and gaining in distance by this route, was able to strike the enemy's 
rear below Calhoun, He was resisted here by Hardee, and a sharp little engage- 



James B. McPherson. 583 

ment sprang up, lasting long enough for the enem}^ to get their trains out of the 
way. Then, drawing off, and swinging to the right, McPherson again attacked 
them at a point midway between McGuire's and Kingston. 

• Finally Johnston made his third stand at Cassville. McPherson had mean- 
while halted at Kingston for supplies. As Sherman's columns approached Cass- 
ville, Johnston, overpersuaded by Polk and Hood, who believed the position 
untenable, suddenly decided to abandon it and cross the Etowah without a strug- 
gle. So it came about that McPherson, moving forward after the reception of 
supplies, encountered no resistance till, swinging far to the westward toward 
Dallas, in Sherman's movement to avoid Allatoona Pass, he approached the 
banks of Pumpkinvine Creek. 

The stage in the Atlanta campaign which we have now reached is that in 
which Sherman, seeking to turn Allatoona Pass, found himself confronted at 
Dallas, at New Hope Church, or wherever along the Eebel flank he sought to 
penetrate, till finally he swung in again by the left on the railroad and fairly 
fticed the difiiculties of the position by confronting Johnston at Kenesaw Mount- 
ain. As McPherson held the right, and had, therefore, been sent furthest south 
in the flanking movement, he thus came to meet the enemy at Dallas, while 
Hooker, further northward and to the left, was fighting at New Hope Church. 

On 25th May, while approaching Dallas from the direction of Van Wert, 
McPherson struck the enemy in some force along the Pumpkinvine Creek. 
While the skirmishers were exchanging shots he could hear, twelve or fifteen 
miles to the north-eastward, the guns of Thomas's Army of the Cumberland. 
It was evident that a heavy battle was in progress. Pushing forward, he drove 
the enemy before him for some distance; then, swinging out his cavalry on the 
left, sought to open communication with the portion of Thomas's army (Hook- 
er's command) whose guns he heard. But the cavalry met superior numbers, 
and was compelled to I'cturn. 

In the existing uncertainty it was of the utmost importance to communi- 
cate at once with the army above, and with Sherman. What the whole body 
of his cavalry had been unable to accomplish, McPherson now therefore deter- 
mined to entrust to a staff officer, escorted by a squad of four cavalrymen. To 
this officer he explained his designs for the next day, and instructed him in some 
way or another to be sure to get through to Sherman. At dark he started ; soon 
after midnight he reached Sherman ; and in a short time was hastening back 
with news of the battle of New Hope Church, and with urgent instructions to 
McPherson to attack the enemy at Dallas: 

But before this officer could return McPherson had already, on his own 
judgment, begun the attack. After severe fighting he drove the enemy through 
Dallas; but, a mile to the eastward, was suddenly checked by a strongly 
intrenched position, which General Johnston's foresight had prepared, and 
behind which the Eebels now rallied. The next day, advancing from these 
works, they attacked McPherson ; but he repelled the assault, and, in turn, 
drove them through their intrenchments to still stronger ones in their rear. 

General Sherman, meeting with similar check all along the lines, now be- 



584 Ohio ix the AVak. 

gan a gradual movement back by the left toward the railroad — Johnston warily- 
facing him step by step, till presently they confronted each other at Kenesaw. 
McPherson was ordered on 2Sth May to begin his share in this movement, with- 
drawing by the left to Thomas's position, while Thomas, moving further to the 
left, should approach the railroad. That evening he was about to obey the 
order, when the waiting columns were suddenly assailed with fury on front 
and right flank. So important was the action that followed considered by Gen- 
eral Sherman, that he reported it as "a terrible repulse" to "a bold and daring 
assault." The enemy left upon the field two thousand five hundred dead and 
wounded, and besides, lost some three hundred prisoners. With his usual atten- 
tion to engineering details, McPherson had so carefully covered his front with 
breastworks that his own loss was comparatively trifling. 

The withdrawal by the left was thus delayed. On the night of the 30th, 
however, it was silently and skillfully accomplished; and on the morning of the 
1st of June, General JdcPherson relieved General Thomas, while the latter 
pushed still further over to the left. Here he remained till, the enemy next 
taking the initiative, he followed their movement in the same direction on the 
4th of June. 

He now received two divisions of the Seventeenth Army Corps returned 
from veteran furlough, and one brigade of cavalry — accessions which barely 
made good the losses sustained by his command thus far in the campaign. 
Then, moving forward against Kenesaw he bore his share in the constant and 
sometimes severe fighting with which, until the 27th, every day was occupied. 
On that fatal date he shared with Thomas the bloody repulse that followed their 
combined assault on Kenesaw. "Failure it was," says Sherman, "and for it I 
accept the full responsibility." He took pains, indeed, to explain that McPher- 
son and Thomas had made their assaults exactly at the time and in the manner 
prescribed. 

There followed the rapid flanking movements which threw Johnston across 
the Chattahoochie and into Atlanta. McPherson drew out from the works 
before Kenesaw on the night of 2d July; pushed rapidly to the right; pres- 
ently, as Johnston, discovering the movement, fell back, occupied Marietta; 
then hastened to the Chattahoochie at the mouth of Nicojack Creek, and 
BOugh to prevent Johnston's passage. But from the time that he established 
himself at Dalton, that oflacer would seem to have contemplated and prepared 
for every successive step of the campaign that was to come. Even here, at the 
Chattahoochie, his crossing was protected by a strong tete-de-pont, against which 
McPherson's heavy assaults beat themselves fruitlessly away. 

Then, however, he skillfully attracted the enemy's attention below with his 
cavalry, while moving rapidly by the left he reached the Chattahoochie at the 
Eoswell Factory, above; rebuilt the bridge, and successfully planted his army 
on the south side.- By the 17th of July he was able to move due westward 
through Decatur upon Atlanta. 

It was here that Hood, essaying to carry out the plans of the brilliant Gen- 
eral whom he had displaced, met the advancing army first in front of Atlanta 



James B. McPhersox. 585 

as it emerged from the passage of the swampy grouad about Peachtree Creek — 
then, as this failed, drawing off southward, and apparently yielding the open 
road to Atlanta, lay in wait to strike the army in flank as it moved up to occupy 
the city. Through onh' a part of these operations was the fated General, who 
had thus far so skillfully handled the Army of the Tenuesse, now to oppose his 
weighty resistance. 

The assault at the crossing of the Peachtree Creek fell upon Thomas and 
Schofield. Meanwhile McPherson was brought up on the left from Decatur. 
He moved along the railroad and along blind country paths, skirmishing 
heavily as he advanced. On the 21st, the morning after Thomas and Schofield 
had carried the Peachtree Creek, he threw his army upon the Eebel line of 
earthworks on his front, and carrying it, secured toward nightfall a command- 
ing position, overlooking the interior defenses of Atlanta. 

Then followed the sad end of the noble story. 

About daylight came a staff officer from Sherman to report a movement of 
the enemy which was interpreted to mean an evacuation of the city. ITcPher- 
8on was suspicious. The skirmish line, however, was moved forward to the 
crest of the hills overlooking Atlanta. McPherson himself rode out to this 
crest. From the very front of the skirmishers he looked down into the interior 
lines of Eebel works, and through the streets of the beleaguered city. Some 
men could be seen in the interior lines, and a few were moving about in the 
streets. "With these exceptions no living object was visible. The enemy, as is 
now known, expected him to move rapidly upon Atlanta. His commander 
manifestly expected the same — the rest of the army, in fact, began to move. 

But the habitual caution of ilcPherson's nature stood his command in good 
stead. He doubted this sudden evacuation — would at least look into it a little 
more, before ordering his army pell-mell into Atlanta. To that caution we owe 
the salvation of the forces surrounding the besieged city. 

He gave some general directions to the pioneer companies. Then, riding 
back to General Blair's head-quarters, he heard of a suspicious appearance of 
Eebel cavalry in the rear, threatening the hospitals. Confirmed somewhat by 
this in his doubts, he gave some orders for the removal of the hospitals, and then 
rode off" rapidly to the right to General Sherman's head-quarters. 

Meantime Hood had jjassed completely ai'ound McPherson's left flank, and 
lay waiting for his expected movement. In front of him was the Sixteenth 
Army Corjis, which had been ordered back for the destruction of the Augusta 
Eailroad, but had been delayed by McPherson's suspicions of threatening 
danger. It was the reserve. In its front, overlooking Atlanta, was the Seven- 
teenth Army Corps. Away to the right stretched the two other armies under 
Sherman's command. The rear was unguarded by cavalry. It had been sent 
back on the Augusta Eoad by General Sherman himself. Hood was thus en- 
abled to approaeh very close to his expected prey. 

As McPherson stood conferring with Sherman — as Sherman, in fact, was 
expressing the belief that there was nothing left but to march in and occupy 
Atlanta — the storm broke. With the first scattering shots in the direction of 



586 Ohio in the Wae. 

his rear, McPhersoii was off — riding with his soldiei'ly instinct toward the sound 
of battle. He found the Sixteenth Corps in position, struggling manfully 
against an assault of unprecedented fierceness; the Seventeenth still holding its 
ground firmly; but danger threatening at the point where the distance between 
the position of the corps, lately in reserve and tliat on the front, had left a gap 
not yet closed in the sudden formation of a new line facing to the late flank and 
rear. Hither and thither his staff were sent flying with various orders for the 
sudden emergenc3^ Finally the position of the Sixteenth Army Corps seemed 
assured, and accompanied only by a single orderly, he galloped off toward the 
Seventeenth ; the troops as he passed saluting him with ringing cheers. 

The road he followed was almost a prolongation of the line of the Six- 
teenth ; it led a little behind where the gap between the two corps was, of which 
we have seen that he was apprised. The road itself, however, had been in our 
hands — troops had passed over it but a few minutes before. As he entered the 
woods, that stretched between the two corps, he was met by a staff officer with 
word that the left of the Seventeenth — the part of the line to which he was 
hastening — was being pressed back by an immensely superior force of the 
enemy. He stood for a moment or two closel}" examining the configuration of 
the ground, then ordered the staff officer to hurry to General Logan for a 
brigade to close the gap, and showed him how to dispose it on its arrival. And 
with this he drove the spurs into his horse and dashed on up the road toward 
the Seventeenth Corps. 

He had scarcely galloped a hundred and fifty yards into the woods when 
there rose before him a skirmish line in gray ! The enemy was crowding down 
into the gap. "Halt ! " rang out sternly from the line, as the officer in General's 
uniform, accompanied by an orderl}^, came in sight. He stopped for an instant, 
raised his hat, then, with a quick wrench on the reins, dashed into the wood* 
on his right. But the horse was a thought too slow in doing his master's bid- 
ding. In that instant the skirmish line sent its crashing volley after the escap- 
ing officer. He seems to have clung convulsively to the saddle a moment, while- 
the noble horse bore him further into the woods — then to have fallen, uncon- 
scious. The orderly was captured. 

In a few minutes an advancing column met a riderless horse coming out of 
the woods, wounded in two places, and with the marks of three bullets on the 
saddle and equipments. All recognized it as the horse of the much-loved Gen- 
eral commanding ; and the news spread electrically through the army that he 
was captured or killed. Then went up that wild cry, " McPherson and revenge." 
The tremendous assault Avas beaten back ; the armj^ charged over the ground it 
had lost, drove the enemy at fearful cost* from his conquests, and rested at night- 
fall in the works it had held in the morning. 

Perhaps an hour after McPherson had disappeared in the woods, private 
George Eeynolds, of Fifteenth Iowa, found some of the staff and told them that 
he had just left the dead body. The young fellow had been wounded, and was 

* Sherman estimated the enemy's loss at eight thousand. His own, mainly in McPherson's 
corps, was three thousand seven hundred and twenty -two. 



James B. McPherson. 587 

making his way through the woods toward a place of safety, when he came 
upon his General. Life was not yet gone, but he could not speak. His lips 
were parched; Reynolds moistened them with water from his canteen, stood 
over him till the last feeble breath was exhaled, and then went to seek for assist- 
ance to recover the body. His wound was still undressed, and a heavy fire was 
sweeping the spot where the dead General lay, but he would not rest till the 
body was recovered.* It was found that a musket ball had passed through the 
right lung, and had shattered the spine. The lack of surgical attendance was, 
therefore, no loss. Nothing could have saved or relieved him. The body lay 
about one hundred and fifty yards from the point where he had disappeared in 
the woods, and about thirty yards north of the road — his horse having car- 
ried him so far after the Eebel skirmish line was discovered before he fell. It 
had not been disturbed, and had probably not been approached by the Rebels. 

General Sherman was moved to unwonted grief, when, half an hour later, 
word came to him that his favorite General, from whom he had so recently 
parted, was dead. Presently the body was brought and laid out in his head- 
quarters. He paced the floor, giving his orders for the battle, and turning now 
and again, with bitter tears, to look on the manly beauty of the departed, as he 
lay— to quote Mr. Hillard's elegant description of another — " extended in seem- 
ing sleep, with no touch of disfeature upon his brow ; as noble an image of 
reposing strength as ever was seen upon earth." The next day, in words of 
womanly tenderness. General Sherman made his official announcement to the 
head-quarters of the army of the sad loss that had robbed it of one of its bright- 
est ornaments : 

"Head-Quarters Mixitary Division op the Mississippi,") 
"In the Field near Atlanta^ Georgia, July 23, 1864. ) 

"To General L. Thomas, Adjutant- General U. S. A.: 

" General — It is my painful duty to report that Brigadier-General Jas. B. McPherson, United 
States Army, Major-General of volunteers, and commander of the Army of the Tennessee in the 
field, was killed by a shot from ambuscade about noon of yesterday. 

" At the time of this fatal shot he was on horseback, placing his troops in position near 
the city of Atlanta, and was passing by a crossroad from a moving column toward the flank of 
troops that had already been established on the line. He had quitted me but a few moments 
before, and was on his way to see in person to the execution of my orders. 

" About the time of this sad event, the enemy had sallied from his intrenchments around 
Atlanta, and had, by a circuit, got to the left and rear of this very line, and had begun an attack 
which resulted in serious battle, so that General McPhei-son fell in battle, booted and spurred, as 
the gallant knight and gentleman should wish. 

■' Not his the loss ; but the country and the army will mourn his death and cherish his mem- 
ory, as that of one who, though comparatively young, had risen by his merit and ability to the 
command of one of the best armies which the nation had called into existence to vindicate its 
honor and integrity 

"History tell us of but few who so blended the grace and gentleness of the friend with the 
dignity, courage, foith, and manliness of the soldier. 

"His public enemies, even the men who directed tlie fatal shot, ne'er spoke or wrote of him 

* The Gold Medal of Honor was bestowed on Eeynolds for this conduct, the order confirm- 
ing it being read at the head of every regiment in his corps. 



588 Ohio in the Wak. 

without expressions of marked respect ; those whom he commcanded loved him even to idolatry ; 
and I, his associate and commander, fail in words adequate to express my opinion of his great 
worth. I feel assured that every patriot in America, on hearing this sad news, will feel a sense 
of personal loss, and the country generally will realize that we have lost, not only an able mili- 
tary leader, but a man who, had he survived, was qualified to heal the national strife which has 
been raised by designing and ambitious men. 

" His body has been sent North in charge of Major Willard, Captains Steel and Gile, his 
personal staff. 

" I am, with great respect, 

" W. T. SHERMAN, Major-General Commanding." 

Not less deep was the grief of the Lieutenant-General, under whom Mc- 
Pherson's rapid jDromotions had occurred. The public report of it led to this 
touching correspondence : 

" Clyde, Ohio, August 3, 1864. 
"To General Grant: « 

^' Dear Sir — I hope you will pardon me for troubling you with the perusal of these few lines 
from the trembling hand of the aged grandma of our beloved General James B. McPherson, who 
fell in battle. When it was announced at his funeral, from the public print, that when General 
Grant heard of his death, he went into his tent and wept like a child, my heart went out in thanks 
to you for the interest you manifested in him while he was with you. I have watched his prog- 
ress from infancy up. In childhood he was obedient and kind ; in manhood, interesting, noble, 
and persevering, looking to the wants of others. Since he entered the war, others can appreciate 
his worth more than I can. When it was announced to us by telegraph that our loved one had 
fallen, our hearts were almost rent asunder; but when we heard the Commander-in-Chief could 
weep with us too, we felt, sir,, that you have been as a father to him, and this whole nation is 
mourning his early death. I wish to inform you that his remains were conducted by a kind 
guard to the very parlor where he spent a cheerful evening in 1861 with his widowed mother, 
two brothers, an only sister, and his aged grandmother, who is now trying to write. In the 
morning he took his leave at six o'clock, little dreaming he should fall by a ball from the enemy. 
His funeral t-ervices were attended in his mother's orchard, where his youthful feet had often 
pressed the soil to gather the falling fruit ; and his remains are resting in the silent grave scarce 
half a mile from the place of his birth. His grave is on an eminence but a few rods from Avhere 
the funeral services were attended, and near the grave of his father. 

" The grave, no doubt, will be marked, so that passers by will often stop and drop a tear 

over the dear departed. And now, dear friend, a few lines from you would be gratefully received 

by the afflicted friends. I pray that the God of battles may be with you, and go forth with your 

arms till rebellion shall cease, the Union be restored, and the old flag wave over our entire land. 

" With much respect, I remain your friend, 

" LYDIA SLOCUM, 
" Aged eighty-seven years and four months." 

"Head-Quarters Armies of the United States,! 
" City Point, Virginia, August 10, 1864. i 

•" Mrs. Lydia Slocum : 

" 3Iy Dear Madam — Your very welcome letter of the 3d instant has reached me. I am glad 
to know that the relatives of the lamented Major-General McPherson are aware of the more 
than friendship existing between him and myself. A nation grieves at the loss of one so dear 
to our nation's cause. It is a selfish grief, because the nation had more to expect from him than 
from almost any one living. I join in this selfish grief, and add the grief of personal love for 
the departed. He formed, for some time, one of my military family. I knew him well ; to 
know him was to love. It may be some consolation to you, his aged grandmother, to know that 
every officer and every soldier who served under your grandson felt the highest reverence for liis 
patriotism, his zeal, his great, almost unequaled ability, his amiability and all the manly vir- 
tues that can adorn a commander. Your bereavement is great, but can not exceed mine. 

" Yours truly, U. S. GEANT." 



James B. McPhekson. 589 

The army shared to the full this regret and this admiration. He had always 
been regarded with affection by his troops; they now held his memory sacred 
and a priceless possession. 

During his life he had never risen into wide personal popularity with the 
public. He was on!}- a subordinate, and the popular raptures were reserved for 
the commanders. But he had been esteemed a skillful corps General, and a 
highl}^ meritorious officer. At the South he had been appreciated even more 
highly. They gave him credit for the conception of Grant's campaign against 
the rear of Yicksburg. They attributed to his genius the success of Sherman's 
movements against Johnston. "If we had killed McPherson," said one of the 
Atlanta papers, commenting upon the battle in which he lost his life, before its 
results were ascertained, "and had driven Sherman across the Chattahoochie, 
we should have been content, without taking a gun or a prisoner." When his 
death was announced, the sense of loss led to a higher esteem among his own 
people. JSTo place but the first, it was believed, would have held the martyr, 
had he lived. 

History will probably fail to confirm this judgment. Eeckoning what he 
did, rather than what he might have done; looking to his achievements rather 
than to his possibilities, it will renew the old contemporary verdict which held 
him rightly situated as a subordinate; fitter for the second than for the first 
place. But it will make note of his rare capacities, of the wisdom of his saga- 
cious counsels, of his engineering skill, of his prudence, of his coolness, of his 
soldierly valor. It will gratefull}' record the signal Avorth of his services in 
the two great campaigns in which he held high command. It will dwell ten- 
derly upon the softer and more lovable traits of his chai'acter, which endeared 
him to all with whom he came in contact, and mingled affection with the admi- 
ration of his soldiers. And we may confidently predict that, in the end, it will 
rank him high in that second class of Generals who, if not great organizers of 
victory, have greatly won it for their superiors — being the right arm of their 
strength, the efficient executors of their designs. 

General McPherson's personal appearance was eminently prepossessing. 
He was over six feet high, of full, manly development, with graceful carriage, 
and most winning ways. His features were pleasing, and his high forehead 
and well-balanced head gave token of the large intellect of the man. His tem- 
per was unusually sunny and genial, so that all loved him who knew him. He 
seemed perfectly free from jealous}', and the kindred vices that so often mar a 
military character. His sense of honor was sensitively acute. No one ever ac- 
cused him of seeking to profit by his country's woes ; and not one discreditable 
action was ever charged to him by friend or foe. 

Though rarely permitted to visit his family, he seemed to permit them 
rarely to be absent from his thoughts. The affectionate side of his nature was 
indeed the prominent one. His frequent letters to his mother, his grandmother, 
and other members of the family, give tenderest proof of it. Just before start- 
ing from Chattanooga, he writes to his mother to send his "love to all at home," 



590 Ohio in the Wae. 

and to subscribe himself her "affectionate son, James." When the army halted 
at Kingston he writes again, that "each day carries me farther and farther from 
borne; but I assure you, my dearest mother, my love and affection for it in- 
crease. When this war is over I know I shall enjoy coming home and settling 
down in quiet for a short time, where I can feel free from care and anxiety." 
From Kenesaw he writes: "I pray, when the great struggle comes, that G-od 
will protect the right. I have not much time to write now; but when the cam- 
jjaign is over, if I do not get a chance to come home for a few days, I will write 
you a full account." Just a month before his death he writes to his mother 
again fi'om Marietta : "I have kept well thus far, though we have had the worst 
weather you ever saw. My love to all at home, and I hope it may be my good 
fortune to get to see you sometime this summer." 

Before the summer ended he was borne home. A week after his death, a 
great concourse of the people who had known him from boyhood gathered 
^bout the cottage of his mother to pay the last sad honors to the memory of her 
soldier son. He was buried in the orchard of the old homestead. No monu- 
ment was, for some years, placed over his grave, but large sums were raised 
by private subscription, in the army, and among his friends, to erect one suitable 
to his memory, and worthy of the gratitude and love in which his name is held 

General McPherson was betrothed to a young lady of Baltimore, to whom 
he was tenderly attached. He was to have received a furlough in the spring of 
1864, to go on and be married. But the exigencies of the campaign rendered it 
impossible, and Sherman himself wrote to the poor girl, explaining how impos- 
sible it was that her lover could then be spared from the important army he 
commanded. To this marriage he had long looked forward. Nothing could be 
more touching, now, than the few words in which, writing from San Francisco 
before the outbreak of the war, he described to his mother the object of his 
choice, and added: "You will love her as I do, when you know her. She is in- 
telligent, refined, generous-hearted, and a Christian. This will suit you, as it 
does me, for it lies at the foundation of every pure and elevated character." It 
lay, too, at the foundation of his. In boyhood he had become a member of the 
Methodist Church; and though not demonstratively religious, his practice 
-through life never disgi-aced his early profession. 



Ormsby M. Mitchel. 591 



MAJOR-GENERAL 0. M. MITCHEL. 



OEMSBY Mcknight mitchel, the most distinguished of the 
ex-officers of the regular army who returned to military life at the 
outbreak of the war, and a General who died too soon for the good 
of the service, but not for his own fame, was a native of Kentucky, and from 
the age of four years a resident of Ohio. The family had come from Virginia. 
The father of the future General at one time possessed a handsome property; 
but repeated reverses impoverished him. He had a genius for mathematics, 
and, it is added by the biographers, had a decided turn for the astronomical 
studies which were to make his son so famous. His wife was attractive in per- 
son, cultivated and refined, and unaffectedl}" pious. "When reverses overtook 
them, they decided, like so many other Virginians in similar circumstances, to 
emigrate to Kentucky. Near Morganfield, in Union County, they secured a 
tract of land and began pioneer life. Here, on the 28th of August, 1810, was 
born the lad of whom we wish to write. 

The spot which Mr. Mitchel had selected for his home proved unhealthy. 
He himself died, onl}^ three years after the birth of Ormsby, and other deaths 
in quick succession came to sadden the emigrant family. At last the widow 
decided to remove from a spot that seemed so fatal, and they started on horse- 
back for the Ohio Eiver — Master Ormsby riding behind his elder brother. 
Crossing, not without danger from Indians and from storms, at the point where 
the city of Cincinnati now stands, thej^ pushed on to the little village of Miami, 
in Clermont County, and shortly afterward to Lebanon, in Warren County, a 
sleepy old village, singularly prolific, in those early days, of men that were to 
be distinguished. Here the rest began daily labors for a livelihood. Ormsby, 
too young to do much for the support of the family, was allowed to devote him- 
self to books. With imperfect instruction, he was nevertheless reading Virgil 
before he was nine years old. At twelve it was thought to be time that the 
incipient Latinisf should support himself, and he was placed in a country store 
as errand-boy and clerk. Here, for a couple of years, he remained, selling goods 
in the daytime, sweeping out the store at night, and serving in the family of 
his employer evenings and mornings. At last there came a rupture. Years 
aftei-ward, when the boy had become a distinguished lecturer, he told the story 
for the encouragement of other boj^s : 

"I was working for twenty-five cents a week, with my hands full, but did my work faith- 
fully. I used to cut wood, fetch water, make fires, scrub and scour in the morning for the old 
lady before the real work of the day was commenced. My clothes were bad, and I had no means 
of buying shoes, so was often barefooted. One morning I got through my work early, and the 



592 Ohio in the Wak. 

old lady, who thought I had not done it, or was especially ill-humored then, was displeased. 
She scolded me, and said : ' You are an idle boy. You have n't done the work.' I replied : ' I 
have done what I was told to do.' 'You are a liar,' was her angry reply. I felt my spirit rise 
indignantly against the charge; and, standing erect, I answered : 'You will never have the chance 
of applying that word to me again.' I then walked out of the house to re-enter it no more. I 
had not a cent in my pocket when I stepped into the world. What do you think I did then, 
boys? I met a countryman with a team. I boldly and earnestly addressed him, saying: 'I 
will drive the leader if you will only take me on.' He looked at me in surprise, but in a moment 
said: 'I don't think you'll be of any use to me.' 'O yes I will,' I replied; 'I can rub down and 
watch your horses, and do many things for you, if you will only let me try.' 'Well, well, my 
lad, get on the horse.' And so I climbed upon the leader's back, and commenced my teamster- 
life. The roads were deep mud, and the traveling very hard, and consequently slow. We got 
along at the rate of twelve miles per day. It was dull and tiresome you will believe ; but it was 
my starting-point. I had begun to push my way in the world, and went ahead after this." 

But " teamster-life " was not likely to prove the best fitted for a lad who 
read Virgil at nine, and knew something of Greek verbs in /u.i before he was 
twelve. Anaong the relatives of his mother was Justice McLean, of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, then a resident of Lebanon, but already enjoying 
large reputation and influence. To him the disturbed mother applied in her dis- 
tress ; and through his aid an appointment to West Point was secured. Ormsby 
was not quite fifteen, but such was the desire to oblige Mr. McLean that the little 
obstacle of the age was passed without mention, and he was allowed to enter. 
" We have a good many of our boys going to West Point," said one of his 
mother's friends to him, shortly before he stai'ted, " but somehow very few of 
them get through." " I shall go through, sir," was the confident response of the 
under-age lad. 

A little knapsack was packed for him, and he started. Part of the way he 
walked; for a part he secured horseback rides, and for a part he went on a canal- 
boat. At last, with his knapsack on his back and twenty-five cents in his pocket, 
the lonely little wanderer arrived at West Point. Before the examination he 
made the acquaintance of a cadet who told him what books he should be pre- 
pared upon. When the day came, though the youngest boy admitted, he passed 
as creditably as most of the larger ones. 

Eoutine study and regular recitations were a novelty to the self-educated 
lad, and, precocious as he was, he had not yet acquired the self-control that 
could keep him always up to his best. But for this the youngest bo}' of the 
class would also have been the foremost. As it was, the records of the academy 
show that in the class of 1829 a nameless nobody stood first ; Eobert E. Lee 
stood second ; Joseph E. Johnston thirteenth ; O. M. Mitchel fifteenth, and B. 
W. Brice (Paymaster-General in the war) fortieth. In the first class above, and 
an inmate with Mitchel for three years in the academy, w^as Jefferson Da\'^s — of 
whom it may be interesting to add that he stood twenty-third in his class. 
Davis was said to have taken a fancy to the little fellow in the class below him, 
and to have often made him his companion. 

At nineteen Mitchel kept the promise made to his mother's friends before 
starting. He went through. So satisfactory were his attainments and his char- 
acter that he was retained in the academy as' Assistant-Instructor in Mathe- 



Ormsby M. Mitchel. 593 

matics. "I like little Mitchel vastlj-," said one of the Professors, speaking of 
him at this period; "he is a wonderfully ingenious lad."* His ingenuity, it 
seems, was shown in seeking new solutions to old problems, discoverino- new 
methods, speculating and theorizing on new phases of mathematical subjects. 
After a couple of years of such life, he was sent, as a Second-Lieutenant of Artil- 
lery, to St. Augustine, Florida, on garrison-duty. But, before this, he had won 
the heart of a Mrs. Trask, the Avidow of a young West Pointer, and the daughter 
of a prominent citizen of the county in which West Point is situated. His mar- 
riage soon led him to pine for the comforts of a home-life, and, setting the 
example which was in after years to have so distinguished a follower as Sher- 
man, he began the study of law. Finally he resigned his commission. 

Only four years after his graduation, and in his twenty-third year, he 
removed to Cincinnati, and began the practice of law. His partner, young 
also then, bore a name since highly renowned in Ohio. It was Edward D. 
Mansfield. 

Clients were few in those days, and fees were small. The young lawyers 
lived, but did little more.f Mitchel's restless temper chafed under the delays. 
Once he sought to attract attention to his capacities by delivering public lectures. 
He chose an astronomical subject, and had the lecture announced in the news- 
papers. A citizen whose attention had been arrested by the statement that a 
young stranger from West Point was to speak, attended. There were sixteen 
persons present, he tells us ! But both the young lawyers gradually worked their 
way into recognition as men of culture. Mitchel joined Dr. Lyman Beecher's 
church, and became somewhat prominent for his fervid zeal in prayer-meetings. 
Fresh friends were thus rained. 

Finally, in 1834, little over a year after his arrival in the city, he was 
appointed Professor of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy in 
the " College of Cincinnati," while his partner secured another of the Professor- 
ships. They were thus associated with Dr. McGuffey, Charles S. Telford, and 
others who were recognized in those days as constituting one of the most highly 
cultivated circles in the city. 

Professor Mitchel soon became known as an admirable teacher. He thor- 
oughly understood what he taught; he had a great flow of lucid language for 
his explanations to his classes; above all, he was an enthusiast in his favorite 
studies, and was capable of inspiring his pupils with the same feeling. He thus 
rose to rank among the foremost in his profession and to command the confi- 
dence of the communit3\ 

Presently his influence began to be felt outside the Avails of the college and 
of Dr. Beecher's church. An interest in railroad enterprises sprang up in Ohio, 
and men naturally turned to Professor Mitchel as a scientific engineer, whose 
opinions on such subjects would be final. It was proposed to build a railroad 

* Professor Mansfield, the father of Hon. E. D. Mansfield. 

t "How much did you and Mitchel make practicing law?" the surviving partner of this 
notable firm was once asked. "I think about fifty dollars in all," was the reply. 
Vol. I.— 38. 



594 Ohio in the War. 

leading out from Cincinnati up the valley of the Little Miami. The Professor 
warmly encouraged the enterprise. It was practicable, he said ; the route was 
indeed a good one ; it would open up a fertile region of country ; and the trade 
thrown into Cincinnati thereby would soon pay for the cost of its construction. 
Within two years after his appointment to the Professorship, when only in his 
twenty-sixth year, he became the engineer for the proposed road. After sur- 
veying the route, and submitting his estimates of the cost, he next sought to aid 
in securing the money. He and Mr. George I^eff united their efforts in attempt- 
ing to impress upon the City Council tlie importance of assisting the infant en- 
terprise. Finally they secured from the city a loan of $200,000. Presently the 
Little Miami 'Eailroad became a certainty; and through the college vacations in 
1836-37 Prcjfessor Mitchel acted as its chief engineer. 

For three or four j'oars railroad engineering and his duties in the college 
kept the Professor busy. But meantime he had realized, in all his glowing dis- 
cussions of astronomical subjects with his students, the lack of any sufficient 
apparatus for making instructive observations. By and by, too, as he became 
more of an enthusiast in the science, the desire for the means of prosecuting 
his own studies and observations mingled with his concern for better instruc- 
tion for the college classes. At length he conceived the project of raising the 
funds for the erection of a complete observatory. The idea, at that time, seemed 
chimerical enough. New York had no observatory; Boston had none. Was it 
likely that a raw western town, such as Cincinnati then was, not verj' enter- 
prising, and certainly not much devoted to either science or literature, would 
pay out money — hard cash — for an institution of intangible benefits which the 
Eastern cities were unable to appreciate? But it is rarely men that do great 
things — generally a Man. Professor Mitchel was the Man. The community 
of Cincinnati was the tool with which he had to work, not, perhaps, the best 
then that the Continent afforded, but, in the hands of this workman of ours, 
sufficient. 

He began by striving to stir up a public interest in his favorite science. To 
this end a series of popular lectures on Astronomy in the hall of the college was 
announced. This time there Avere more than sixteen persons present. In fact, 
such had now become the reputation of the young Professor, and such was the 
regard for him entertained by the colleagues and other associates who strove to 
second his plans, that general public attention was attracted, and every night 
the hall was filled with a crowded audience. Before this, in the class-room, in 
church meetings, and on chance public occasions the Professor had become 
accustomed to public speaking. But the oratorical graces which he now dis- 
played astonished those who knew him best. Warmed up by an enthusiasm 
characteristic of the man in whatever he undertook, and fired by his subject, 
he threw the spell of his own interest over his audience. He spoke without 
notes or manuscript; but his lectures seemed the polished I'esult of long literary 
labor. It was a theme in which not one in a hundred of his hearers had felt 
the slightest interest; but the fervor of the speaker overcame the abstractions 
of the speech. The last lecture attracted special admiration, and he was asked 



r 



Ormsby M. Mitchel. 595 



to repeat it in one of the leading churches of the city. An audience of over 
two thousand gathered to hear him. At the close he developed his plan for 
building an observatory. Briefly, it was to be by the organization of a joint- 
stock compan}' — the shares to be twenty-five dollars each — the shareholders to 
have certain privileges of admission not accorded to the outside public. Noth- 
ing was to be done till three hundred shares were subscribed. The audience 
applauded, as audiences will. When it came to subscribing they were slower. 
A beginning, however, was made, and for weeks afterward Mitchel besieged the 
solid men of the city for subscriptions. 

At last the three hundred shares wei-e taken. Then the Professor went to 
Europe to see what could be done in the way of securing instruments. His 
designs had already swelled with his success; he was now resolved to make this 
observatory the foremost in the United States. "Two resolutions were taken at 
outset,"' he afterward explained, " to which I am indebted for any success that 
may have attended my own personal efforts: First, to work faithfully for five 
years, during all the leisure which could be spared from my regular duties; and, 
second, never to become angry under any provocation while in the prosecution 
of this enterprise." The words give a characteristic glimpse into the mental 
habits of the man. 

He had decided, unless his observations in Europe should determine him 
differently, to make the leading feature of his observatory a great equatorial- 
mounted, achromatic refracting telescope. There were not, at that time, in the 
world half a dozen such achromatic object-glasses as he sought. In London 
and Paris his researches were in vain. Finally, in Munich, at the establishment 
of M. Mertz, the successor of Frauenhofer, he found a lens over a foot in diam- 
eter, which, so far as could be judged in its unfinished state, would p)rove the 
finest object-glass yet mounted in a telescope by any maker. To finish and 
mount it would take ten thousand dollars and two years' time. Not so much 
money in all had been subscribed, when Professor Mitchel left home, for build- 
ing and equipping the entire observatory. But this object-glass he must have; 
the people of Cincinnati must be made to subscribe more liberally. And so he 
closed a contract for a telescope at ten thousand dollars, when only seven thou- 
sand dollars were subscribed for telescope and other instruments, and building 
and grounds. Then he went to G-reenwich, and spent a few weeks in the Eoyal 
Observatory, aided by the friendl}^ guidance of Professor Airej- in studying the 
methods of observation there adopted. He was home in time for his duties at 
the fall term of the college, in 1842, having spent just a hundred days in his 
eventful trip. 

A public meeting of the shareholders assembled on Professor Mitchel's re- 
turn to hear his report. His statement that, with the telescope for which he 
had contracted, but one observatory in the world would have a more powerful 
instrument than their own, gratified local pride, and secured a cordial in- 
dorsement of his action. With some difiiculty — it being in the midst of the 
commercial depression of 1842-43 — he collected enough money from the share- 
holders to make a remittance of three thousand dollars to Munich. This secured 



596 Ohio in the War. 

the contract, and the optician at once began finishing and mounting the great 
object-glass. 

Meantime Mitchel renewed more vigorously the efforts to raise mone}' to 
secure a building for his telescope. Nicholas Longworth was finally prevailed 
upon to give four acres of ground on one of the high hills overlooking the city 
for its site. Workmen were at once set to digging foundations and preparing 
material. 

In these labors the spring and summer of 1843 were passed. On the 9th 
of November occurred the great incident in the history of the observatory. 
Its corner-stone was laid by the venerable John Quincy Adams, who on this 
occasion delivered one of his last public addresses. The event gave great fame 
to the incipient institution, but its funds were consumed in making the final 
remittance to Munich, and the observatory building for a time seemed likely to 
stop at the corner-stone. Next spring, however, labor was resumed. Some- 
times they had only money to hire three workmen ; often only enough to add 
one or two more to the number. But Mitchel kept up his courage. Sometimes 
he secured subscriptions from laboring men, to be paid in work; sometimes he 
went up the hill to the observatory grounds and joined his own labor to that of 
the workmen. Mr. Longworth required the building to be completed in two 
years, under penalty of forfeiture of the site. By March, 1845, it was finished, 
and the great telescope was mounted. Professor Bache, of the Coast Survey, 
gave a transit instrument and a sidereal clock. Such other instruments as were 
needed there were still funds to purchase.^ 

Professor Mitchel had promised to superintend the observatory for ten 
years, free of chai-ge. He had, of course, relied upon his salary in the College 
of Cincinnati for support, and his design had been to couple the use of the 
observatory with his instructions to his classes. But shortly after it was fin- 
ished the college was burned down and abandoned. He was thus left without 
means of livelihood. But the man who had faced such difficulties thus far was 
not to be discouraged now. He at once decided to continue his labors at the 
observatory, and to depend upon popular lectui'es on Astronomy for support. 

He began at Boston. The hall was scarcely half-full on the evening of the 
first lecture. "Never mind," said the Professor to a friend, "every one that was 
here will bring another with him the next night." Indeed his perfect confi- 
dence in himself and his almost childlike Avay of showing it everywhere, 
would in a smaller man have seemed intolerable egotism. But his assurance 
was well-founded. Next niglit the hall was full, and with constantly increasing 
signs of public gratification, he continued and concluded the most popular series 
of scientific lectures that, up to that time, had ever been given in Boston. 
Thence he went to New York, and was equally or more successful. The prob- 

*The observatory thus erected is eighty feet long, thirty wide, and two stories high, with an 
additional story over the center for the instruments. It long remained the best equipped observ- 
atory in the United States; but its great telescope is now surpassed by several others in the coun- 
try; and since the outbreak of the war it has fallen into neglect. 



Ormsby M. Mitchel. 597 

lem of subsistence was solved, and he returned to his observations at Cin- 
cinnati. 

Through the years that followed he devoted himself to the scientific duties 
of the observatory, and on this work his scientific reputation chiefly rests. 
Admirable as an observer, he was still more remarkable for the inventive genius 
that brought new mechanical agencies to the service of his favorite study. By 
the aid of the "Declinometer" and other inventions he revolutionized the sys- 
tem of cataloguing the stars.* Indeed his method of determining the Eight 
Ascension and Declination of the heavenly bodies was recognized in Europe and 
in this country as constituting an era in that branch of the Science of Astron- 
omy. In Europe it is still spoken of as the American method, and, in the words 
of the eminent M. Struve, has been adopted with signal success. To this branch 
of Astronomy Professor Mitchel had hoped to devote the remainder of his life. 
"For a long time to come," he wrote in 1848, "one principal object will engage 
the instruments of the Cincinnati Observatory, viz., the exploration of the 
heavens south of the Equator, and the remeasurement of Struve's double stars 
in that region." He adds somewhat sadly, "Should this work progress but 
slowl}', let it be remembered that the Director of the observatory has no assist- 
ant out of his own immediate family, and must devote a large portion of his 
time to other duties, far more closely allied to the earth than to the stars." 

It was in fact back to railroad engineering that his necessities, not more 
perhaps than his restless energy, now carried him. His scientific position 
became such that, when the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad was j^roposed, 
the proprietors sought to enlist the services of Professor Mitchel. He sur- 
veyed the route, and pronounced it practicable and eligible. Then he visited 
the Legislatures of the several States through which it passed and secured 
their co-operation. In all the leading towns and cities he appeared as the 
representative of the road, held public meetings, at which, with his remark- 

*The following description of this invention of Professor Mitchel is given by the Astrono- 
mer, since his death, in charge of the Dudley Observatory: 

"To the axis of a transit telescope is attaclied a metallic arm of sixty inches in length; in 
the lower end of this arm is screwed a cylindrical pin one-eighth of an inch in diameter, at right 
angles to the arm and parallel to the supporting axis of the telescope. This pin has a notch or 
groove (of the form which would be generated by placing the vertices of two isosceles triangles 
together and revolving about the perpendicular) cut in the middle. 

"At a distance of twenty-three inches from the pin, and in the same horizontal plane, is 
mounted in Y's a small telescope of six inches focal length. The supporting axis of this tele- 
scope is parallel to that of the transit. Underneath the center of the small telescope, and con- 
nected with it, is a short arm two inches in length ; and, by means of a joint, a rod is connected 
■with the pin before mentioned. 

" Now when the transit telescope is moved in zenith-distance, angular motion is given to the 
small telescope by means of the long arm and connecting rod. 

"The amount of this motion is read from a scale, placed at a distance of fifteen feet, and 
divided to single seconds of arc. It will, of course, be understood that we must have some 
object in the focus of the small telescope with which to compare the divisions of the scale. We 
use either a cross formed by the intersection of two spider's webs, or a single horizontal wire. 

"In case we wish to observe a zone of greater width than the extent of the scale (30'), we 
have a number of pins, at a distance of 30' apart, mounted in the arc of a circle whose radius is 
equal to the length of the long arm. We readily pass from one pin to another, bv liftino- one 



598 Ohio in the Wak. 

able skill for addressing popular audiences, he presented its claims for sub- 
scriptions, and excited the liveliest interest in its success. Afterward he acted 
as principal agent of the Eastern Division; and three times crossed the Atlan- 
tic to negotiate the bonds of the road. In these financial operations he did 
not escape reproach. He was accused of consulting his own interests more 
than those of the road, and there is no doubt that he succeeded in making his 
labors profitable. Much public odium thus attached to his name, and in many 
circles in Cincinnati he long remained very unpopular. But no spot was left 
upon his integrity. To his energy and capacity, at least as largely as to those 
of any other one man, was the completion of the road due. Yet this was but 
the occupation of his leisure, the recreation in which he unbent from the labors 
of the observatory. 

About the same time he began the publication of a journal devoted to 
Astronomical Science — the "Sidereal Messenger." This struggled on for a yeav 
or two, but the number of persons in the United States interested in practical 
astronomy was too small to sustain it. Other publications more permanent in 
form and popular in nature, secured a larger measure of success. His first book, 
the " Planetary and Stellar Worlds," attained considerable circulation, and was 
very favorably received in Europe. His lectures on the Astronomy of the 
Bible, as delivered in New York, and stenographically reported, were published, 
to the great gratification of the thousands who, there and elsewhere, had been 
delighted at their delivery. And, finally, in 1860, he gave to the public his " Pop- 
ular Astronomy," the last of his works which had the advantage of his own 
revision. 

end of a connecting rod and attaching it to a different one. The division on the scale can easily 
be read, by estimation, two-tenths of a second of arc. 

" The time required to read the scale is much less than that employed in reading one micro- 
Bcope, since at the same transit of an equatorial star we can make from ten to fifteen bisections and 
readings. As I have found one reading of the scale nearly equal to four microscopes, it follows 
that if we employ the same time in the observation of an object with the Declinometer that we do 
when we use the Circle, our results in the former case will be superior to the latter in a large ratio. 

"The Zone observations with the Declinometer have been made mostly for the investigation 
of the source and amount of error due to this method. From a comparison of the observations 
with those made in the ordinary way, I find the probable error, on a single observation, falls 
within the limits of accuracy usually assigned to observations made with the Meridian Circle. 
One great advantage lies in the fact that many bisections and readings can be made at the same 
transit, and in this way eliminating the ordinary errors of observation. You will understand the 
rapidity with which work can be done by this method, when I state that more than two hundred 
stars have been accurately observed in one hour; and were they equally distributed, twice that 
number could easily have been taken. 

"This instrument is one of the great inventions of our late and lamented director, Professor 
Mitchel, and is the only one in the world. 

" From observations made during the last two years, and a careful discussion of the results, 
I have arrived at the conviction that there is no other known method equal to it, for rapidity and accu- 
racy, in cataloguing of stais." 

Another of his admirable inventions was one for making the clock of the observatory record 
by telegraph its own pendulum beats ; while by the same telegraphic process the observer could 
record the instant of any phase of. an astronomical phenomenon— thus adding greatly to the 
nicety and accuracy of the calculations. The processes by which this is accomplished are 
exceedingly delicate. 



Ormsby M. Mitch el. 599 

The merit of these works is various, but their general characteristics are 
the same. Their aim is to catch the broad outlines of the subject, to seize the 
results of the science with only so much attention to the steps by which they 
are attained as an average audience or ordinary reader might readily follow, 
and to dwell mainly upon the sublime and marvelous features of the attractive 
subject. The " Popular Astronomy " is intended either for the general reader 
or for use as a text-book. Its chief peculiarity, in the estimation of its author, 
was its eifort to trace the path of discovery, by giving first the recital of the 
facts and phenomena, and then following the discoverer through the conjectures 
and hypotheses thereupon based to the final development of the principles of 
the science. The same coui-se vvas adopted with signal success in the lectures. 
The slightly declamatory style occasionally mars the value of the text-book; 
but in the lectures it doubtless adds to the popular interest. 

The discussions of the "Astronomy of the Bible" naturally provoke com< 
parison with the gorgeous rhetoric of the "Astronomical Discourses," by Dr. 
Chalmers. Professor Mitchel is sometimes more minute, and always more pre- 
cise, than his famous predecessor in the same field. He is not less daring in his 
acceptance of theories regarded with distrust or hotly opposed by most defenders 
of the Bible against the supposed attacks of science, and not less adroit in 
adapting his interpretations of the sacred record to the march of scientific prog- 
ress. He adopts boldly the "Nebular Hypothesis," in all the extent to which 
La Place carried it; has no diflaculty in making the Mosaic "days" of creation 
mean extended periods of time of indefinite duration ; is dubious as to the record 
concerning Joshua's making the sun stand still, and is inclined to throw the 
burden of proof upon the translators. The theology which he learned from the 
stars, like that of Chalmers, was Calvinistic. In his final lecture, after tracing 
the influence of immutable laws throughout the universe, and the results of vio- 
lation of those laws, he concluded : 

" No, my friends ; the analogies of nature, applied to the moral government of God, would 
crush all hope in the sinful soul. There, for millions of ages, these stern laws have reigned 
supreme. There is no deviation, no modification, no yielding to the refractory or disobedient. 
All is harmony, because all is obedience. Close forever, if you will, this strange book claiming 
to be God's revelation— blot out forever its lessons of God's creative power, God's superabound- 
ing providence, God's fatherhood and loving guardianship to man. His erring offspring, and then 
unseal the leaves of that mighty volume which the finger of God has written in the stars of 
heaven, and in these flashing letters of living light we read only tiie dread sentence, ' The soul 
that .sinneth it sliall surely die!'" 

On the whole, it is not an unkind criticism of these discourses to say that 
they seem to have been modeled upon those of Dr. Chalmers, and it is high 
praise to add that they are worthy to be named beside those famous produc- 
tions. The lectures entitled the "Planetary and Stellar Worlds" are less ambi- 
tious in their aim. No one can read them and be in doubt as to the wonderful 
fascination which we are told they exercise upon the audiences who first heard 
them. In language admirably freed from bristling technicalities, they trace the 
progress of mind as it grappled with the phenomena of astronomy, from the 



(300 Ohio in the Wak. 

theory of Copernicus and the laws of Kepler to the bewildering calculations of 
Le Verrier, and the amazing analyses by which Struve and Maedler built up 
the belief in a central sun, around which systems of stars, whole milky-ways 
of creation, revolve. The popular presentation of the sublime discoveries has 
tasked manv able pens ; but as yet no one need go further than the works of the 
founder of the first observatory in the United States for the most attractive 
embodiment of the truths and speculations of the science. 

As if to complete the circle of his activities, Professor Mitchel had also been 
for ten years commander of a volunteer company in Cincinnati, and for two 
years Adjutant-General of the State of Ohio. Neither of these positions gave 
him any ofiicial influence at the time, but they served to keep up his familiarity 
with military matters. 

In 1853 General Yan Eensellaer, Mrs. Blandina Dudley, and some others, 
began the erection of an observatory at Albany, professedly on the plan of that 
at Cincinnati. Mitchel's advice was taken as to the plan of the building, the 
equipment, and the organization. He was recognized, in fact, as the most com- 
petent man in the country to direct such an institution. Unfortunately, diffi- 
culties sprang up among the persons whose generous gifts had made the Observ- 
atory, and amid their disputes its usefulness seemed likely be frittered away. 
Professor Mitchel was appealed to on all hands, and it really appeared that he 
was the only man under whose management harmony could be restored. He 
had been serving all this time in the Cincinnati Observatory without charge. 
Under these circumstances he did not feel any obligation to refuse the invita- 
tion to Albany ; and so, without definitely sundering his connection at Cincin- 
nati, he became director at Albany, and, during a few months imn\ediately prior 
to the war, was spending most of his time there, striving to allay the feuds 
among the friends of the new institution, and to get it in good working order. 
Such, in the spring of 1861, had been the career of Professor Mitchel. Be- 
ginning as an errand-boy and store-clerk, he had risen to rank among the fore- 
most scientific men of the Nation. In the old army he had left behind him the 
reputation of a good officer, of high but not the highest professional attainments. 
He was esteemed a skillful railroad engineer and manager. He had been a 
college professor of high standing. He was reckoned among the most brilliant 
of scientific lecturers in the country, and among the most effective of popular 
orators. He was a successful author. His reputation as an astronomer was as 
high in Europe as in his own country. He had measurably outlived the odium 
of his later railroad operations. Hq had passed through all the struggles of his 
intensely active life with an unspotted private character. He was a fervent 
church member,* and a good citizen. In political matters he was somewhat 
conservative. The self-confidence of his nature had generated a species of 
egotism, not wholly unpleasant, but still so marked that men were apt to speak 
of Professor Mitchel's vanity as his greatest fault. He was in the fifty-first 

» It has already been mentioned that shortly after the beginning of his effort to practice law 
in Cincinnati he joined Dr. Lyuian Beecher'.s Church. He remained an active membei of the 
Second (New School) Presbyterian Congregation of Cincinnati until his death. 



Ormsby M. Mitchel. 601 

year of his ago, with a successful life behind him, a hopeful family grooving up 
about him, and his fame secure.* 
Then came the Rebellion. 

That a studious, scientific man, past the meridian of life, and filling i^osts 
of high usefulness, should choose to leave the active labors of the war to younger 
and more vigorous soldiers, would have been natural. But Professor Mitchel 
was not the man to claim such reasonable exemptions. At the first alarm he 
recalled his old indebtedness to the Government, his military education, and his 
West Point oath, and flung himself unreservedly into the conflict. At the great 
Union meeting, in New York, after the fall of Sumter, he was, if we may judge 
from the rapturous reports of the newspapers of the day, the most efi'ective 
speaker. In the fullness of a not ignoble pride, he could not omit longer refer- 
ences to his own historj^ than a severe taste would approve; but the audience 
was not critical, and he wonderfully kindled their enthusiasm. . Said he : 

" I am infinitely indebted to you for this evidence of your kindness. I know I am a stranger 
among you. [Cries of ' No,' ' No.'] I have been in your State but a little while, but I am 
with you, heart, and soul, and mind, and strength; and all that I have and am belongs to you 
and our common country, and to nothing else. I have been announced to you as a citizen of 
Kentucky. Once I was, because I was born there. I love my native State as you love your 
native State, I love, too, my adopted State of Ohio, as you love your adopted State, if such you 
have ; but, my friends, I am not a citizen now of any State. I owe allegiance to no State, and 
never did, and, God helping me, never will. 

" 1 owe allegiance to the Government of the United States. A poor boy, working my way 
with my own hands, at the age of twelve turned out to take care of myself as best I could, and 
beginning by earning but four dollars a month, I worked my way onward until this glorious Gov- 
ernment gave me a chance at the Military Academy at West Point. There I landed with a knap- 
sack on my back, and, I tell you God's truth, just a quarter of a dollar in my pocket. Then I 
swore allegiance to the Government of the United States. I did not abjure the love of my native 
State nor of my adopted State, but all over that rose triumphant and predominant my love for 
our common country. 

"And now, to-day, that common country is assailed, and, alas! alas! that I am compelled to 
say it, is assailed in some sense by my own countrymen. My father and mother were from old 
Virginia, and my brother and sisters from old Kentucky. I love them all; I love them dearly. 
I have my brothers and friends down in the South now, united to me by the fondest ties of love 
and af.ection. I would take them into my arms to-day with all the love that God has put into 
this heart; but if I found them in rebellion I would be compelled to smite them down. You 
have found officers of the army who have been educated by the Government, who have drawn 
their support from the Government for long years, who, when called upon by their country to 
stand for the Constitution and the right, have basely, ignominiously and traitorously resigned 

their commissions, or deserted to traitors, rebels, and enemies, without resignation 

They are no countrymen longer when war breaks out. The rebels and traitors in the South we 
must set aside; they are not our friends. When they come to their senses we will receive them 
with open arms; but till that time, while they are trailing our glorious banner in the dust, then 
we must smite. In God's name I will smite, and as long as I have strength I will do it. [En- 
husiastic applause.] 



' "'Is Mitchel a great man?" one had asked of his intimate friend. "No," was the answer; 
"Mitchel is a man of genius, but he is not a great man. Daniel Webster was a great man, but 
he was not a man of genius." The answer seems to embody a comprehensive and accurate esti- 
mate of Mitchel's character, as already seen in his scientific career, and now to be illustrated in 
his militarv performances. 



602 Ohio in the War. 

"O! listen to me! listen to me! I know these men. I know their courage. I hove beent 
among them ; I have been reared with them. They are brave — do not pretend to think they 
are not. I tell you it is no child's play you are entering upon. They will fight with a determi- 
nation and a power almost irresistible. Make up your mind to it. Let every man put his life in 
his hand and say, 'There is the altar of my country; I am ready for the sacrifice.' 

"I, for one, am ready to lay down my life. It is not mine any longer. Lead me to the con- 
flict. Place me where I can do my duty. There I am ready to go, I care not where it leads me. 
. . . I trust you are all ready ; I am ready. God help me to do my duty. I am ready to 
fight in the ranks or out of the ranks. Having been educated in the Academy, having been in 
the army seven years, having served as commander of a volunteer company for ten years, and as 
an Adjutant-General of my State, I feel that I am ready for something. I only ask to be per- 
mitted to act; and in God's name give me something to do!" 

"The scene that followed the close of Professor Mitchel's eloquent and 
patriotic remarks," continues the newspaper report, "baffles all description. 
Men and women were melted to tears; voices from all parts of the vast multi- ■ 
tude re-echoed the sentiments of the speaker; and every one seemed anxious to 
answer the appeal and rush to the defense of the country." 

But the affair was to be over in ninety days, according to the belief on 
which the Government then acted; and no call was made uj)on Mitchel. By 
midsummer Bull Eun had come to pluck the veil from the ghastly delusion; and 
on the 8th of August Mitchel was appointed a Brigadier-General of Volunteers. 
He was assigned to the command of the Department of Ohio, with head-quar- 
ters at Cincinnati. Here he at once plunged into the new work with his old 
zeal and energy. He placed the city in a posture of defense, supervised the 
erection of earthworks, took charge of the gathering troops, and strove to re- 
duce them to discipline. He was eager to lead an expedition through Cumber- 
land Gap, in the fall of 1861, for the liberation of East Tennessee. His plans 
were all formed while Sherman was still in command in Kentucky; and when 
Secretary Cameron and Adjutant-General Thomas made their noteworthy visit 
West, shortly before Sherman's removal, he laid them before the Secretary. 
Mr. Cameron promptly approved them; indeed, such was then the anxiety to 
relieve the suffering Unionists of East Tennessee, that Mitchel seemed likely to 
rise high in the favor of the Government by his proposal. The order was 
issued, and Mitchel would soon have started on an expedition that, prosecuted 
with the energy he subsequently displayed in not less critical and dangerous 
situations, might have changed the face of the war in the West. But mean- 
time the Secretary had paid his bewildering visit to Sherman at Louisville, and 
presently Mitchel's order was countermanded. 

Soon afterward, among the changes consequent upon the assumption of 
command in Kentucky by General Buell, Mitchel was relieved of his depart- 
ment duties, and ordered to the command of a division in the army then or- 
ganizing at Bacon Creek, between Louisville and Bowling Green. He at once 
gave himself up to the work of drilling and disciplining his soldiers. Into this 
he threw all the enthusiastic energy which had hitherto characterized him in 
every task of his eventful life. His command was rawer than that of either of 
the other division generals; but he soon had it to rank with the best. Then, 
restless and eager to be at work, he began to urge action upon the deliberate, 



Okmsby M. Mitchel. 603 

circumspect soldier who commanded the department. '-Sir, I have done all that 
drill and discipline in camp can do for my men," he said; "from this time forth 
there is no chance for progress in my division until it is sent against the en- 
emy — it can only deteriorate." The nervous eagerness was such a contrast to 
his own phlegmatic habit as to amuse General Buell ; but he contented his fiery 
subordinate with the promise of speedy action. Meantime jealous}^ of him had 
sprung up. Some of the division commanders — unknown captains or lieuten- 
ants before the wax- — conceived that the fact of their having remained a little 
longer in the regular service than Mitchel entitled them to superior considera- 
tion. He, in turn, was possibly disposed to rely a little too much upon his 
scientific reputation as entitling him to attention in military matters. In effect, 
it soon came about that at least two of these Generals strove in every way to 
thwart Mitchel's plans, and to bring him into contempt, as a crack-brained 
civilian theorist and star-gazer, at head-quarters and among the soldiers. They 
were presently to see new cause for jealousy. 

When the movement on Fort Donelson was begun, Buell began his move- 
ment on Bowling Green. Mitchel's energy was such as to secure his divis- 
ion the advance. Starting on the 13th of February, 1862, he moved out ten 
miles; then, the next day, made a forced march, reaching the town after dark, 
just as the train moved out with some Texas troops, the last of the army 
that had held it. The road had been obstructed by fallen timber; but on his 
first march in the enemy's country, Mitchel had made forty miles in less than 
thirty hours, had hastened the evacuation of the strongest point then held by 
a Eebel army in the West, had captured a number of locomotives, one gun, 
and some five thousand dollars' worth of commissary-stores. It was further- 
more computed that the exceeding rapidity of his advance had compelled the 
Eebels to destroy not less than half a million dollars' worth of stores and muni- 
tions. 

General Mitchel thus bore off the first laurels of the campaign. So hand- 
some, indeed, was his performance as to draw from the unenthusiastic General 
commanding eulogy like this : " Soldiers, who by resolution and energj'-, over- 
come great natural diflficulties, have nothing to fear in battle where their energy 
and prowess are taxed to a far less extent. Your command have exhibited the 
high qualities of resolution and energy in a degree which leaves no limit to my 
confidence in their future movements." In communicating this compliment 
from General Buell to his troops, General Mitchel betrayed the ardor of his na- 
ture. "You have executed," he exclaims, "a march of forty miles in twenty- 
eight hours and a half The fallen timber and other obstructions opposed by 
the enemy to your movements have been swept from your path. The fire of 
your artillery and the bursting of your shells announced your arrival. Sur- 
prised and ignorant of the force that had thus precipitated itself upon them, 
they fled in consternation. In the night-time, over a frozen, rocky, jn-ecipitous 
pathway, down rude steps for fifty feet, you have passed the advance-guard, 
cavalry and infantry, and before the dawn of day you have entered in triumph 
a position of extraordinary natural strength, by your enemy proudly denomi- 



604 Ohio in the War. 

nated the Gibraltar of Kentucky. With your own hands, through deep mud, 
in drenching rains, up rocky pathways next to impassable, and across a foot- 
path of your own construction, built upon the ruins of a railway bridge, de- 
stroyed for their protection by a retreating and panic-stricken foe, you have 
transported upon your own slioulders your baggage and camp equipage." Cold 
criticism may hold this an extravagant tone to be adopted concerning a forced 
march of fort}' miles, which met with no resistance. Doubtless Mitchel never 
committed the fault of underestimating his own performances. But he animated 
his troops with his own pride and confidence ; and if congratulatory orders ac- 
complish this great purpose, criticism is barred — they have been adapted to 
their end. 

At the outset of Buell's advance upon Bowling Green, Halleck was more 
and more earnestly asking for re-enforcements up the Cumberland, and Buell 
detached one division after another to his aid. It thus came about that Mitchel 
was left to push forward overland upon Nashville, while other troops were 
making the easier journey to the same point, by the circuit of the rivers. On 
the 22d of February he set out. On the evening of the 23d — so expeditious 
had been his march — his advance was before Nashville. Scarcely a week ago 
the citizens had been rejoicing over Pillow's dispatch from Donelson, announc- 
ing, '"on the honor of a soldier," that he had Avon a brilliant victory. Kow all 
was confusion and alarm. In the midst of it the Mayor, anxiously awaiting 
the advent of Union troops, made haste to surrender to the advance cavalry 
regiment of General Mitchel's command. That same night a small squad of the 
troops pushed over into the city; but the}' subsequently returned, and the divis- 
ion Avent into camp on the opposite bank of the river, with batteries so planted 
as to rake the city in case of any emergency. The next day the advance of the 
troops sent around by the rivers steamed up to the city wharves. 

Eebuilding the railroad and the bridges across the river, Mitchel now 
moved over and went into camp two or three miles below Nashville.* Here 
the envy and jealousy of the other division commanders were permitted one or 
two opportunities for trifling but malignant displays. One of them soon en- 
camped between Mitchel and the town. The next day, as Mitchel was riding in 
to make some report to General Buell, he was checked by a sentry and ordered 
to produce his pass from General Nelson ! Naturally supposing it to be simply 

*In Headley'a popular biography of Mitchel, the following anecdote of his stay in Nash- 
ville is given : 

"General Mitchel called, in company with other officers, upon the widow of President James 
K. Polk, as did General Grant while there. During the interview, the dignified lady, addressing 
him, said: 'General, I trust this war will speedily terminate by the acknowledgment of the 
Southern independence.'" 

The reply was prompt, courteous, and crushing: 

"'Madam, the man whose name you bear was once President of the United States. He was 
an honest man and true patriot. He administered the laws of this Government with equal justice 
to all. We know of no independence of one section of our country which does not belong to all 
others; and, judging by the past, if the mute lips of the honored dead who lies near us could 
speak, they would express the hope that the war might never cease, if that cessation were pur- 
chased by a dissolution of the union of the States over which he once presided.' " 



Oemsby M. Mitchel. 605 

a mistake of the guard, he exphiined that he could not have such a pass, because 
he outrarked Nelson, and himself commanded the advance division on that 
road — in fact, that he was General Mitchel. "Ah!" exclaimed the too free- 
spoken guard, "you are the very man, then, that General Nelson told me to stop 
unless you had a pass!" To such petty annoyances was the Astronomer and 
College Professor subjected in his new sphere. 

But he was soon to soar above the possibility of their repetition. General 
Buell presently moved through Tennessee to co-operate with the expedition 
which Halleck had sent up the river to Pittsburg Landing. The disagreeable 
relations existing between Mitchel and some of the other generals seem to have 
suggested the plan of allowing him to diverge to the left of the general line of 
march, on a quasi independent command. All, save perhaps General Buell, sup- 
posed it to be equivalent to an arrangement for keeping Mitchel out of any 
chance for action or promotion. We shall see how he converted it into an open- 
ing for the most brilliant dash that had thus far illumined the war. 

The task set before General Mitchel was to gain a foothold on the great 
Memphis and Charleston Railroad, the leading line of communication between 
the eastern and western portions of the Confederacy. It was the same purpose 
that had drawn Halleck's advance to Pittsburg Landing. Determination to 
protect the same railroad had brought Johnston and Beauregard to Corinth. 
The opposing hosts here confronted each other, but the whole stretch of the 
road east of Corinth, along the southern border of Tennessee to Chattanooga, 
was practically undefended. While all eyes were centered upon the great 
armies of Pittsburg Landing, Mitchel saw his opportunity. The nature of his 
instructions was such that he was enabled to act with comparative indepen- 
dence, and he used his libert}^ to the full.* 

He had been stationed below JSTashville, at Murfroesboro'. Almost due 
south of him, on the coveted railroad, lay the beautiful little town of Hunts- 
ville, in the rich champaign country of Northern Alabama. It was not a rail- 
road junction, and was not, therefore, guarded with the care due a sujjposed 
strategic point. But it was near 'the important junction of the road from Nash- 
ville with the great East and West line at Decatur; it was also within striking 
distance of the junction with the Nashville and Chattanooga Road at Steven- 
son ; and there was reason to hope that it might prove near enough for a quick 
blow at Chattanooga itself. 

To Huntsville, therefore, as a point likely to be ill-defended, and yet offer- 
ing him control of the great railway for more than a hundred miles of its 
length, Mitchel was to hasten his column. But how? He had only transpor- 

■••■ Mitchel acted under instructions from General Buell, which marked the outline of the 
campaign. By this time Buell had been placed under Halleck's command; but his subordina- 
tion to that officer was never much more than nominal, and it happens that General Halleck dis- 
approved of the plan assigned to Mitchel. In a dispatch from St. Louis, 26th March, 1S62, to 
General Buell, he says: "Your letter of the 14th is this moment received. It is perfectly satis- 
factory. We agree in every respect as to plan of campaign, except, perhaps, the column on the 
diverging line to Stevenson. I doubt its expediency. If made very strong it divides vour forces 
too much." This, of course, refers to Mitchel's column. 



^06 Ohio in the War. 

tation sufficient to supply his armj- at a distance of two days' march from his 
base, and Huntsville was quadruple that distance. 

A bend in the Nashville and Chattanooga Eailroad passed near Shelby ville, 
and a little branch track ran up to the town. Shelbyville was about half way 
to Huntsville. Thus far, therefore, he determined to move along the railroad, 
repairing the bridges and track as he went. It was the first work of the kind 
which his soldiers had ever been called on to perform (excepting of course the 
repair of bridges at Bowling Green and Nashville), and it was the first serious 
effort made during the war to supply an army by a thread of railroad through 
a hostile country. The verdict of army officers was against its feasibility. But 
Mitchel had been a railroad man as well as an army officer, and he cared little 
for the verdict. 

There were twelve hundred feet of heavy bridging to be rebuilt. In ten 
days the task was accomplished, and the army moved forward to Shelbyville. 
It was now barely possible for the wagons of the division to haul as far as 
Huntsville rations enough to keep the army from starving — no more. But that 
was enough for Mitchel. He at once began accumulating supplies at Shelby- 
ville, while he threw his advance perhaps twenty-five miles further forward to 
the little village of Fayetteville.* The enemy was still in doubt as to the 
intended point of attack. It might be the railroad junction at Decatur; it 
might be the scarcely less important one at Stevenson. And meantime the 
movement was at any rate supposed to be trivial, and attention was concen- 
trated in the direction of Pittsburg Landing. 

On the 10th of April Mitchel was ready. His advance brigade, com- 
manded by Colonel Turchin, moved at six o'clock in the morning. By nine at 

••■■ The following story of Mitchel's advance is to be found in the newspapers of the time : 
"General Mitchel having occasion to send into the Rebel lines two Confederate officers who 
had accompanied Parson Brownlow into Shelbyville, on his delivery to our forces, sent an escort 
of several Fourth Ohio cavalrymen with them to Fayetteville. When the party arrived at Fay- 
etteville, one of the Rebel officers very cooly dismissed the escort, telling them he did not wish 
their services any further. "While standing in the streets of the town the escort was surrounded 
by a mob of the citizens of the place, who heaped upon them every imaginable insult. At last 
one considering himself licensed by the forbearance of our men, advanced to Lieutenant John- 
son'(in command), took hold of his beard, pulled it, and with the grinning malice of a devil ex- 
claimed: 'You're a specimen of the d— d Yankees they're sending down here, are you?' It is 
matter of surprise that Lieutenant Johnson did not cut him down in his tracks, but he remem- 
bered that his mission was one of peace, and determined to go to the very verge of human for- 
bearance rather than commit any violence. The next morning the escort started back toward 
Shelbyville and met the advancing columns of our forces. General Mitchel was highly indig- 
nant when he heard of the outrages that had been committed upon the flag of truce. He rode 
rapidly into the town, and found a large number of the citizens assembled on the public square 
to witness the entrance of our army. 'People of Fayetteville,' cried the General, 'you are worse 
than savages ! Even they respect a flag of truce, which you have not done. Yesterday, the sol- 
diers whom I sent to your town upon a mission of courtesy and mercy were shamefully insulted in 
your streets, and it was you who gave the insult. You are not worthy to look in the face of 
honest men. Depart to your houses every one of you, and remain there until I give you per- 
mission to come forth.' 

"At the conclusion of this speech they scattered to their houses like frightened rats to their 
holes, and kept within doors until permission was given for them to come forth again." 



Ormsby M. Mitchel. 607 

night it was within eleven miles of Huntsville. Here bivouacking for a few 
hours' rest, they started again at one o'clock. By six in the morning the spires 
of Huntsville and the groves of cedar that surround them were in sight. 

Such remarkable energy — remarkable at any period in the history of the 
Avar, but amazing in those days of deliberate and circumspect movement — could 
not ftxil of success. The few soldiers about Huntsville seemed almost ignorant 
that they were in danger. The section of a battery which had hurried up, 
stopped some railroad trains that, on the first alarm, had sought to escape. The 
infantry was sent out on either hand to tear up a little of the track and prevent 
any further attempts at escape. Then they marched in and took undisturbed 
possession. The first squad that entered found a hundred and seventy soldiers 
etill sleeping about the cars at the depot, and incontinently captured the lot. 
As they explored further they found seventeen locomotives — all but one in fine 
running order — and about a hundred and fifty cars. 

Thus fairly planted upon the coveted railroad, in the heart of the enemy's 
country, Mitchel took in at once the importance of the position aud the neces- 
sity of energy to secure it. Columns were instantly detached, right and left, to 
feecure the track. Eastward a force hurried to Stevenson and Bridgeport, to 
seize the junction with the Chattanooga and Nashville Eailroad, and to burn 
the great bridge over the Tennessee at Bridgeport. "Westward a force hurried 
to Decatur to seize the junction with the Nashville Eoad there, and to destroy 
the bridge over the Tennessee. Thus protected east and west by the destruc- 
tion of the bridge, the position at Huntsville would be secure from any Kebel 
concentration upon it by rail. 

The danger from the east was considered the greater. There were appre- 
hensions of a diversion from the Eebel army about Eichmond, or at least of 
the coming from that direction of re-enfoi'cements for Beauregard at Corinth. 
Accordingly General Mitchel himself accompanied the expedition eastward. 
They ran out by rail toward Chattanooga. So complete was the surprise of 
their coming that no resistance to this novel mode of exploring an enemy's 
country was attempted. They took possession of the junction at Stevenson 
without resistance. Then their locomotive pushed on toward Chattanooga. 
Within six miles of Bridgeport they came to a bridge eighty feet long, the 
destruction of which seemed to promise as effectual a breakage in the road, for 
immediate pm-poses, as could be secured by the more hazardous attempt at 
Bridgeport itself It was accordingly burnt, and, perfectly unmolested, the ti-ain 
returned to Huntsville. 

Meanwhile the westward expedition had been equally fortunate. A small 
Eebel force stationed at Decatur began to retreat as soon as Mitchel's troops were 
heard of. The bridge over the Tennessee they sought to fire as they started. 
Just then the advance of the expedition came up. It had been instructed to 
burn this bridge. But the moment the Colonel commanding saw that the Eebels 
were doing his work, he leaped to the conclusion that it ought not to be done. 
If they were anxious to destroy communication, it argued his interest to pre- 
serve communication. He therefore ordered the troops forward in hot haste. 



608 Ohio in the War. 

and the bridge Avas saved. In a day or two, having, by the bridge-burning be- 
yond Stevenson, protected his eastern flank, Mitchel came hurrying westward, 
along the road to Decatur. Under his eye the line was at once carried forward, 
till from Tuscumbia he was able to communicate with our forces before Corinth. 
The spirited congratulations which Mitchel now addressed to his troops 
were more than warranted by the delight of the country at his brilliant achieve- 
ments. He said : 

" Head-Qttarters, Third Division, ) 

"Camp Taylor, Huntsville, April 16, 1862. j" 
" Soldiers : Your march upon Bowling Green won the thank.s and confidence of our command- 
ing General. With engines and cars captured from the enemy, our advanced guard precipitated 
itself upon Nashville. It was now made your duty to seize and destroy the Memphis and Charles- 
ton Eailway, the great military road of the enemy. With a supply-train only sufficient to feed 
you at a distance of two days' march from your depot, you undertook the herculean task of 
rebuilding twelve hundred feet of heavy bridging, which, by your untiring energy, was accom- 
plished in ten days. Thus, by a railway of your own construction, your depot of supplies was 
removed from Nashville to Shelbyville, nearly sixty miles in the direction of the object of your 
attack. The blow now became practicable. Marching with a celerity such as to outstrip any 
messenger who might have attempted to announce your coming, you fell upon Huntsville, taking 
your enemy completely by surprise, and capturing not only his great military road, but all his 
machine shops and rolling stock. Thus providing yourselves with ample transportation, you 
have struck blow after blow with a rapidity unparalleled. Stevenson fell, sixty miles to the east 
of Huntsville. Decatur and Tuscumbia have been in like manner seized, and are now occupied. 
In three days you have extended your front of operations more than one hundred and twenty 
miles, and your morning gun at Tuscumbia may now be heard by your comrades on the battle- 
field made glorious by the victory before Corinth. A communication of these facts to head-quar- 
ters has not only now the thanks of our commanding General, but those of the Department of 
War, which I announce to you with proud satisfaction. Accept the thanks of your commander, 
and let your future deeds demonstrate that you can surpass yourselves." 

Thus planted in the heart of the South, and on the vital channel of com- 
munication between the east and west of the ConfiJderacj^, with a single divis- 
ion not fifteen thousand strong,* General Mitchel's position was sufficiently pre- 
carious. The inhabitants of the country looked upon his presence as a sort of 
dare-devil exploit, having in it no probability of permanence. They were 
sometimes sullen, oftener openly contemptuous or abusive. But the General 
presently made them understand the value of respect for the Government. 
Those were the days of tender concern for the property of Eebels, of returning 
slaves, buying supplies, and taking them only when the Eebel owner was en- 
tirely willing to sell and entirely satisfied about the price. But Mitchel, even 
at that early day, had the wisdom to see the folly of such policy, and the courage 
to abandon it. He adopted what was, for the time and place, perhaps the very 
wisest course. Lists of active Eebels and of Eebel sympathizers were made out, 
together with accurate statements of their possessions. Whatever was needed 

* General Buell ("Statement in Eeview of Evidence before Military Commission" on his 
case, p. 13) lays there were about sixteen thousand men scattered through Tennessee and North- 
ern Alabama, mainly under Mitchel's command. And, in a review of Buell's campaigns (Phil- 
adelphia Age, 25th August, 1864), understood to have been revised by him, it is said, "General 
Mitchel had one division of 'about eight thousand under his immediate command, and, contin- 
gently, as many more." 



Ormsby M. Mitchel. 609 

for the support of the army was then equitably levied upon these men in pro- 
portion to their ability; while, for whatever was taken, the average price of 
the country was paid. Several hundred bales of cotton were found, which the 
Rebels had used in the fortifications. This cotton was sold, and the proceeds 
were more than sufficient to pa}- for the purchased supplies. Slaves were not 
encouraged to enter the camps, but whenever needed, they were used, and no 
slave who had done a service to the army was ever suifered to be returned to 
his master. General Buell's order forbade anj protection to any slaves within 
the army lines. Against this General Mitchel earnestly protested ; and it is safe 
to say that it was at no time very zealously obeyed. ''I organized these negroes 
into watchful guards," he once said, "throughout the entire portion of the ter- 
ritoiy of my command. They watched the Tennessee Eiver from Chattanooga 
entirely down to Tuscumbia and Florence. To every negro who gave me infor- 
mation of the movements of the enemy, who acted as guide to me, or who piloted 
my troops correctly through that unknown country, I proinised the protection 
of the Government of the United States, and that they should never be returned 
to their masters. I found them extremely useful. I found them perfectly reliable, 
I 80 far as their intention was concerned; not always accurate in detail, but 
alwaj^s meaning to be perfectly truthful." 

Meantime his bearing toward the masters was at once just and sevei-e. In 
this respect again we are able to give his own views of his course. "In my 
treatment of the people," he says, " I adopted a very simple policy at the outset. 
I have studied the great platform of the rebellion to the best of my ability, and 
made up my mind that no cause existed for the South raising its hand against 
the United States — not the slightest ; that it was a rebellion, a downright piece 
of treason all the way through ; and that every individual in that country who 
was either in arms, or who aided and abetted those in arms, was my personal 
enemy, and that I would never break bread or eat salt with anj' enemy of my 
country, no matter who he might be; and I have never done it up to this day. 
In the next place, I determined I would show them I was honest, and had an object 
i! in view; and while 1 treated them with the most perfect justice, I determined 
to make every individual feel that there was a terrible pressure of war upon 
him, which would finally destroy him and grind him to powder, if he did not 
give up his rebellion." 

But in the precarious position which he held. General Mitchel was at any 
time liable to be cut off. His main attention was, therefore, given to the utmost 
watchfulness upon the movements of the enemj'. Guerrillas became trouble- 
1 some, and against these frequent expeditions were organized, the vigor of their 
V; movements being generally such as to keep the marauders at safe distance. 
I Toward the close of April the menaces from the direction of Chattanooga be- 
I came more frequent. General Kirby Smith was at the head of a considerable 
force in that region, and he had five regiments of infantry and eighteen hun- 
dred cavalry posted at Bridgeport. From this point incursions began upon the 
eastern extremity of General Mitchel's lines near Stevenson. 

Finally, one night, an attack was made upon a brigade at Stevenson, and 
Vol. I.— 39. 



610 Ohio in the War 

the telegraph wires between that point and Huntsville were cut. Mitchel then 
determined to push his line up to Bridgeport itself, and thus protect his flank 
by the Tennessee River. Running up on the railroad from Huntsville, he placed 
himself at the head of the column. At the creek near Bridgeport, where, on 
first entering the country, he had destroj'ed the bridge, he now encountei*ed the 
enem3\ Here a small force was brought up, and an artiller}^ fire was opened 
upon the enemy's pickets. This force was to make as much noise as possible, 
and to create the impression that a direct attack was to be speedilj^ made. 
Meantime, at the head of the main column, Mitchel now plunged into the swamp 
near the creek, heading across the country in such a way as to strike an old 
road leading to Bridgepoi't. The guns were dragged along by hand. Whole 
regiments fell upon the rail fences by the roadside and carried them through 
the swamp to mend the. bridges. Mitchel was evei-ywhere encouraging the men 
and hastening the march. While the column was thus hurrj^ing down upon 
Bridgeport, the Rebel force was still awaiting the attack at the ci-eek bridge, 
where the feint had been made. A part of their strength lay there to resist the 
attack; the rest was in reserve in the town. Over this last part Mitchel now 
looked down from the crest of a wooded hill within five hundred yards of the 
great bridge over the Tennessee. His line of battle was formed in quiet, and 
the opening of artillery with grape and canister, at short range, was the first 
notification to the enemy that his rear was in danger. They flew to their arms, 
but the apparition of Mitchel's line of battle suddenly rising over the crest, and 
rushing down upon them at a charge, dissipated all idea of resistance, and 
they broke for the bridge. When Mitchel reached the spot it was in flames. 
The men succeeded in saving the end next the town. A pier on the other 
side, however, was blown up, and that portion of the bridge was rendered 
impassable. 

By this time the Rebel force back at the destroyed creek bridge had dis- 
covered its danger. As it came rushing in, hoping still to cross the river on the 
great bridge, it was met by a volley from Mitchel's triumphant column. The 
men broke almost at once, scattering in all dii-ections. Pursuit was promptly 
made, and some three hundred and fifty prisoners were captured, with two pieces | 
of artilleiy.* The success was complete, and in justifiable pride Mitchel was '' 
able to telegraph to the War Department: "The campaign is ended, and I now 
occup3^ Huntsville in perfect security ; while all of Alabama, north of Tennes- , 
see River, floats no flag but that of the Union." 

But if the campaign having as its end the successful occupation of the great 
line of railroad through Northern Alabama was ended, there was another one 
to which the General's attention was immediately bent. Thirty miles from 

*An elaborate statement in the Philadelphia Age, 25ih August, 1864, reviewing General j^ 
Buell's operations (sanctioned by himself), says that through Mitchel's entire campaign he never 
captured fifty armed men, nor killed twenty. This, of course, conflicts with the statement in the 
text, in which I have followed the account of the engagement at Bridgeport furnished to the Chicago 
Tribune by its correspondent on the spot. Kebellion Record, Vol. IV, p. 531. General Mitchel'a 
official report, however, makes no mention of such a number of prisoners. 



d 



OrMSBY M. MlTCHEL. 611 

Bridgei^ort lay the veritable "Hawk's Nest,"* Chattanooga itself. Whoever 
held it held the key to the whole central belt of the Confederacy. Among the 
hrst to recognize its importance, Mitchel came near being the first to secure it. 

As early as the 10th of April, when about himself to move upon Huntsville, 
he had sent out a small expedition to cut the railroad between Atlanta and 
Chattanooga. The plan was one of singular boldness, and it very narrowly 
missed success.f Had the bridges been destroyed, he might have occupied Chat- 
tanooga within a couple of days after his entry into Huntsville, and the whole 
face of future campaigns in that region, as Judge Holt says, might have been 
changed. The attempt failed, but General Mitchel did not withdraw his eyes 
from Chattanooga. 

The action at Bridgeport was on the 30th of April. Within a couple of 
weeks guerrillas were giving some trouble at Eogersville, near Decatur, and one 
of Mitchel's Brigadiers, General Negley, had shown praiseworth}^ energy in 
routing them. This officer was now, therefore, detached toward East Tennes- 
see, to check the outrages of guerrillas upon Union men in one or two of the 
counties north of Chattanooga, and, in the language of one of the newspaper 
accounts of that day, " to call at Chattanooga, if possible, and Mitchel seldom 
deems anything impossible in his department." It is hard even yet to see that 
this was. 

Falling upon the Kebel General Adams's cavahy, General Negley routed 
and pursued them through Jasper to Chattanooga. There now began a 
t^trange hesitation. On 5th of June General Negley rej)orted to General 
3Iitchel his capture of men from Chattanooga, aj^pearances that it would not 
be defended, and a determination "to push on there to-morrow." On the 
7th he was before Chattanooga, was convinced that the " enemy's force is about 
three thousand, with ten pieces of artillery," and was throwing shells across 
the river into the town. On the 8th he was "going to make another demon- 
stration." Still he regarded it "almost impossible to construct sufficient pon- 
toons to cross the river in force." He did " not consider the capture of Chatta- 
nooga very difficult or hazardous." But he was ti-oubled about the power to 
hold it; and he was disposed to cast frightened glances at " the exposed condi- 
tion of both front and rear of our lines to Pittsburg Landing." And so he 
announced that the objects of the expedition were accomplished, and marched 
away again. He had shelled the town twice, and, as one of his subordinate 
brigade commanders claimed, had silenced the Eebel batteries, and driven them 
to evacuate the town and destroy railroad bridges behind them. As it would 
now seem, he might certainly have taken it. Had Mitchel been there, it is 
scarcely doubtful that the town would have fallen 

Not long after this movement, General Mitchel was recalled from the com- 
mand of his division and ordered to Washington. 
. Of the remarkable campaign which he had conducted, it may be said that 

* The Indian name of the place. 

tSee post, close of Part II, for a fuller account of this expedition. 



612 Ohio in the War. 

it displayed dash and spirit in the midst of the prevailing caution ; skill in 
handling raw troops at a time when commanders, now the most noted in our 
army, were learning in the rude school of disaster the elements of their art; 
fertility of resources, before others had ventured beyond the precedents of the war 
with Mexico ; and a remarkable appreciation of the new conditions with which 
war has been surrounded by the vast extension of telegraphs and railroads. 
That it encountered no formidable opposition does not desti-oy the credit which 
the display of these qualities justly secured. Two years before Sherman, 
Mitchel showed how armies might depend on single lines of railroad through 
great tracts of the enemy's country for supplies. As early as Butler, he showed 
how Eebels should be made to support the war. Eighteen months before Eose- 
crans, he fastened upon the strategic point of the whole central half of the 
Southern States. Almost three yeai's before Sherman, he showed how the shell 
of the Confederacy might be pierced, and how little resistance was to be ex- 
pected when once this shell was passed. Much of his success, doubtless, he 
owed to the utter surprise which his movements proved to an enemy not then 
accustomed to expect such energy and audacious boldness. Many of his move- 
ments, doubtless, at another stage of the war, or under other conditions, would 
have been impracticable. But it was his sagacity which perceived that to be 
the time for audacious movements. Of high credit, therefore, for a campaign 
second in brilliancy to scarcely any in the war, no fair ci-iticism can deprive 
General Mitchel.* 

The Grovernment in its delight over the occupation of Huntsville, made 
him a Major-General. The country pronounced him among the ablest of our 
commanders. When he had been commissioned there were some doubts in the 
city where he was best known as to the success which this impulsive theorist 
and scientific speculator would meet with in the practical business of war. 
When he was recalled he was thought our fittest General for bold ventures, and 
great undertakings which neither energy alone nor skill alone could make suc- 
cessful. But he was no more popular among his brother officers; and there 
were special causes for disagreement between himself and the chief who over- 
shadowed and chilled him. U 

When it was found that General Buell and General Mitchel could not act 
harmoniously in the same department, that Mitchel chafed under the policy of 
his superior, and was finally driven to such dissatisfaction that he was on the 
point of resigning his commission, the War Depai-tment interposed and ordered 
him to Washington. General Buell behaved handsomely. He interfered em- 

"-■• Readers will be interested in comparing with the above the estimate placed upon Mitchel's 
campaign by his cautious, undemonstrative commander. In his " Statement in Review of Evi- 
dence before the Military Commission " on his case, General Buell says (p. 13) : . . . " That 
force, mainly under the command of General Mitchel, has been generally awarded praise for 
the service it performed, and very justly; yet not more than two thousand men ever appeared on 
the field of operations to oppose it. It was not the numbers of the enemy that made its service dif- 
ficult and creditable ; but it was the large extent of country it occupied, the length of the lines it 
had to guard, and the diflSculty of supplying it." 



Okmsby M. Mitchel. 613 

pbatically to jji-event Mitchel's resignation, and declared that if, because of their 
disagreement, one or the other must leave the service, he would himself resign.* 

Mitchel found on his arrival in Washington that the faith of the Govern- 
ment in his capacity was unshaken. Indeed the plan was for a little enter- 
tained of assigning to him the work which Fremont had once proposed, and 
which Halleck had been expected to accomplish — the work of sweeping down 
the Mississippi Yallej^ and restoring the Great River to commerce. But it was 
determined to do nothing in the matter till General Halleck, now fresh on his 
Stool as "General-in-Chief," could be consulted. Halleck, like all men of mere 
routine, had a pi'ofound contempt for success won in such irregular methods as 
Mitchel had employed and a profound distrust for the men who employed them. 
He considered Mitchel reckless and Quixotic — lucky perhaps, thus far, because 
bis own warlike genius had been engaging the enemy's attention elsewhere — 
but utterly unsafe. His influence was for a time great enough to keep Mitchel 
out of any command. 

Meanwhile a swarm of slanders had been started by the busy enemies he 
had left behind him in Buell's army. Presently a newspaper attack appeared, 
declaring in mysterious vaguepess that General Mitchel had been summoned to 
Washington to answer to the gravest charges. It pronounced his conduct "not 
only injurious to the Government but disgraceful to humanity," declared that 
he had "perpetrated deeds of cruelty and guilt, the bare narration of which 
makes the heart sick," demanded "swift justice," hoped "for the country's sake 
there would be no delay and no clemency," and reached its climax in pronounc- 
ing the foremost astronomer of the country and the hero of the North Alahama 
campaign "an epauletted miscreant." The organ of these slanders was a news- 
paper remarkable partly for decayed genius, partly for mediocre but malignant 
treason — the Louisville Journal. The reputation it had once enjoyed still gave 
it some credit; and the very vagueness of its charges added, for a little time, 
to the apprehensions felt even by General Mitchel's friends, as to the possibility 
of his having committed some unusual indiscretion. With the most, however, 
they excited only amazement and incredulity. But they were taken up by the 
Associated Press and scattered broadcast over the country. Mitchel made no 
reply, save in a private dispatch to deny their truth, and to demand either 
proof or retraction. Of this demand the newspaper never took any notice. 

Presently it appeared that the whole charge grew out of some excesses 
committed by Colonel Turchin's brigade of Mitchel's command, in re-occupying 
the town of Athens,f whence they had been driven by a superior force of the 
Rebels. General Mitchel had himself sought to bring the individual offenders 
to justice, but had failed to secure proofs; General Buell had been subsequently 
attempting the same thing, and up to that time had encountered similar failure. 

"•■'These statements are made on the authority of General Mitchel himself. He communi- 
cated them to the writer in Washington, in July, 1862. 

tThe outrages at Athens were trifling compared with those which subsequently marked 
famous campaigns in the South, atid passed not only unrebuked but actually applauded by the 
commanders and by the country. Those were days, however, when the war was conducted — not 



614: Ohio in the Wae. 

Mitchel's enemies sought to hold him responsible, and even forwarded charge* 
to Washington, but no notice was taken of them. The General, however, re- 
mained for some months out of command, and the public was left to the con- 
clusion that for this, or for some other reason, he was in disgrace with the Gov- 
ernment. 

Both the Cincinnati and the Dudley Obsei-vatories wei-e still under his ' 
directorship. He improved the leisure which he now had to inquire into their ' 
operations, and to send instructions to the assistants in charge. 

He was ordered from his command in Alabama on the 2d of July, 1862 
On the 12th of September he was assigned to a new department. The Govern- 
ment had not insisted upon the Mississippi scheme in opposition to Halleck'& \ 
disapproval; but it had never given up the belief that Mitchel would be of sig- 
nal service again in an independent position, commensui'ate in importance with 
the rank he had won and the military genius he had displayed. Great things 
had been hoped of the Department of South Carolina, but with the brilliant 
achievement of Admiral Dupont in the harbor of Port Eoyal, success seemed to 
have ended, and one unfortunate failure after another had followed. The posi- 
tion was thought especially fitted for a man of Mitchel's adventurous spirit, and 
he was assigned to it. 

He set out at once for hLs new command. His coming infused fresh life into 
military affairs. Within the week of his arrival he visited all the camps, on 
Hilton Head, at Beaufort, and at Fort Pulaski, and addressed all the regiments. 
Within another week an expedition to St. John's Bluff was organized, which took 
a fort and several heavy guns. In the same week another expedition burnt the 
salt works, a quarter of a mile long, at Blufton. A reconnoissance up the 
Savannah was made. A force was sent to Pocotaligo to break the railroad con- 
nection between Charleston and Savannah. And amid these varied enterprises 
he found time to mature a plan for the relief of the crowded contraband bar- 
racks. The negroes were set to work building a village of comfortable cabins' 
for themselves.* He had already gained the confidence of all ; his preliminary 
operations had been attended with success, and it was believed that a graver 
movement was in contemplation. 

In the midst of his plans, only five weeks after his arrival in the depart- 
ment, on the 26th of October, 1862, he was attacked with yellow fever. He 
lingered, with scarcely a hope of recovery, from the outset till the 30th ; when, 
in the full possession of his faculties, and shortly after an effort to repeat his^ 
expressions of confidence in the consolations of the religion which he had so? 

perhaps as successfully, but — on principles more creditable to our humanity and civilization, as 
well as to the discipline of our armies. And, though Mitchel was not responsible for the excesses 
at Athens, it must be confessed that he might have been more energetic in his efforts to bring the 
offenders to justice. But, though not so loose in liis ideas on the subject as Sherman subse- 
quently became, he was still disposed to look on the offense as quite venial. 

* The grateful negroes called their village Mitchelville — a name which bids fair to be per- 
manent. Before the close of the war the village had a regular municipal organization, wjtb 
self-elected officers. 



Ormsby M. Mitchel. 615 

long professed, he died. By no single stroke, thus far through the war, had so 
great a sum of ability and zeal been taken from the National service. 

He was buried, with the honors of war, in the village cemetery at Beaufort, 
South Carolina, among the residences of the Barnwelis and the Rhetts. Two 
Bons, on his staff, were so low at the same time, with the same disease, that the 
attendants dared not inform them of their father's death. Their mother, worn 
out with her apprehensions for her husband, had died suddenly, almost at his 
entry into the service. 

The military career thus too soon ended suggests in its incipiency some 
points of resemblance to that of a famous soldier of English history. A great 
writer has sketched the portrait : " His courage had all the French impetuosity 
and all the English steadiness. His fertility and activity of mind were almost 
beyond belief. They appeared in everything that he did, in his campaigns, in 
his negotiations, in his familiar correspondence, in his lightest and most 
unstudied conversation. He was a kind friend, a generous enemy, and, in deport- 
ment, a thorough gentleman. . . . Repose was insupportable to him. . . . 
Scarcely any General had ever done so much with means so small. Scarcely 
any General had ever displayed equal originality and boldness. . . . He was 
adored by the Catalonians and Valencians; but he was hated by the Prince 
Avhom he had all but made a great king, and by the Generals whose fortune and 
reputation were staked on the same venture with his own. The English Gov- 
ernment could not understand him. He was so eccentric that they gave him 
no credit for the judgment which he really possessed. One day he took towns 
with horse-soldiers; then again he turned some hundreds of infantry into cav- 
alry at a minute's notice. . . . The ministers thought that it would be highly 
impolitic to intrust the conduct of the Spanish war to so volatile and romantic a 
person. They therefore gave the command to Lord Galway, an experienced 
veteran — a man who was in war what Moliere's doctors were in medicine — who 
thought it much more honorable to fail according to rule than to succeed by 
innovation. . . . This great commander conducted the campain of 1707 in 
the most scientific manner. On the plain of Almanza he encountered the army 
of the Bourbons. He drew up his troops according to the methods prescribed 
by the best writers, and in a few hours lost eighteen thousand men, one hundred 
and twenty standards, all his baggage, and all his artillery."* 

These are the words of Lord Macaulay in describing Charles Mordaunt, Earl 
of Petersborough ; but in more respects than one they present a suggestive 
parallel to the history we have been tracing, and to the disasters that speedily 
followed. It will be seen, then, that we do not think the military character of 
General Mitchel far to seek. He had genius rather than talent. He was bold, 
adventurous, wonderfully energetic, fertile in resources. He had a keen eye for 
strategic advantages. He managed the executive business of war with skill. 
He was penetrated with a fervid enthusiasm, which communicated itself to his 
soldiers, and counted more than many re-enforcements in accomplishing his 

* War of the Siicce.«sion in Spain. Eilinburg Review, .January, 1833. 



616 Ohio in the Wak. 

undertakings. This enthusiasm led to an appearance of eccentricity and nerv- 
ous excitability that, outside the range of his personal influence, engendered a 
distrust of his stabilit}- and judgment. 

But if we seek to pass beyond these obvious characteristics, and estimate 
the actual breadth and depth of his militar}^ capacity, we find ourselves checked 
on the threshold. He was comparatively untried. A brief period of subordinate 
service; a four months' campaign with an army of less than fifteen thousand, 
brilliantly managed but inadequately opposed ; and five weeks of work prepar- 
atory to a campaign — in these short phrases his career in the war of the rebellion 
is told. Amid the stumblings of those earlier years his was a clear and vigor- 
ous tread. While the struggling Nation blindly sought for leaders, his was a 
brilliant promise. But he never fought a battle,* never confronted a respectable 
antagonist,! and never commanded a considerable army. Yet what he did had 
so won the confidence of the troojDS, and the admiration of the countr}^, that 
his death was deplored as a public calamity, and he was mourned as a great 
General. 

» Of course it will be understood that the aflfairs at Bridgeport and elsewhere did not rise to 
the rank of battles. 

t Unless for the few weeks that he might have been said to be pitted against Beauregard. 
In his Northern Alabama campaign the whole force opposed to him scarcely amounted to two 
thousand. 



nerv. 



QUINCY A. GiLLMOKE. 617 



MAJOR-GENERAL Q. A. GILLMORE. 



QriNCY ADAMS GILLMOEB, Major in the Corps of Engineers, 
Brevet Major-General in the regular army, Major-General of volunteers, 
and the great artillerist and engineer of the war, was born at Black River, 
Lorain County, Ohio, on the 28th of February, 1825. 

His parentage was of mingled Scotch-Irish and German extraction. His 
father, Quartus Gillmore, was born in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, in 
1790, on the farm of two hundred acres which his father continued for many 
years to cultivate. This farm was finally exchanged with one of the Con- 
necticut speculators in Western Reserve lands, for a tract of one thousand 
acres in Lorain County, and, at the age of twenty-one, Quartus Gillmore thus 
came to be one of the Reserve pioneers. He reached the township in which his 
father's tract of wild land lay, on the shore of Lake Erie, in 1811, and imme- 
diately began his "clearing." He remained on it during the war of 1812, 
though most of the other inhabitants fled to the interior, and, before Perry's 
victory, the danger to the residents along the coast from British cruisers was 
supposed to be imminent. In 1824 he was married to Mrs. Elizabeth Smith. 
This lad}- was a native of New Jersey, where she was born in 1797. Her father, 
Mr. Reide, was also a native of that State, but his parents came from Germany. 
In 1807 the family removed to Lorain County, and at the age of sixteen Eliza- 
beth was married to Mr. Smith. He lived but four years after the marriage ; 
and after seven years of widowhood she M'as married to Quartus Gillmore, he 
being at that time thirty-four years of age, and she twenty-six. Neither of 
them had any advantages of education, save such as could be obtained from the 
rude schools of the time and place. Both were hardy, vigorous pioneers, and 
the wife was accounted a beauty. Both have lived to see, in a hale old age, the 
fame and honors of their first-born. 

At the time of his birth the country was agitated with the prolonged excite- 
ment of the famous Presidential contest of 1824, between Jackson, John Quincy 
Adams, Crawford, and Henry Clay. Quartus Gillmore, true to his Massachusetts 
ancestry and teachings, belonged to the Adams party. His favorite was finally 
elected by the House of Representatives on the 9th of February, and the news 
of the election reached that remote pox-tion of the frontier on the very day on 
which the son was born. In the fullness of his joy at the election and at the 
birth, the happy father declared that his boy should bear the name of a Presi- 
dent, and forthwith named him Quincy Adams.* 

The lad grew up in the hearty life of the pioneers. Through the summers 

* These facts are derived from an unpublished sketch of General Gillmore's youth, by L. A. 
Hine, Esq., of the Cincinnati Times. He gives a list of the other members of the family, as fol- 



(^18 Ohio in the Wae. 

he assisted on the farm, as soon as he was able, and continued at farm labor 
until his eighteenth year. Each winter he received what the good people of 
those times were wont to call " a quarter's schooling." He came to rank well, 
both among the farmers and in the country school-house. He was strong, active, 
and, as the farmers said, " a good, willing hand." In the school he soon reached 
the "Double Eule of Three," long the high-water mark of rustic school-teach- 
ers' acquirements, and began to perplex his masters by prying into the hidden 
mysteries of the latter half of the Arithmetic. 

So, by the time he was twelve or thirteen years old, it was discovered that 
he had gone as far as the teachers could carry him. Then came a piece of good 
fortune. He was sent for a winter to the Norwalk Academy, twenty-five miles 
away from home. The glimpse of the outside world which he thus caught, not 
less than the teachings of the Academj', served to inspire him with a longing 
for something beyond the life of the farm-boy. He bought all the books he 
could get money to pay for, and borrowed all that the village and neighborhood 
afforded. In his seventeenth year his acquirements were so well recognized 
that he was offered a .situation himself as country school-teacher. For three 
successive winters he now taught school — studying through two of the interven- 
ing summers at a high school in Elja-ia. Some of his old schoolmates became 
his pupils, and there was much in his position to gratify the aspirations of the 
smart boy of the neighborhood. But he was ill-satisfied, and, as he said to his 
mother, did not believe he was made to be a school-teacher all his life. 

To this feeling his success at the Elyria High School doubtless contributed. 
He had been noted for a remarkable aptitude for mathematical studies, had 
stood high in Natural Philosophy, and had been among the foremost in English 
Composition. In the spring of 1845 the pupils of the school gave an exhibition, 
in which young Grillmore's performance was considered by far the most promis- 
ing. It was a poem entitled "Erie," which attracted considerable attention 
among a graver class of critics than those who usually devote themselves to 
school exhibitions. It was published in the local newspaper, and at the time 
had a considerable run in the journals of the surrounding country. 

Strangely enough, it was to this poetical effusion that we are indebted for 
the services which our great artillerist was to render during the war of the re- 
bellion. After his success at the school exhibition, young Gillmore decided to 
seek a profession. That of medicine seemed, in his circumstances, the most 
attainable, and so he began its study in the office of Dr. Samuel Strong, of Elyria. 
Meantime Mr. E. S. Hamlin, then the Congressman of the district, was casting 
about for a suitable person on whom to bestow the warrant for West Point. 
He had appointed a j^oung man named Boynton, but, on examination, it proved 

lows: Sophia Gillmore, born in 1828; Eoxana, in 1830; Edmund, in 1833; Alice, in 1835: Eliz- 
abeth, in 1836; Quartus, in 1838; and Cornelius, in 1841. Nearly all these children still reside 
in the old neighborhood. Edmund became a shipwright, was injured by an accident, and has 
since been a hopeless cripple. Quartus manages the homestead farm. Cornelius lives with hia 
father and is a shipwright. Elizabeth became Mrs. James O. Sennott; Sophia, Mrs. Captain 
Leslie; and j^lice, Mrs. Conway. Roxana alone was carried faraway from the family circle, 
having married Mr. Spooner, now a farmer in Oregon. 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. ^19 

that he was some months too old to be admitted. He had then offered it to the 
BOn of a Mr. Baldwin, one of his influential constituents, but be had declined. 
Mr. George G. Washburn, the editor of the Elyria Democrat, was then asked 
who would be a good person for the vacant appointment. He called Hamlin's 
attention to the poem from one of the high school scholars which he had lately 
published, and asked if a boy who, with very limited advantages, had come to 
write so well, would not make a creditable representative of the district at the 
Military Academy. Mr. Hamlin was much interested, and at once sent to inquire 
if the author of " Erie " would like to go to West Point. The young man asked 
a few hours to consider it ; then decided to accept. But by this time the j)er- 
sons through whom Mr. Hamlin's message was sent had left town. Xot to be 
swerved from liis purpose when once his mind was made up, Gillmore at once 
mounted a horse and rode oft' to Amherst, where they were gone; then, by their 
advice, pushed on to Charitan, where Mr. Hamlin was attending court. He 
was just in time — if the nomination had been delayed a few days longer, the 
Representative's power to appoint would have lapsed, and the President would 
have filled the vacancy. Gillmore received the warrant, and at once set out for 
his father's residence. 

His parents supposed him to be at Elyria, hard at work making a doctor 
of himself, and were not a little surprised at his appearance, with the announce- 
ment that, if they were willing, he meant to go to West Point. It was an 
abandonment of the hopes they had formed for his future. Neither was very 
well pleased ; and the mother, in particular, was not at all disposed to foi'give 
the friends who had been putting such ideas in her boy's head. The father was 
more readily won over. Then Quincy asked for some money to fit him for the 
journey and to carry him to the Academ}''. "I will give it to you, if you will 
promise to come out at the head of your class," said Mr. Gillmore. 

The class contained several whose names have since risen to prominence. 
John G. Parke, subsequently Major General commanding the Ninth Corps, stood 
second in it; Absalom Baird, subsequently Division General under Eosecrans, 
was ninth; Chauncey McKeever, of the Adjutant-General's staff, was fourteenth; 
Rufus Saxton, subsequently Major-General in charge of the negroes of the South 
Carolina and Georgia coast, was eighteenth; R. W. Johnston, of Kentucky, sub- 
sequently Division General in the Army of the Cumberland, was thirtieth. At 
•the end of the first year Cadet Gillmore stood fourth. The next year he did 
better; and when his graduation came it was found that he had kept his promise. 
He had " come out at the head of the class." But he had written no more 
poetry; and from that day forward, if he was ever guilty of the weakness, he 
was successful in concealing it. 

His poetical tendencies, however, had taken another turn. In the year of 
his graduation, at the age of twenty-four, he was married to one of the fair 
belles of West Point, Miss Mary O'Magher,* onlj' daughter of the Academy 
Treasurer of Cadets. She was two j^ears his senior. 

Cadet Gillmore's position at the head of his class determined, in accordance 

*The family is the same from a branch of which Thomas Francis Meagher sprang. 



620 Ohio in the War. 

with the well-known academic rule, his assignment. He was made a Brevet 
Second-Lieutenant in the Coi'ps of Engineers, and was ordered to duty as an 
assistant on the fortifications at Hampton Eoads. After three years' service 
here he was ordered back to West Point, to serve as an instructor in the depart- 
ment of practical military engineering. For three years he held this position, 
and for another he was treasurer and- quartermaster of the Academy. 

It was during this stay at West Point, in the years 1852-56, that Lieuten- 
ant Gillmore, now a rising young engineer, whose talents had begun to attract 
the attention of the superior oflficers of his cox-ps, had an opportunity to study 
the effects of cannon projectiles on masonry forts — a study that was to yield to 
the country and to science such fruits as the breaching of Fort Pulaski and the 
destruction of Fort Sumter from distances at which they had been considered 
impregnable. The series of breaching experiments on masonry targets which 
he here conducted, gave him his fii'st ideas as to the capabilities of rifled cannon. 
His views Avent far beyond those of the older members of his corps, and it was 
not till the fall of Pulaski that he convinced them. 

On July 1st, 1856, he was promoted to a First-Lieutenancy of Engineers, 
and ordered to New York City, to assume charge of the Engineer Agency there 
established. His duties were to superintend the purchase and shipment of ma- 
terial used in the construction efforts, light-houses, and other works committed 
to the corps. In this position he remained until the outbi"eak of the war. 

In addition to these duties, however, he was engaged upon an elaborate 
series of experiments with the limes and hydraulic cements of America and 
Europe — with special reference to their use in masonry fortifications. This 
resulted in the preparation of a work, which has since become the standard 
authority among engineers, on "Limes, Hydraulic Cements and Mortars."* 
During the same period, as another result of these experiments, he contributed 
to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at its session in 
Albany, a paper on the practicability of making a cement from quartz that, on 
hardening, would assume the original characteristics of that rock, and prove aa 
indestructible. Some mathematical speculations which he published about the 
same time attracted the attention of the authorities of Oberlin College, and 
drew from them the complimentary degree of Master of Arts. He had also 
contributed to the Cleveland papers suggestions on the defense of the lake coast, 
which attracted the notice of the scientific, and received the attention of the 
War Department. 

Thus the young engineer gradually rose in his profession. He was still 
only a First-Lieutenant, but he was marked as one of the promising men of the 
corps d 'elite of the army. He was engrossed in its duties, was devoted to its 
advancement, and was noted for the thoroughness and value of his investiga- 
tions. At the outbreak of the war he was in his thirty-sixth year, and was 
once more alone in the world, having lost his accomplished wife in 1860. She 
left him four promising boys, the care of whose education was undertaken in 
his wife's old home at West Point. 

*300 pp. octavo; published by Van Nostraad, New York. 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 621 

In August, 1861, Lieutenant Gillmore applied for active field duty. Chief- 
Justice Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury, warmly recommended him to 
Governor Dennison. The Governor at once oifered him the command of one 
of the Ohio regiments. This he declined. jMembers of the Engineer Corps are 
wont to attach a high importance to their position, and Gillmore preferred his 
place in the Engineers to a Colonelcy of volunteers. But he desired, if possi- 
ble, to organize a brigade of Sappers, Miners, and Pontoniers for service in the 
Western armies. Governor Dennison at once fell in with this idea, and urged 
upon the President his appointment as a Brigadier-General of volunteers. Pro- 
fessor Mahan of West Point, and Wm. Cullen Bryant united in the recommenda- 
tion. Mr. Lincoln was not unwilling, but the War Department objected. It 
was then organizing an expedition under T. W. Sherman to make, in conjunc- 
tion with Admiral Dupont, a descent upon the coast of South Carolina. Lieu- 
tenant Gillmore's experience in the Engineer Agency in New York peculiarly 
qualified him for the work of fitting out this expedition, and the Department 
would not sanction any promotion by which his services therein would be lost. 
He was accordingly^ promoted to a Captaincy in his corps, and made Chief En- 
gineer to General T. W. Sherman, then about to set out for Port Eoj^al. 

This Avas on the 3d of October, 1861. A month later he was present with 
the staff, when, after Admiral Dupont's splendid bombardment, the troops made 
their descent upon Hilton Head Island. Through November and December he 
was engaged in fortifying the positions thus secured. 

Meantime the country impatiently awaited some more important results 
from the great coast expedition than the establishment of schools among the 
contrabands on Hilton Head. Finally the General commanding directed his 
attention to Savannah. 

Fort Pulaski stood in the way. Situated on one of the marshy islands 
along the coast, neither land nor water, that yet offer to military movements 
the special "obstacles of both, it seemed secure against land attacks. But it 
covered both the channels of the Savannah Eiver, and, while it stood, the way 
to the threatened city was closed. Late, therefore, in November Captain Gill- 
more was ordered to make a thorough reconnoissance of the locality. On the 
29th he set out; on the 1st of December he made his report. The one feature 
of the report was this : "I deem the reduction of Fort Pulaski practicable by 
batteries of mortars and rifled guns, established on Tybee Island."* And five 
days later, in another communication, he specified the armament he would ask 
for the undertaking: ''Ten ten-inch sea-coast mortars, ten thirteen-inch do., 
eight heavy rifled guns, and eight Columbiads." 

The assumption of the young engineer was to the older members of his 
corps, and to the officers of the army generallj^, a matter of astonishment. The 
site for his proposed breaching batteries was an island seventeen hundred yards 
distant from the fort. The limit for practicable breaching of masonry forts was 
supposed to be one thousand yards; and, except under peculiarly favorable cir- 
cumstaiices, no one thought such an effort advisable at a distance greater than 

*" Gillmore's Siege of Fort Pulaski," p. 55. 



622 Ohio in the War. 

six hundred or seven hundred j-ards. Since the invention of gunpowder, in no 
war and by no general, had the reduction of hostile forts been attempted by 
means of batteries even one thousand yards distant. Here was a young Captain 
of Engineers, absolutely without experience in war, proposing to reduce a fort 
which had been recently pronounced by a competent military critic (Mr. Kus- 
sell, of the London Times) impregnable to land attack, by batteries located 
nearly three times as far away as in any successful bombardment on record. 

The standard authority of the army had this verdict on the possibility of 
such an undertaking: "An exposed wall may be breached with certainty at dis- 
tances of from five hundred to seven hundred yards, even when elevated one 
hundred feet above the breaching battery; and it is believed that, in case of ex- 
treme necessity, it would be justifiable to attempt to batter down an exposed 
wall from any distance not exceeding one thousand j'ards, but then the quan- 
tity of artillery must be considerable, and it will require from four to seven 
days' firing, according to the number of guns in battery, and the period of 
daylight, to render a breach practicable." Captain Gillmore proposed to go 
seven hundred yards beyond this extreme limit fixed by the authority then re- 
garded as final on all such engineering questions. 

Save his own experiments, however, and the theoretical views they had 
suggested and confirmed, he could point to no authoritj^ to sustain him. 
Breaching at five hundred to seven hundred yards had been the limit to the 
undertakings of European armies against masonry forts. Absolutely no tan- 
gible progress had been made, in actual practice, since the second siege of 
Badajos in the Peninsular war, when an exposed and weak castle wall was 
breached at the unheai*d-of distance of eight hundred j^ards. Some noteworthy 
English and Prussian experiments, however, had seemed to point to the greater 
capacity of rifled artillery. In 1860, a condemned Martello tower on the coast 
of England had been battered down by Armstrong rifled guns, at a distance of 
one thousand and thirty-two yards. General Sir John Burgoyne, ill reporting 
the fact to the British War Department, added: "Ti'ials were subsequently made 
to breach a similar tower from smooth-bored sixtj^'-eight and thirty-two- 
pounders at the same range of one thousand and thirty-two yards, and the 
result ma}' be deemed altogether a failure, both accuracy of fire and velocity of 
missiles being quite deficient for such a range." In the same year the Prussian 
Government had conducted similar experiments on certain old fortifications at 
Juliers, which were to be demolished. The guns used were rifled breach-load- 
ers. At six hundred and forty yards they had breached a brick wall three feet 
thick with twelve-pounders. At fifty paces they had breached the same wall 
with six-pounders. And, at sixty yards, they had breached a wall six and a half 
feet thick with twenty-four pounders ; while subsequently, with the same guns, 
at a distance of ninety yards, they had breached a wall twelve feet thick. 

Practically, this was the sum of what military science had to teach on the 
subject of the power of artillery against masonry forts. Beyond this Captain 
Gillmore had progressed a little, by reason of his own experiments at West Point. 
He believed that the capacity of rifled guns had not been fully appreciated. But 



QUINCY A. GrILLMORE. 623 

he did not yet give them credit for their enormous superiority over the clumsy 
Columbiads and other heav}^ smooth-bores in which the chief reliance was stiil 
placed. The English Martello tower had been battered down by rifled eighty- 
two and forty-pounders, at one thousand and thirty-two yards. He believed 
the American Parrotts, and other rifles, at least equal to the famous English 
gun ; he was able to secure eighty -four-pounders, sixty-four pounders, forty- 
eight-pounders, and thirty-pounders; and with these, relying on his belief that 
rifles might do more than they had ever yet been called upon to do, he was 
willing to undertake the reduction of Fort Pulaski from a distance more than a 
third greater than in the English experiments. But he asked a weight of metal, 
in smooth-bores — Columbiads, mortars, etc. — double as great as that of his rifles. 

We have seen how contrary to the maxims of the books Captain Gillmore's 
proposition was. Some of the leading officers of his own corj)s united in their 
condemnation of the wild scheme which the young engineer presented. Gen- 
eral Totten himself, the venerable head of the corps, was very decided in his 
disapproval. Conspicuous engineers furnished Avritten opinions, enfoi'cing the 
folly of the project. But the General commanding was of a temper that was 
ready to accept daring innovations. It does not appear that he was himself 
fully convinced of the wisdom of his engineer's proposal, but he was fully re- 
solved to let him try. He accordingly endorsed the plan, and forwarded it to 
the Department at Washington for approval. Here it was some time delayed, 
and even after the final consent had been obtained, the necessary- artilleiy 
and ordnance stores were tardily supplied. 

But about the middle of January, six weeks after the scheme was first 
proposed, matters had progressed so far that operations began for the invest- 
ment of Fort Pulaski, preparator5^ to the establishment of the proposed bat- 
teries for its reduction. There were several tortuous and uncertain passages by 
which, at high tide, gunboats of light draft might evade Pulaski and enter the 
Savannah River. Through some of these it was determined to convoy the flats 
on which artillery was floating, for batteries above Pulaski, to cut off its inter- 
course with Savannah and with the coast. One cause of delay intervened after 
another, till, on the 10th of February, 1862, after waiting nearly a month on 
the navy, it was determined to attempt transporting the guns for these block- 
ading batteries by land. 

Up the river a few miles from Fort Pulaski lies Jones's Island, the south- 
•ern shore of which forms for several miles the northern bank of the stream. 
Near the middle of this stretch rose the trifling elevation of Venus's Point, on 
which it was proposed to erect a battery. This would isolate Pulaski. The 
nearest spot where the soil was sufficiently solid to permit the encampment of 
troops was Dafuskie Island, four miles distant. From this place there was water 
communication between New, Wright, and Mud Rivers to the shore of Jones's 
Island opposite Venus's Point. Thence, across the oozy, shaking marsh of the 
island the artillery must be transported by hand. What was the nature of 'the 
route may be inferred from Captain Gillmore's description of the island: "It ia 
nothing but a mud marsh, covered with reeds and tall grass. The general sur 



624 Ohio in the War. 

face is about on a level of ordinary high tide. There are a few spots of limited 
area, Venus's Point being one of them, that are submerged only by spring tides, 
or by ordinary tides fovored by the wind ; but the character of the soil is the 
same over the whole island. It is a soft unctuous mud, free of grit or sand, 
and incapable of supporting a heavy weight. Even in the most elevated places 
the partially dry crust is but three or four inches in depth, the substratum 
being a semi-fluid mud, which is agitated like jelly by the felling of even small 
bodies upon it, like the jumping of men or ramming of earth. A pole or an 
oar can be forced into it with ease, to the depth of twelve or fifteen feet. In 
most places the resistance diminishes with increase of penetration. Men walk- 
ing over it are partially sustained by the roots of reeds and grass, and sink in 
only five or six inches. When this top support gives way, they go down from 
two to two and a half feet, and in some places much further." 

Across this uncertain slime, a wheelbarrow track of plank was laid. Poles 
were cut on Dafuskie Island and taken by boats into Mud Eiver to make a 
wharf for the landing of the guns, and bags filled with sand were carried over 
by the batteries. Finally, on the 10th of February, the hope of aid from the 
navy being abandoned, the flats on which the guns were loaded were towed out 
through the sluggish rivers by row-boats, against the tide, and landed at the 
wharf At the same time another party on the opposite side of the island, at 
Venus's Point, was at work on the platforms for the battery. First bags of 
sand were laid down on the oozy soil, till the whole surface was raised five or 
six inches. Then over these went a flooring of thick planks, nearly but not 
quite in contact with each other. Across these at right angles other planks 
were laid, till, finally, the platform was raised some twenty inches above the 
natural surface. All the while this work went on, the unsuspicious Eebel gun- 
boats were plying up and down the Savannah Eiver, in full view. Then at day- 
light the work was left, and all hands went back to Dafuskie. 

The next night came the hardest task. Over the twelve-feet- deep mud of 
Jones's Island were to be dragged, from the wharf back on Mud Eiver to the 
site for the battery at Yenus's Point, three thirty-pounder Parrotts, two twenty- 
pounders, and a great eight-inch siege howitzer. The Captain shall tell us how 
this seemingly impossible task was accomplished : 

" The work was done in the following manner : The pieces, mounted on 
their carriages and limbered up, were moved forward on shifting runways of 
planks (about fifteen feet long, one foot wide, and three inches thick), laid end 
to end. Lieutenant Wilson, with a party of thirty-five men, took* charge of the 
two pieces in advance (an eight-inch siege howitzer and a thirty-pounder 
Parrott), and Major Beard and the Lieutenant, with a somewhat larger force, of 
the four pieces in the rear (two twenty and two thirty-pounder Parrotts.) Each 
party had one pair of planks in excess of the number required for the guns and 
limbers to rest upon, when closed together. This extra pair of planks being 
placed in front, in prolongation of those already under the carriages, the pieces 
were then drawn forward with the drag-ropes, one after the other, the length of a 
piank, thus freeing the two planks in the rear, which, in their turn, were carried 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 625 

to the front. This labor is of the most fatiguing kind. In most phices the men 
Bank to tlieir knees in the mud ; in some places, much deeper. This mud being of 
the most slippery and slimy kind, and perfectly free from grit or sand, the planks 
soon became entirely smeared over with it. Many delays and much exhausting 
labor were occasioned by the gun-carriages slipping off the planks. When this 
occurred, the wheels would suddenly sink to the hubs, and powerful levers hud 
to be devised to raise them up again. I authorized the men to encase their feet 
in sandbags to keep the mud out of their shoes. Many did this, tying the 
strings just below the knees. The magazines and platforms were ready for 
service at daybreak." 

When day dawned, therefore, the Savannah river was closed. But now a 
fresh peril arose. The artillerists, as they stood about their newly-planted guns, 
presently perceived a foe creeping up, around, and upon them, against which 
their Parrotts and mortars were of no avail. The tide rose within eight inches 
of the surface! A high wind would have sent it over. And the worst was not 
yet, for the spring tides were approaching. Captain Gillmore met this new 
danger by constructing a levee entirely around the battery, sufficient to secure 
it against ordinary seas. If storms should come, it must take its chances. 

A few da3^s later and other batteries were planted to co-operate with this 
one ill completely investing Pulaski below, and blockading Savannah above. 
Then Captain Gillmore was ordered down to undertake his greater work. 

On the 21st of Februar}- the first of his required artillery and ordnance 
stores for the siege arrived. General Sherman* now determined that his hope- 
ful young engineer should have all the honor of success, or bear all the burden 
of defeat ; and he accordingly authorized him to act as a Brigadier-General 
(pending the appointment to that rank, which he had solicited for him from the 
President), and to assume command of all the troops required for the siege. 
Thenceforward he had matters entirely in his own hands. 

The point on which batteries were now to be erected was not unlike that at 
which General Gillmore had recently been laboring. Tybee Island, like Jones's 
Island above, is a mud marsh. Several ridges and hummocks of firm ground, 
however, are to be found upon it; and along Tybee Eoads, where the artillery 
was to be debarked, stretched a skirting of low sand-banks, formed b}^ the 
action of wind and tides. From this place to the proposed site of the ad- 
vanced batteries was a distance of about two and a half miles. The last mile 
was in full view of Fort Pulaski, and within the range of its guns. It was, 
besides, a low marsh, presenting the same obstacles to the transportation of 
heavy artillery that had been encountered in the work at Venus's Point. 

The first difficulty was met in landing the guns. The beach was open and 
exposed, and often a high surf was running. The guns were lowered from the 
vessels on which they had been sent down from the North upon lighters, over 
which a strong deck had been built from gunwale to gunwale. Then at high 
tide row-boats towed these lighters to the shore. Eopes were then attached to 

*T. W. Sherman — distinguiBhed sometimes from the present Lieutenant-General W. T. 
Sherman, by the soubriquet, "Port Royal Slierman." 
Vol. I.— 40. 



626 Ohio in the War. 

them, and the men on shore careened them, thus rolling the heavy masses of 
iron overboard in the surf. When the tide receded they were left dry, and the 
troops then seized upon them and dragged them by main strength up the sand- 
bank, out of reach of the next high tide. 

Then came the task of planting them in battery in the yielding marsh, in 
sight of Pulaski without being discovered. "No one," says General Gillmore, 
" except an eye-witness, can form any but a faint conception of the herculean 
labor by which mortars of eight and a half tons weight, and Columbiads, but a 
trifle lighter, were moved in the dead of night, over a narrow causeway, bor- 
dered by swamps on either side, and liable at any moment to be overturned, 
and buried in the mud beyond reach'. The stratum of mud is about twelve 
feet deep; and on several occasions the heaviest pieces, particularly the mortars, 
became detached from the sling-carts and were with great difficulty, by the use 
of planks and skids, kept from sinking to the bottom. Two hundred and fifty 
men were barely sufficient to move a single piece, on sling-carts. The men 
were not allowed to speak above a whisper, and were guided by the notes of a 
whistle." 

The work went on without discovery, and apparently without even arous- 
ing the suspicions of the fort. Its seeming impracticability w^as its safeguard. 
The batteries nearest the fort were carefully screened from observation by grad- 
ual and almost imperceptible changes in the appearance of the brushwood and 
brushes in front of them — no sudden alteration of the outline of the landscape 
being permitted. Thus, in silence and in darkness, eleven batteries, mounting 
heavier guns than were ever before used in the United States service, gradually 
arose before the unsuspicious fort. As the dangerous part of the work was 
completed less care was taken about discoverj^, and the enemy finally learned 
the location of two of the less important batteries; of the very existence of the 
others he would seem to have had no conception. 

By the 1st of April a change in the command of the department had been 
made. The popular impatience at the lack of results under General Sherman's 
management had led to his removal. General Hunter, on taking command, 
found the investment of Pulaski complete, and the preparations for opening the 
bombardment well advanced. He inspected the work, but made no change 
whatever. General Gillmore was left in command, and eight days later was 
ready to open fire. 

For eight weeks the troops had been engaged, day and night, in the most 
exhausting labor, at an inclement season, and in the most malarious of locali- 
ties. They had completed eleven batteries along the coast of Tybee Island 
nearest Pulaski, at a distance from the fort ranging from three thousand four 
hundred to one thousand six hundred and fiftj'- yards, and had mounted thirty- 
six heavy guns, of which ten were rifles, as follows: Two eighty-four pounder- 
James, two sixty -four-pounder James, one forty-eight-pounder James, and five 
thirty- pounder Parrots. The smooth-bores were, twelve thirteen-inch mortars, 
four ten-inch siege mortars, six ten-inch Columbiads, and four eight-inch Co- 
lumbiads. It was soon to be seen that this whole array of smooth-bores, on 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 627 

which throe-fourths of the time and labor had been spent, was useless. The 
whole length of the line formed b}" these batteries was two thousand five hundred 
and fifty yards. In front of it, with seven and a half foot thick brick walls 
standing obliquely to the line of fire, on a separate little marshy island a mile 
or more distant, stood Pulaski, isolated from Savannah by the batteries up the 
river, but still able to keep up frequent communication by courier through the 
swamps. 

On the evening of April 9, 1862, General Gillmore issued his general order 
for the bombardment. It was remarkable for the precision with which every 
detail was given. The directions for the three breaching batteries will illustrate : 

" Battery Sigel (five thirty-pounder Parrotts and one forty-eight-pounder 
James) to open, with four and three-quarter second fuses, or. the barbette guns 
of the fort at the second discharge from Battery Sherman. Charge for thirty- 
pounder, three and one-half pounds ; charge for forty-eight-pounder, five pounds, 
elevation four degrees for both calibers. As soon as the barbette fire of the 
work has been silenced, this batt^ery will be directed, with percussion shells, 
upon the Avails, to breach the •pancoupe between the east and south-east faces, 
and the embrasure next to it in the south-east face ; the elevation to be varied 
accordingly, the charge to remain the same. Until the elevation is actually 
determined, each gun should fire once in six or eight minutes ; after that, every 
four or five minutes. 

'' Battery McClellan (two eighty-four-pounders and two sixty-four- pounder 
James) to open fire immediately after Battery Scott. Charge for eighty-four- 
pounder, eight pounds; charge for sixty-four-pounder, six pounds; elevation 
for eighty-four-pounder, four and one-quarter degrees ; for sixty-four-pounder, 
four degrees. Each piece should fire once every five or six minutes after the ele- 
vation has been established ; charge to remain the same. This battery should 
breach the work in the pancoupe between the south and south-east faces, and the 
■embrasure next to it in the south-east face. The steel scraper for the grooves 
should be used after every fifth or sixth discharge. 

'•Battery Scott (three ten-inch and one eight-inch Columbiads) to fire solid 
fihot, commencing immediately after the barbette fire of the work has ceased. 
Charge of ten inch Columbiad, twenty-pounds; elevation four and one-half de- 
grees. Charge of eight-inch Columbiad, ten pounds ; elevation five degrees. 
This battery should breach the ^ancowjoe between the south and south-east faces, 
and the embrasure next to it in the south east face ; the elevation to be varied 
accordingl}'', the charge to remain the same. Until the elevation is accurately 
determined, each gun should fire once in ten minutes ; after that, every six or 
eight minutes." 

These instructions, with few exceptions, were adhered to throughout. For 
their striking illustration of the unerring as well as pre-esti mated results of 
applied science, engineers and artillerists will hold them not among the least 
• remarkable features of the siege. They were addressed to raw volunteer 
infantry, absolutely ignorant of artilleiy practice till the siege commenced, and 
taught what little they knew about serving the guns in the intervals of leisure 



628 Ohio in the Wae. 



't 



from dragging tlieni over the beach into battery. Plainly, if the young engi-' 
neer should succeed, it would only be because adverse ''•.ircumstances could not 
hinder him. : 

On the morning of the tenth Greneral Hunter decided to delay the bombard- 
ment till the garrison should be summoned, in his felicitous phrase, to surren- 
der, and restore to the United States the fort which they held. The command- 
ing officer tersely enough replied that he was there to defend and not to sur- 1 
render it. General Hunter quietly read the response ; then, stepping to the i 
door of his head-quarters, said : " General Gillmore, you may open fire as soon i; 
as you please." In a moment a mortar from Battery Halleck flung out with a i 
puff its great globe of metal, and the bombardment had begun. The enemy - 
opened vigorously, but rather wildly, in reply. 

It soon became evident that the fire of the mortars, comprising nearly one 
half of the artillery bearing upon the fort, was comparatively useless. Not one ; 
shell in ten fell within or upon the fort. The Columbiads did not seem to be 5 
particularly efficient, but the rifles soon began to indent the surface of the wall 1 
near the south-east angle. Neither the garrison nor our own soldiers saw much in i 
the bombardment promising decisive results ; but by one o'clock Genex-al Gill- 
more was convinced that the fort would be breached, mainly b}^ the rifled pro- 
jectiles, which the telescope showed to be already penetrating deeply into the 
brick-work. It was also evident that on breaching alone, with perhaps an i 
assault when the breach was practicable, could dependence be placed. The gar- 
rison could stand the mortar fire far longer than the assailants could keep it up. 
At dark the bombardment ceased, three mortars and a rifle, however, keep- 
ing up a five-minute discharge through the night, to prevent the garrison from 
making repairs. Ten and a half hours of heavy firing from the whole arma- 
ment of the batteries had apparently resulted only in a somewhat shattered 
appearance of the wall about the angle on which the firing had been directed, 
and in the dismounting of two barbette guns, and the silencing of three in the 
casemates. But, in fact, the breach was almost effected, although the garrison 
does not seem to have been aware of it. General Gillmore had selected the 
point for the breach with special reference to his knowledge of the location of 
ihe magazine. The moment his rifled balls passed through the wall of the fort 
they would begin to strike the rear of the magazine on the opposite side. 

On the morning of the 11th the bombardment was resumed. The damages '. 
to the wall soon became conspicuous, and the heavy shots from the Columbiads ■ 
now served to shatter and shake down the masonry which the rifled projectiles 
had displaced. By twelve o'clock two entire casemates had been opened, and in 
the space between them the rifle balls were plunging through to the rear of the 
magazine. The danger of being blown up became imminent, and the command- 
ant hastened to call together a council of his officers. They voted unanimously 
for surrender, and just as their flag came fluttering slowly down. General Gill- 
more was giving his directions for opening upon another embrasure. He passed 
over at once and received the surrender. 

The loss on our side was but one man killed, so perfect had been the engi- 

1 



lii. 



QUINCY A. GrILLMORE. 629 

neering skill that directed the construction of the defenses along the line of bat- 
teries. The garrison of the fort lost several killed and wounded. Three hun- 
dred and sixty were surrendered.* 

The immediate result of these operations was the total blockade of the jjort 
of Savannah, and the reduction of the principal defense of the city against 
attack from the sea. But their remote consequences were far-reaching, and 
constituted an era in military science. General Gillmore himself has set forth 
some of them. "It is true, beyond question," he says, " that the minimum dis- 
tance, say from nine hundred to one thousand yards, at which land batteries 
have heretofore been considered practically harmless against exposed masonry, 
must be at least trebled, now that rifled guns have to be provided against. "f 
And he confidently adds : "With heavy James or Parrott guns the practica- 
bility of breaching the best-constructed brick scarp at two thousand three hun- 
dred to two thousand five hundred yards, with satisfactory rapidity, admits of 
very little doubt. Had we possessed our present knowledge of their power pre- 
vious to the bombardment of Fort Pulaski, the eight weeks of laborious jjrepa- 
ration for its reduction could have been curtailed to one week, as heavy mor- 
tars and Columbiads would have been omitted from the armament of the batte- 
ries, as unsuitable for breaching at long i-anges." In short, he had shown the 
t'normous power of the new heavj^ rifled artillery at unprecedentedly long 
ranges ; and in those thirty-six hours' firing had unsettled the foundations of 
half the fortifications of Europe and America. 

The man that did this was a young Captain of Engineers who had never 
seen a gun fired in battle till on this expedition, and had never commanded the 
tiring of one till in this siege — who had nevertheless staked his success in his 
profession on the soundness of his theories about artillery, and in doing so, had 
faced the opposition of the talent and experience of the entire brilliant corps, 
of which he was one of the younger and less known members. 

Within a fortnight after the surrender his provisional appointment as Briga- 
dier-General was confirmed by the President. His long exposure to the malaria 
of the marshes, brought on a fever which now prostrated him, and kept him 
out of the field till the ensuing August. 

On his recovery from the malarious fever of the Georgia swamps. General 
Gillmore went to Albany, under the orders of the Department, to assist the 
Governor of New York in equipping and forwarding to the seat of war the 
troops then being raised in that State. After a month of such service, about 
the time of the invasion of Kentucky by Bragg and Kirby Smith, which threw 
Buell back from north Alabama to the Ohio River, General Gillmore was sud- 
denly ordered to Cincinnati ; and on the 17th of September was assigned to the 
command of the advance m(tving down from Covington after Kirbj' Smith. But 
about this time the invasion of Kentucky was abandoned. Meanwhile our 

* The loss of the garrison might be inferred to be twenty-five, since it is known to have num- 
bered three hundred and eighty-five, and only three hundred and sixty were taken prisoners. 
tGillmore's Siege of Fort Pulaski, p. 52. 



630 Ohio in the Wak. 



1 



forces had sustained a defeat in the Kanawha Yalley, and the need of an ex- 
perienced officer to reorganize the troops as they came out at Point Pleasant 
was severely felt. General Gillmore was hurried up ; then, ten daj's later, on 
the arrival of General Cox to assume command of the Department, was sent 
back to the troops he had lately been leading in Kentucky. On the 27th of 
October he was placed in command of the post of Lexington, and then, three 
months later, he relieved General Gordon Granger in the command of the Dis- 
trict of Central Kentucky. 

The period of General Gillmore's service in Kentuckj^ was marked by no 
achievements of special importance. The main Eebel army had been pushed 
beyond Stone Kiver in Tennessee ; and the quiet of Central Kentucky was only 
disturbed by small parties of foragers or marauders, and by the natural turbu- 
lence of the disloyal elements. The most formidable of the Eebel raids was 
that commanded by General Pegram, which was finally beaten back at the 
battle of Somerset. Pegram crossed the Cumberland Eiver at Stazalls Ferry, 
in the latter part of March, with a mounted force variously estimated at from 
fifteen hundred to three thousand, with six pieces of artillery. He drove in the 
advanced posts at Somerset and Danville, and pushed boldly up toward Lexing- 
ton, until he reached the Kentucky Eiver. Meantime he had proclaimed that 
his force was only the advance of a large column under Breckinridge that was 
to "redeem" the State, and had issued a high-sounding manifesto, declaring 
that every young Kentuckian who now hesitated to join the " liberating " army 
must forthwith leave the State. These loud pretences seem to have imposed 
upon the officers commanding the posts in the line of Pegram's advance, and all 
fled before him. 

But when he halted at the Kentucky Eiver, it began to be suspected that 
he did so because he lacked the force to go further. The mounted men in the 
Department were then mostly away in North-eastern Kentucky, in pursuit of 
another Eebel raiding party commanded by Colonel Clarke. General Gillmore 
however promptly checked the retreat of the infantry, ordered it back to the 
south side of the Kentucky Eiver to confront Pegram, and made haste to gather 
together such mounted troops as remained accessible. With these, on the 28th 
of March, he set out to join the infantry, and press down upon Pegram. Alto- 
gether he was able to advance with about twelve hundred and fifty men of all 
arms, while other troops rapidly followed. 

The force he was to encounter can not be definitely stated. The Eebels 
declared it was inferior in strength.* Gillmore believed it to outnumber him 
two to one.f A few miles north of Somerset, on Dutton's Hill, it turned to give 
him battle. He had considerable infantry forces a day's march in the rear, but, 
rather than fall back upon them, he resolved to accept battle with the twelve 
hundred and fifty then up. Dismounting his cavaky, he sent the horses to the 
rear of the artillery in the center, where they presented the appearance of a 
strong cavalry reserve, and deceiyed the enemy into the belief that there was 
momentary danger of a cavalry charge. The troops then advanced upon the 

*Pollard's Southern History of the War, p. 602. TGillmore's Official Report. 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 631 

enemy's 'position, and a spirited figlit of several hours' duration ensued. 
Finalh', Gillmore perceived that his rear was about to be attacked by a strong 
force of cavalry, just detached from his front. Leaving the rear to take care 
of itself, he straightway ordered a charge of the whole command up the hill 
upon the bod}' remaining to hold the enemy's position. Weakened as it was by 
the detachment just made for the rear attack, it was unable to resist the impet- 
uous onset. The enemy was thus driven ; the Eebel attack on the rear was 
easily brushed back, and the line rapidly advanced. The main body of the 
routed enemy escaped across the Cumberland Eiver during the night. Gill- 
more's loss was about fifty. He reported Pegram's loss at nearly five hundred, 
including eighteen officers. The Rebels only acknowledged a loss of one hundred 
and fifty; and some of our newspaper accounts doubted whether even that were 
not an exaggeration.* The action, however, was handsomely managed, and its 
success was complete. 

The battle of Somerset practically ended General Gillmore's career in Ken- 
tucky. Burnside presently arrived with the Ninth Army Corps, and Gillmore 
received a short leave of absence. At its close he was to be called to more con- 
genial work, on the theater where he was to win his most brilliant and enduring 
fame. His operations in Kentucky did not add to his reputation. Somerset 
was well enough, but it was a small afl'air compared with the reduction of Pu- 
laski. The other movements were trifling, and the whole campaign — if it could 
be called by so imposing a name — was inconsequential. Gillmore was not at 
all to blame for this; he did all he was ordered and all that his means would 
allow; but he gained no applause by his performance in Kentucky, and won 
little admiration from the raw volunteers whom he commanded. He was, how- 
ever, brevetted Colonel of Engineers for his conduct at Somerset. 

Prom the outset of the war two goals had fired the ambition of the East. 
As beyond the mountains they could see no hopeful issue to the struggle till 
the Great River, the symbol of the Union., went unvexed to the sea ; so in the 
East, they counted the successes of the hour but little worth, while Richmond 
remained the capital of the Confederacy, and the Rebel flag floated in the har- 
bor of Charleston. Against Richmond great armies were, from time to time, 
set in array. But the popular impatience had not been gratified by a similar 
show of effort against the cradle of rebellion. One expedition, which had been 
expected to replace on Sumter the flag that Anderson hauled down, stopped 
short on the North Carolina coast. Another, more formidable and more prom- 
ising, contented itself with seizing the harbor of Port Royal. Another rested 
satisfied with sinking old hulks in the outer channel of the coveted port. 
These great military preparations resulted in the fall of Pulaski and the de- 
fenses of Savannah. But the defenses of Charleston, the hotbed of the treason, 

■■Pollard, ubi supra. Greeley'.s Amer. Conflict, Vol. II, p. 428. A brief statement of the 
ehare of one of the leading cavalry commands in the tight may be found in the sketch of the 
Seventh Ohio Cavalry, Vol. II, of this work, p. 798. 



632 Ohio in the War. 

the s^Dot of uU in the limits of the rebellion most odious to the country, stood 
unharmed and untlireatened. 

Finally, Admiral Dupont, with inefficient support, made a gallant but un- 
successful attempt with the iron-clads upon Fort Sumter. Eepulse only height- 
ened the popular demand for the reduction of " the spot where treason was 
hatched." Military men were accustomed to question the importance of Charles- 
ton as a strategic point in the prosecution of the war. But the people and the 
Government were wiser.' They rightly reckoned Charleston second to no strat- 
egic point within the Confederacy; for its possession would inspire the North, 
would discourage and demoralize the Southern people and the Southern army; 
would give assurance to menacing Eui'ope that the Government was able to open 
its own ports and protect its own coasts. 

General Gillmore had just been relieved in Kentucky when word came of 
Admiral Dupont's failure. He employed his leisure in submitting to the War 
Department his views of what n\ight be done by a combined land and naval 
attack. He dwelt lai'gely on the lessons which Fort Pulaski taught, and, basing 
his confidence upon the performance there, maintained that Fort Sumter could 
be reached and reduced without any increase to the forces on the spot. 

These views fell in remarkably with the wishes of the Department. Gen- 
eral Halleck, then General-in-Chief, protested that he could spare no more troops 
for a side-issue like that of Charleston. Yet popular impatience and the desire 
of the Government united in the demand that the undertaking against Charles- 
ton should not be abandoned. If then Gillmore could make this undertaking 
effeclive without any increase of foi'ce, he was the M^anting man. So, within a 
few weeks, he was summoned to Washington for consultation. His standing as 
an engineer had been vastl}^ heightened by his reduction of Pulaski ; and he 
found the Department ready to accept his statements on engineering questions 
as final authority. 

The Navy Dejiartment had rej^resented its desire to undertake another 
movement upon Fort Sumter, but had notified the military authorities that its 
success required " the occupation of Morris Island, and the establishment of 
land batteries on that island to assist in the reduction of the fort."* To this 
General Gillmore's attention was particularly invited, and his opinions on all 
the points involved were solicited. He found the naval authorities regarding 
Fort Sumter as the key to tlie position. They afiirmed their ability to remove 
the channel obstructions, secure control of the entire harbor, and reach the city as 
soon as the offensive power of Sumter was destroyed. They especially dreaded, 
however, its barbette guns, whose plunging fire was very dangerous to the mon- 
itors.! General Gillmore at once renewed the declaration of his belief in the 
possibility of reducing Fort Sumter with the forces then on the spot. He added 
that beyond the occupation of Morris Island and the reduction of Sumter, the 
land forces could not be expected to accomplish much, unless largely re-en- 
forced. But, inasmuch as the navy professed its ability to do the rest, this cau- 

"•■• General Halleck'.s Annual Report for 1862. 

tGillmore's "Engineer and Artillery Operations against Charleston," p. 16. 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. . 633 

tion went for little, It was speedily decided that General Gillmore should be 
given the command of the department, to which, not yet a year ago, he had 
started, a young, unknown engineer, for his first sight of aciual war; and that 
Bear Admiral Foote should succeed Dupont in command of the naval squadron. 
We now know, also,* that the following plan of operations was then agreed upon : 

"First. To make a descent upon and obtain possession of the south end of 
Morris Island, known to be occupied by the enemj-, and then being strongly for- 
tified by him, offensively and defensively. 

" Second. To lay siege to and reduce Fort Wagner, a heavily-armed earth- 
work of strong plan and relief, situated near the north end of Morris Island, 
and distant about two thousand six hundred yards from Sumter. With Fort 
Wagner the work on Cummings's Point would also fall. 

" Third. From the position thus secured, to demolish Fort Sumter, and, 
afterward, co-operate with the fleet, when it was ready to move in. by a heavy 
artillery fire. 

"Fourth. The monitors and iron-clads to enter, remove the channel ob- 
structions, run by the batteries on James's and Sullivan's Islands, and reach 
the city." 

Of these four distinct operations the army was to take the lead in execut- 
ing all but the last. That — to which all the others were preparatory — the navy 
professed its full ability to accomplish. We are now to see how faithfully- and 
thoroughly Gillmore executed his portion of the programme. 

First., The Descent on Morris Island. — The nearest point to Fort Sumter held 
by the National forces, on General Gillmore's arrival, on the 12th of June, 1863, 
was Folly Island. This narrow sand spit borders the channel on the south side, 
running up toward the city. It is terminated by an inlet of the sea, communicat- 
ing with the creeks and lagoons through the marsh back of it, knowm as Light- 
house Inlet. Just across.this begins Morris Island, another narrow sand spit on the 
bosom of the marsh, which runs up, almost like a prolongation of Follylsland, till 
its upper extremity is within one thousand three hundred and ninety yards of Fort 
Sumter. It was known to be held in force by the enemy ; and the fort at its upper 
extremity was known to be formidable, although its real strength was scarcely sus- 
pected. An abortive attempt to reach this point by means of the approaches on 
the large island (James's Island) back of it, had ended in the disastrous slaughter 
of Secessionville. General Gillmore wisely decided not to repeat that experi- 
ment. He was able to muster only about eleven thousand five hundred men. 
General Beauregard, defending Charleston, had a considerably larger force at 
his command. On open ground, then, his inferiority in numbers would reduce 
him to the defensive. But on the narrow sand-bank of Morris Island he could 
deploy a front as formidable as it would be possible for the enemy on that ground 
to array against him ; and he was, moreover, made entirely secure by reason of 
being under the guns of the navy. 

Yet the descent presented grave difficulties. With the ordinary hazard of 
an assault upon fortified positions were coupled the unusual danger of an ap- 

* Gillmore's "Engineer and Artillery Operations against Charleston," pp. 16, 17. 



634 . Ohio in the Wak. 

proach in full view in open boats, of disembarking under fire, forming on the 
beach under fire, and then advancing to the attack under the combined fire of 
artillery and small arms. The reduction of these hazards was sought in various 
waj-s. With a secrecy that must always remain a marvel, forty-seven pieces of 
heavy artilleiy, with suitable parapets, splinter-proof defenses and magazines, 
were planted on the extremity of Folly Island, within speaking distance of the 
enemy's pickets, without discovery or suspicion. These were to cover the cross- 
ing of the storming parties and to silence the works they were to assault. A 
considerable force was ostentatiously sent around by Stono Eiver to make a 
demonstration upon James's Island. This was to create the impression that in 
imitation of the Secessionville blunder, the main attack was to be delivered 
there, and thus draw off troops from the fortifications of Morris Island. Finally, 
a body of troops was sent up the South Edisto to cut the railroad between 
Charleston and Savannah. This was to prevent the passage of re-enforcements 
to Charleston, if the operations about to be developed should seem to threaten 
its speedy fall. This last precaution failed. The others were completely suc- 
cessful, and largely aided in secux-ing the greater success on Morris Island. 

On the morning of the 10th of July, within less than a month after Gen-^ 
eral Gillmore had assumed the command, the concealed batteries which he had 
erected on the upper end of Folly Island suddenly opened upon the unsuspicious 
enemy — across the Inlent. Believing the danger to be on James's Island the 
Rebel commander had transferred thither a considerable portion of his force. 
The rest, astonished by the sudden outburst of a danger they had' believed 
impossible (for none had dreamt that heavy batteries could thus be secretly 
established under the vei-y eyes of their pickets), made an inadequate resist- 
ance. The storming party which, after a couple of hours of the bombardment, 
pulled up in small boats to the beach of Morris Island, landed with little difli- 
culty, and speedily swept up and into the nearest fortification. The Rebels fell 
back, but maintained a sharp resistance at each successive earthwork. Out of 
each in turn they were driven by the flushed and eager troops. By nine o'clock 
they had carried three-fourths of the island, and their skirmishers were within 
musket range of Fort Wagner, the strong work at the upper end, while on this^ 
the heavy guns of the navy were pouring a severe artillery fire. The heat 
being intense, and the troops being exhausted, General Gillmore now thought it 
well to suspend further operations for the day.* | 

It was probably an unfortunate delay. It is possible that the exhaustion of ' 
the troops might have made the attempt to bring them to an immediate assault 
of Fort Wagner hazardous. But it is certain that, when they were repulsed,- 
they found, next morning, that the surprised enemy had profited by the delay as 
well as themselves. The troops then made a gallant assault, but from the very 
summit of the parapet w^hich they had gained they were hurled back in bloody 
disorder. Still, so great was the strength of this unimposing sand-heap subse- 

* Eleven pieces of heavy ordnance were captured in these operations. The loss was one 
hjindred and fifty killed, wounded, and missing; and the enemy's loss was estimated at two 
hundred. 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 635 

quentl}' founa, that it will never be iield more than a bare possibility that b}- 
a continuance of the attack on the morning of the descent upon the island, 
AVagner might have been carried. The failure to. carry it then enforced slower 
operations, and thus brought General Gillmore to the second feature Df the plan 
he had concerted with the navy before his departure from Washington. 

Second, The Siege of Fort Wagner. — The position in which General Gillmore 
now found himself was this: He was planted upon the enemy's late position on 
Morris Island. He held three-fourths of the four hundred acres comprised in 
the Island; on the other fourth the enemy maintained a foothold by means of a 
formidable work — externally nothing but a sand-bank heaped up in the form of 
a fortification — internally a powerful work, with subterranean bomb-proof 
shelters for its entire garrison. He found the island narrowing from the width 
of a thousand yards at the points where he landed to scarcely twenty-five yards 
in front of Fort Wagner — a space that seemed too contracted for any possibil- 
ity of siege approaches by means of the regular parrallels and zigzag saps. 
Every foot of ground which he held was under the constant and searching fire 
of the enemy's guns from Fort Wagner, Cummings's Point, James's Island, Sul- 
livan's Island, and Fort Sumter. Parts of the gi-ound that he occupied were 
but two feet above ordinary high water, and any unusually high tide, accompa- 
nied by wind, dashed over; the greatest ridge on the island of which he could 
avail himself was only thirty-four feet higher. The surface of the island was 
a fine, almost white, quartz sand, on Avhich the fiery sun of those latitudes beat 
with furnace heat. It proved to be the most valuable material for fortifications 
I'ver used ; while, flying in clouds over the muzzles of the guns and filling the 
barrels, it became a most serious difficulty in the way of satisfactory artillery 
practice. 

Eight days after the descent upon the island General Gillmore was pre- 
pared to make another attempt upon Fort Wagner. Heavy rain-storms, which 
flooded the batteries and destroyed the jDOwder, had prevented an earlier move- 
ment. About noon all the batteries which had been planted on the lower end 
of the island, opened upon Wagner. The navy then moved up alongside, joined 
in the bombardment. At first the fort returned a sharj) and severe fire; but it 
]>resently ceased altogether. Supposing the fort to be eff'ectually silenced, an 
assault was now ordered. The mistake was soon discovered. The moment the 
head of the storming column debouched from the first parallel, about sunset, it 
was met by a heavy fire from the fort. An instant afterward, from every quar- 
ter, there poured upon the devoted column a storm of shot. Sumter opened ; 
Gregg opened ; the batteries on James's Island to the left, and on Sullivan's 
Island across the channel to the right, opened. Through it all the troops gal- 
lantly advanced — Colonel Shaw, with the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts, leading 
tlie way. At last they approached so near the Avork that the fire from our bat- 
teries and from the navy on the fort had to be suspended, for fear of hitting 
our own men. Then suddenly uprose along all the parapet a cloud of musketry. 
Through the bombardment the garrison of AYagner had been quietly and safely 
<^ns'ionced in the bomb-proof beneath — only enough men being left out to -serve 



636 Ohio in the War. 

the guns. The moment the bombardment ceased, they swarmed up into tlie 
fort fresh and unaffected by the terrible fire, and opened with murderous vol- 
leys upon the advancing column now within close range. Through even this it 
swept on. It reached the wet ditch, plunged through it, clambered up the par- 
apet, fought hand to hand with the garrison in the quickly-descending" darkness, 
made good its position on the south-east bastion. But the darkness and the 
perfect knowledge of the interior arrangements of the fort possessed by the 
garrison gave them a great advantage. After a three hours' struggle the assail- 
ants felt compelled to relinquish their hold upon the bastion the}' occupied and 
fall back to their parallels. 

Two-fold failure thus rested upon the efforts to possess the upper end of 
Morris Island. To most oflScers this would have suggested abandonment of the 
effort, or a call for re-enforcements.* To General Gillmore it suggested that, if 
he were delayed in capturing the upper end of Morris Island, from which to 
reduce Fort Sumter, he might, perhaps, reduce Fort Sumter without it. "He 
thus advanced to the simultaneous execution of the third feature of the plan 
concerted at Washington, while still engaged upon the unfinished work of the 
second. 

Third, The Reduction of Fort Sumter. — The defensive line on the island, now 
held by General Gillmore, was between four and five thousand yards distant 
from Fort Sumter. We have seen that before Pulaski, one thousand yards was 
believed to be the extreme limit at which breaching operations against masonry 
forts should be attempted, and then only under a combination of the most favora- 
ble circumstances and the most absolute necessity. At Pulaski General Gill- 
more had enlarged this distance to seventeen hundred yards, and in his report 
he expressed his belief that breaching might even be attempted, with the best 
of the new artillery, at two thousand to twenty-five hundred yards. So rapidly 
had he progressed that he was now about to attempt it at double this maximum 
distance laid down by himself, over the heads of the enemy in an intervening 
earthwork, against whom the resources of his artiller}^ and of two successive 
assaults had thus far proved ineffectual. Meantime he proposed to push his 
regular approaches against Wagner. Should he succeed in reducing Sumter by 
firing over Wagner, then the great obstacle to the entrance of the navy into the 
harbor would be removed. But, should the navy hesitate, the ultimate posses- 
sion of Wagner would enable him to draw a shorter line across the entrance to 
the harbor, and make the blockade of the fort hermetical. 

On the night, therefore, of the failure of the second assault on Wagner, the 
energetic commander gave orders for the conversion of the batteries employed 
during the day into a strong defensive line, capable of resisting any sortie the 
enemy might make. Behind this, and next the marsh on the left, the first bat- 
tery for use against Sumter was erected — at a distance from that work of four 
thousand two hundred yards, or over two and one-third miles. 

In five days this work was completed; and on the succeeding night, by 

* Throughout the operations in Charleston harbor General Gillmore never asked for any re- 
enforcements, except to replace those lost by disease and exposure. 



§1 



■s 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 637 

means of the '-flying sap," a second parallel was established six hundred yards 
further up the island. On the left it ran across to the creek, which here sepa- 
rates the island from the adjacent marsh, and across which two booms of floatmg 
timber were constructed, to keep off Eebel sorties in boats. On the right it ran 
down to the sea, and was extended clear out to low-water mark, where by 
means of crib-work of stone a battery was established, that for half the time 
was cut off by the rising sea from the rest of the^line, and was completely sur- 
rounded by the breakers of the surf In three days this work was accomplished 
Behind the new line other batteries of heavy rifled cannon were then erected 
for breaching Fort Sumter— in full view of more than one Eebel parapet, and 
under constant fire from Wagner and from James's Island. The accomplished 
oflficer of engineers to whom the G-enoral assigned this work, expressed the 
decided belief that it was impracticable, but he was soon enabled to prove hi»i 
predictions erroneous by his own performance. The batteries here erected 
against Sumter were at a mean distance from it of three thousand five hundred 
and twenty-five yards— a few feet over two miles. During the same period still 
other breaching batteries had been ordered further down the island, a consider- 
able distance below even the first parallel. In these, at a distance of not quite 
two and a half miles, were placed some of the heaviest guns used against Sum- 
ter, one three hundred-pounder Parrott, two two hundred-pounders, and four 
one hundred-pounders. 

By the 9th of August the work on these various undertakings had pro- 
gressed so far that General Gillmore was able to take another step toward Wag- 
ner. On that night, therefore, the third parallel was established, with the flying 
sap, about three hundred and thirty yards in advance of the second. The 
enemy now began to take a more serious view of the i>osition. Thus far his 
defense had proceeded upon the theory that he would be able, by means of the 
powerful works of Wagner, stretching clear across the upper end of the island 
from the sea to the marsh, to maintain his hold and protect the flank of Sumter; 
and on this theory no defense of the lower part of the island had been made at 
all commensurate with its importance. It was now seen that the steady advance 
of Gillmore's parallels and zigzag approaches had become menacing. A terrific 
fire was thereupon kept up from Wagner, Gregg, and Sumter. On the first day, 
after the establishment of the third parallel, this fire became so severe that the 
advance was entirely checked; and grave apprehensions began to be entertained 
as to the possibility of pushing the approaches much fixrther under such formi- 
dable opposition. 

But by this time General Gillmore was readj- to suspend the approaches 
against Wagner; for he was now nearly prepared to fire over Wagner and re- 
duce Sumter. Some difliculties about powder delayed him a day or two. 
Finally, on the 16th of August, he issued his orders to the several batteries for 
opening the bombardment in the morning. The navy was relied upon for as- 
sistance in keeping down the fire of Wagner upon the guns that were now so 
audaciously to pass over its ineff'ectual obstruction, and pour their bolts upon 
the fort It was meant to secure. 



638 Ohio in the War. 

At davbreak the work begau. Eighteen heav}- rifles, throwing balls rung 
ing from three hundred pounds weight down to eight}', opened upon the doomed 
fort. It kept up a gallant response; while from "Wagner, Gregg, Sullivan's Is- 
land, and James's Island came a converging fire of fearful severity, intended 
to destro}- the breaching batteries. The navj- moved up and did its share in 
striving to silence the fire of Wagner. FromthelTth to the 23d the bombardment 
went steadily on. Sometimes the batteries in the second parallel were com- 
pelled to turn upon the pertinacious garrison of Wagner, Avhose fire indeed came 
very near dismounting several of the most valuable guns. Once or twice these 
batteries were for a time completely silenced. But none were seriously injured, 
and by the 21st the result was already plain. Great gaps were rent in the wall 
of the haughty fortress that had played so conspicuous a part in the war; the 
barbette guns were mainly dismounted ; casements were shattered, and the ex- 
posed faces of the fort began to present the appearance of shapeless ruins. 

At this juncture General Gillmore felt warranted in calling upon General 
Beaureo-ard for a surrender of Sumter and the whole of Morris Island. -'The 
present condition of Fort Sumter," he said, " and the rapid and progressive 
destruction which it is undergoing from my batteries, seem to render its com- 
plete demolition within a few hours a matter of certainty." He added the start- 
ling warning that if compliance with this demand were refused, or indeed if no 
reply was made within four hours, he should open fire on the city of Charleston 
from batteries already established within easy and effective range of the heart 
of the city! General Beauregard, it would seem, considered this an idle boast. 
At any rate, taking advantage of the fact that in the haste of preparation, in 
the midst of the bombardment, General Gillmore had forgotten to affix his sig- 
nature to the fair copy of his letter which the clerk had made out for trans- 
mission, he chose — notwithstanding the date of the letter at Gillmore's head- 
quarters, and its official delivery under flag of truce b}- an officer of his staft'— 
to consider it an informal and irresponsible communication, and to return it. 

True to the promise, a little after midnight the citizens of Charleston were 
startled by the explosion of a heavy incendiary shell in the lower portion of the 
city adjacent to the battery, among tlie residences of the wealthiest and most 
aristocratic class. Another and another followed in quick succession, and the 
terror of the city presently rose to a frantic height. Hitherto she had watched 
the contest in her harbor from afar. Xow, at last, at the most unexpected mo- 
ment, and from an utterly mysterious quarter, came the shells of the Avenger, 
bursting in her streets and shattering her costly habitations. 

But whence came they? General Gillmore was away beyond Fort Sumter, 
his heavy batteries nearly two and a half miles from that work, and scarcely less 
than eight from the city. The navy ventured no nearer. The Confederate 
line of defenses stretched beyond Sumter. Whence came these ill-omened mes- 
sengers, bursting through a line that for eighteen months had held armies and 
great Heets at ba}-? 

General Beauregard did not know, when he scornfully returned General 
Gillmoi-e's warning, that through all the energy of the engineering and artillery 



QUINCY A. GiLLMOEE. 639 

combat on Morris Island, the latter had been carrying on a distinct experiment 
far off to his left, in the oozy marsh, abandoned as impracticable by the troojis 
of either side. As early as the 15th of July, reconnoissances had been made to 
ascertain whether thei-e was any possibility of making this semi-fluid mud, over 
which men could not march, sustain a gun of ten tons weight, within shelling 
distance of Charleston. The mud was found even deeper and more treacherous 
than had been expected. It was so soft that the weight of the iron sounding- 
rod Avould carry it down half the depth by its own weight, and it varied in 
depth from eighteen to twenty-three feet. A plank thrown down on its surface 
would shake it for hundreds of square yards around as if it had been jelly. On 
this surface experiments were conducted to discover its sustaining power. For 
it was an essential element of the plan that the gun must be mounted without 
any use of obvious expedients like the common pile-driver; since these would 
inevitably disclose the attempt and bring down the enemy. Finally, a bed of 
round logs was laid down directly on the surface of the mud. Across these, at 
right angles, was placed another layer of logs, bolted down to those below. 
The interstices were filled with sand. On this foundation was built up a mass- 
ive parapet of sand-bags. The platform for the gun was given a totally sepa- 
rate foundation. Through both layers of logs a rectangular opening had been 
left of the proper size for the platform. This was now shut in by a circumfer- 
ence of sheathing piles forced down, by the exertions of the soldiers themselves, 
to the bottom of the mud. Within the space thus inclosed the mud was covered 
with layers of the long, coarse grass which grew over the marsh. When this was 
thoroughly trampled down, two thicknesses of heavy tarpaulins were spread over 
it. Upon these in turn was placed a layer of sand, well rammed down, and fifteen 
inches thick. In this was laid a flooring of three-inch pine plank. Aci'oss these 
two more layers of similar flooring were placed, and on the last was built the 
platform for the gun. Thus the jjarapet and the gun were independent. If the 
jar of the gun's recoil should cause its foundation to sink, the parapet would 
stand. Through all manner of practical difficulties these arrangements were 
completed, and when Beauregard chose to laugh at the threat to bombard 
Charleston, the shaking marsh over which his soldiers had not thought it worth 
while to venture, suddenly cast forth fire.* 

* General Beauregard complained of this bombardment of Charleston as without sufficient 
notice and unprecedented, .saying to Gillmore that it would " give him a bad eminence in his- 
tory, even in the history of this war," and dwelling on the fact that he was absent from his head- 
quarters when Gillmore's note was received. This, Gillmore responded, might " be regarded as 
an unfortunate circumstance for the city of Charleston," but he insisted that it was one for which 
he was not responsible. He called Beauregard's attention to the well-established princijjle that 
" the commander of a place attacked but not invested, having its avenues of escape open and 
practicable, has no right to expect any notice of an intended bombardment, other than that which 
is given by the threatening attitude of his adversary. If, under the circumstances, the life of a 
single non-combatant is exposed to peril by the bombardment of the city, the responsibility rests 
with those who have first failed to remove the non-combatants or secure the safety of the city, 
after having held control of all its approaches for a period of nearly two years and a half, in the 
presence of a threatening force, and who afterward refused to accept the terms upon which the 
bombardment might have been postponed." Only thirty-six shots, however, were fired from this 



640 Ohio in the Wae. 

It was on the 21st that this marsh battery opened. The bonibardment of 
Sumter over the heads of the garrison in Wagner continued till, on the 24th, 
General Gillmore was able to report as the result of the seven days' work "the 
practical demolition of Fort Sumter." The bai'bette fire of the fort, which the 
navy had specially dreaded, was completely destroyed. Not a mounted gun 
was left in serviceable condition. The walls were battered into ruins; the inte- 
rior of the fort was half filled iija with the shattered brick ; the casemates were j 
battered ; and but a single serviceable gun remained in the fort. It owed its safety | 
to the fact that it was on the city side and pointed, not down but up the chan- i 
nel. And this had been done from a distance of over two miles, in the face of i 
the dictum of the books that breaching efforts must be limited to about two- 
thirds of a mile, and in defiance of the intervening and powerful Eebel earth-' 
works, over which the fire was delivered. i 

And now comes the gloom}^ ending of the story — the frittering away of • 
great opportunities. j 

We have seen that at the outset the navy held Fort Sumter to be the !i 
key of Charleston harbor. With it reduced, they would have no fear of their'' 
ability to remove the channel obstructions and lay their ships alongside the 
wharves of the city. Fort Sumter w^as now practically reduced. Its offen- 
sive power was destroyed ; it could not bring a gun to bear upon the iron- 
clads as they should steam up ; it was solely an infantry outpost. But at this; 
auspicious moment there sprung up an ill-omened series of excuses for pro- i 
tracted delays. 

On the night of the 21st Admiral Dahlgren proposed to attack. In the 
morning he signalled Gillmore that the attack was unavoidably postponed, but 
that he would go up the next night. Gillmore replied, assuring him that, even 
in daylight, the fort could not fire a gun at him. The Admiral replied that his 
fear was no longer of Sumter but of Moultrie ! That night he would attack if 
the weather would permit. Next morning it was reported that the weather had I 
been so foggy that little could be done. Then, on the evening of the 23d Gen- 
eral Gillmore gave the navy formal notice that the offensive power of Sumter • 
was destroyed. Till the 26th the navy would seem to have remained torpid. . 
Then the Admiral jDroposed to "operate on the obstructions," and asked for the ^ 
renewal of Gillmore's fire on Sumter. He did not fear heavy guns from the -■ 
fort, he said, but wanted "to keep down the fire of small guns." But, alas! ' 
next morning came the notice, "My attempt to pass the forts last night was 
frustrated by the bad weather, but chiefly by the setting in of a strong flood I 
tide." And then, the next afternoon, "Not being able to complete my arrange- 
ments, I shall not move up to-night." And the next afternoon, "My chief pilot ' 
informs me a gale is coming on, and I am coming into the creek." The next ' 
afternoon — after six days and nights of time thus lost, came the announcement, 
"I shall move uji again with the monitors to-night." But, five hours later, at il 
nine in the evening, there came a change: "It has just been reported that Sum- 

battery, or " Swamp Angel," as the soldiers loved to call it, when the gun burst. Firing on 
Charleston was not resumed till after the fall of Wasner and Gregg. 



Ill] 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 641 

ter has fired several shots to-day, and operations were based on the supposition 
that Sumter was silenced. My movement is postponed." 

To this Gillmore responded: "Sumter has not fired a shot to-day. My 
look-out, who has been on the watch all day, is positive on this point." Then, 
again, an hour later, "The officer commanding the trenches kept several men 
on the look-out all day, in order to warn his men to cover whenever a gun is 
fired. He says Sumter has not fired to-day." But the doubting Admiral was 
of little faith : "Your look-out may be correct, but if he is in error, it would be 
fatal to my j)lans. My chief pilot, who was up the harbor to-day, reports that 
he saw guns mounted on Sumter, and that they were fired." Whereupon Gen- 
eral Gillmore, still maintaining that no guns had even yet been remounted 
there, promised, nevertheless, to open a heavy fire on the ruins in the morning. 
The Admiral was rejoiced : "All your fire on Sumter materially lessens the gi-eat 
risk I incur." But he still took good care not to incur it. After the day's 
bombardment for which he had asked, we find him at eight fortj^-five in the 
evening, reaching this conclusion : "It is so rough that I shall not move up with 
the monitors to-night." And then, the next morning: "I understand from my 
chief pilot that you will be able, day after to-morrow, to open and sustain a 
heavy fire on Sumter. I shall, therefore, postpone, at least for to-night, an in- 
tended movement." 

Eight daj's of precious time had now been consumed in half-hearted prepa- 
rations to move, abandoned each night almost as soon as formed, in fright at the 
ghost of artillery firing from the ruined fort. Meantime the gallant little gar- 
rison that still clung to the ruins had improved its opportunity by remounting 
four or five small guns on the heaps of shattered brick and mortar where once 
had been the parapet. On September 1st General Gillmore opened once moi*e, 
and by noon was able to report that three of these guns were disabled, and the 
remaining one or two soon would be. The Admiral was overjoyed : " I now 
intend to be in action to-night if nothing prevents." And so at last he went 
up. On his return General Gillmore eagerly sought to know if Sumter had 
offered any resistance — to the extent, even of firing a single gun — to this naval 
attack that, with Sumter silenced, was to sweep up to the city wharves. The 
Admiral was too much exhausted with his labors to reply, but his signal officer 
answered, "Not to my knowledge."* 

Ten days had now passed since Sumter had been effectively silenced. The 
golden moments were flitting fast. In all his official or private statements on 
the subject General Gillmore has cautiously avoided censure; but it is evident 
enough that he had now despaired of the navy.f With Sumter out of the way 

! * Correspondence between General Gillmore and Admiral Dahlgren ; Eng. and Art. Opera- 
ttions against Charleston, pp. 322 to 332. 

t In his report General Gillmore says: " The period during which the weakness of the ene- 
,my's interior defenses was most palpably apparent was during the ten or fifteen days subsequent 
to the 23d of August ; and that was the time when success couhl have been most easily achieved 
by the fleet. The concurrent testimony of prisoners, refugees," and deserters represented the 
jobstacles in the way as by no means insurmountable." And in a foot-note to these sentences he 
comments on any implication involved in Admiral Dahlgren's report to the effect that Fort 
Vol. I.— 41. 



642 Ohio in the Wak. 

it was to have entered the harbor and laid the city under its guns. It had 
utterly failed; and, of coui'se, the garrison in Sumter, which ensconced itself 
far below the exposed portions of the fort duinng fire, was ready enough to 
mount fresh guns at every opportunity. G-eneral Gill more therefore resolved to 
push his operations against Wagner, complete the occupation of Morris Island, 
and so cover the channel with his guns in such manner that, with or without! 
Sumter, the blockade would be perfect, and the navy could have the jDrotection 
of the guns on the extreme point for whatever less hazardous undertaking iti 
might still have spirit enough to adventure. And so we return to 

The Conclusion of the Siege of Fort Wagner. — As an operation against Charles- 
ton, or against Sumter as preparatory to Charleston, it has now lost its impor- 
tance; but it still possesses a scientific interest of its own, and in sj)ite of the; 
short-comings of the navy, it may still be made valuable. 

During the bombardment of Sumter the approaches to "Wagner had been" 
steadily pushed, till the third and fourth parallels were opened. This brought 
the works up to a point where the island had narrowed to a width of onlj^ ai 
hundred and sixty yards, while beyond it grew rapidly narrower still. One 
hundred yards in front ran a little ridge across the island, where in the earliesi 
days of the siege the sharp-shooters from Wagner had been accustomed to post 
themselves. Here Gillmore determined to establish his fifth parallel. The 
position was carried at the point of the bayonet on the 26th of August. 

Two hundred and fort}' yards in front stood Fort Wagner. The strip of 1 
the island yet to be crossed narrowed to a width of only twenty-five yards, overi 
which in rough weather the sea swept into the swamp on the left. The san^ 
was so shallow that it was with the utmost difficulty that the works could be 
constructed. The whole front was covered by the fort (many times wider than 
the island on the aj^proach to it), which, subtending an angle of ninety degrees, 
fairly enveloped the head of the approaches with its fire. From James's Islanffl 
on the left a flank fire was poured in, which grew more accurate and destruc- 
tive the nearer the works approached. To push forward the sap on that nar- 
row strip of shifting sand in the daytime proved impossible. In the night a 
brilliant harvest-moon made the difficulties almost as great. The men grewdis-' 
couraged, and even to the most hopeful the prosj)ect seemed gloomy. 

But the mind of the commanding officer was of a temper that difficult! 
could not break. He was encountering a problem new to engineering scienc 

Wagner had still been in the way of the projected naval operations. He says: "The fleet in 
entering Charleston Harbor need not necessarily go within effective range of Wagner at all." 
And again: "Some days elapsed (after the silencing of Sumter) before any of its guns were 
mounted by the enemy at other points in the harbor. These were the decisive days, when the 
enemy was comparatively weak and unprepared, for he had no idea that an attempt would be 
made, or that if made, it would be successful, to demolish Sumter at the distance of two miles, 
and he was in no condition to meet such a result. The failure of the fleet to enter immediately 
after the 23d of August, whether unavoidable or otherwise, gave the enemy an opportunity, 
doubtless much needed, to improve their interior defenses." And he adds, somewhat maliciously: 
"Of the actual strength of these improvements we had no reliable information, as they were 
never tested or encountered by the iron-clads." Report (N. Y. Edition), pp. 65, 66. 



QUINCY A. GiLLMOKE. 643 

to conduct siege approaches ovei* a terrain too narrow to admit of parallels. As 
he had believed that artillery could be made to do more than the books allowed, 
80 now he conceived approaches possible without the conditions which the books 
required. Moreover, he found the ground on his front mined and seamed with 
an ingenious system of torpedoes. The discovery which alarmed the soldiers 
quieted his own alarm. Over ground thus filled the enemy would not dare to 
make sorties ; and thus the only vital danger against which he could not now 
protect himself was averted. 

;Now, therefore, he determined to devote the whole power of his enormous 
artillery strength on two objects. With a curved fire from siege and Coehorn 
mortars he would so search with exploding shells the interior of the fort before 
him as to silence its guns, and drive its garrison to the bomb-proof for shelter. 
With his powerful rifles he would strive to breach the bomb-proof itself The 
conditions for a successful assault would then, beyond question, be secured. 

On the morning of September 5th these final operations were inaugurated. 
For the forty-two hours next following there was j)resented a spectacle of such 
sublimity in war as had never before been witnessed on the continent. Seven- 
teen mortars unceasingly puffed out, on their curved tracks, the great globes of 
metal that, falling and bursting within the fort, scattered destruction throughout 
its limits. Thirteen of the heaviest rifles — three hundred-pounders, two hundred- 
pounders, one hundred-pounders — none less — sent their whirling bolts into the 
sand that covered the bomb-proof Besides the track of the rifle balls beneath 
the curve of the mortar shells, the pioneers pushed on the sap, and the guards 
manned the zigzag trenches, to which, in lieu of parallels, they were now 
reduced. From the sea the Ironsides sent skimming in over the water in grace- 
ful ricochet, an incessant stream of eleven-inch shells that slowly took their 
last bound over the parapet of the fort, and exploded above the heads of its 
defenders. When the beleaguered garrison looked to nightfall for relief, pow- 
erful calcium lights from the parallels turned night into day ; and amid a brill- 
iancy that left the assailants in gloom, and illuminated the minutest details of 
the fort, the terrific bombardment went on. 

In a few hours the fort became absolutely silent. The sappers now pushed 
on their work like men delirious with a sudden freedom from great danger. 
The reliefs off duty exposed themselves fearlessly to view on the very glacis of 
the fort, climbed their parapets to watch the progress, explored the ground on 
their front to fish out torpedoes, approached the ditch and took a deliberate 
view of the fort and its surroundings. The sap was pushed by the south face 
of the fort, and it finally masked all the guns of the work save those of one 
flank. The Eebel batteries on James's Island and elsewhere were compelled to 
suspend their annoying flank fire; they could no longer trust the accuracy of 
their aim for the narrow limit that divided friend and foe. 

Then, selecting the hour when low tide would give a broad beach on which 
to debouch the column. General G-illmore ordered an assault. But Wagner was 
not to be so taken. It had twice repelled gallant assaults with sad slaughter. 
It was now to fall without assault and without a blow. The movement was 



644 Ohio in the War. 

ordered for nine o'clock on the morning of 7th September. But in tbe night 
deserters came in with the report that the Rebels were evacuating. When, at 
daybreak, the troops moved forward, they marched into Wagner unopposed.* 
The whole north end of the island was immediately occupied ; the batteries were 
directed across that channel toward Sumter, and lastly toward the doomed city 
itself 

With this brilliant success General Grillmore's operations practically ended. 
He sought, indeed, to take possession of Sumter by a storming party sent over 
in boats, but Admiral Dahlgren had, without his knowledge, determined upon 
the same effort for the same night, and was unwilling that the two parties should 
co-operate under whatever officer present, naval or military, might have the 
highest rank. General Gillmore's party was accordingly withdrawn. The Ad- 
miral's failed. Then, when the little garrison improved its opportunities by 
mounting more guns. General Gillmore once more dismounted them for the 
navy. Finally, he even proposed to take up the hai'bor obstructions in boats 
with his land forces, if only then the Adniiral could be induced to take in his 
iron-clads, when thus the open pathway for them was prepared. But by this 
time the dread of torpedoes in the channel, of fire from Moultrie and Johnson, 
of unknown and mysterious obstructions, had grown upon the naval com- 
mander, and nothing could be done. By and by the rifled guns were trained on 
Charleston, and the artillerists kept themselves in practice b}^ shelling its aristo- 
cratic mansions. The army had accomplished its part of the programme, and 
all that lay within its power, and it rested. 

To the brilliancy of the engineering and artillery exploits of General Gill- 
more in Charleston harbor, the whole world testifies. The General-in-Chief 
thought them worthy of such commendation as this in his Annual Eej^ort : 
" General Gillmore's operations have been characterized by great professional 
skill and boldness. He has overcome difficulties almost unknown in modern 
sieges. Indeed, his operations on Morris Island constitute anew era in the sci- 
ence of engineering and gunnery." The Department indorsed this praise by 
raising him to the rank of Major-General of volunteers. Not less emjjhatic was 
the admiring testimony of Professor Mahan, the General's old instructor in engi- 
neering at West Point, and a critic of siege operations not surpassed by any living 
military authority : " The siege of Fort Wagner forms a memorable epoch in the 

engineer's art, and presents a lesson fruitful in results In spite 

of these obstacles; in spite of the shifting sand under him, over which the tide 
ewept more than once during his advances; in spite of the succor and relief of 
the garrison from Charleston, with which their communications were free, Gen- 
eral Gillmore addressed himself to his task with that preparedness for every 

eventuality, and that tenacity which are striking traits of his character 

This remarkable exhibition of skill and industry, the true and always success- 
ful tools with which the engineer works, is a triumph of American science of 
which the nation may well be proud ; and General Gillmore, in the reduction of 
.Fort Pulaski, the demolition of Sumter, and the capture of Wagner, has fairly 

* Thirty-six pieces of artillery were found, most of them large. 



i 



QUINCY A. GrILLMORE. 645 

earned the title of PoUorcetes."^ British and French military critics united in 

similar applause; while the estimate of the masses of his fellow countrymen 

may be fitly represented in this concluding- jDaragraph from a leading editorial 

''■ of the New York Tribune on the subject: "Pulaski, Somerset, the landing at 

i Morris Island, the demolition of Sumter — Wagner: 'The greatest is behind!' 

I Whatever may be thought of the many deeds which may illuminate the sad 

1 story of this Great Rebellion, the capture of Wagner by General Gillmore will be 

regarded as the greatest triumph of engineering that history has yet recorded." 

In all this praise there was justice. General Gillmore had accomplished 
brilliant results in the face of difficulties which military science had pronounced 
insuperable. In demolishing Sumter he had revolutionized all previous ideas 
as to the cajaacity of rifled artillery against masonry forts — obtaining a power 
at long ranges of which even Pulaski had not given a conception. In carrying 
his parallels up to Wagner on a front only one-eighth as wide as the fi-ont of 
the fort itself, under flank and reverse fire, he had at least greatly modified all 
previous ideas as to the conditions under which siege approaches are possible. 
He was pitted throughout against a skillful antagonist; for whatever was 
thought of General Beauregard's ability in the field, the Confederate authorities 
eeemed to unite in regarding him as their ablest engineer. 

But the achievements in Charleston harbor lacked the crown of final success. 
The harbor was not occupied; the city, on the caj)ture and humiliation of which 
the Country had set its heart, was not taken. These circumstances are unim- 
portant, as regards the verdict of the scientific world on the brilliancy of the 
actual performance. But they are of vital consequence as regards any proper 
estimate of the worth of that performance as a means to the accomplishment 
of what was sought to be done. Did General Gillmore so reduce the obstacles 
in the way that the navy could have entered the harbor and laid the treasona- 
ble city under its guns? The naval authorities say he did not. General Gill- 
more thinks he did. 

It is his good fortune, however, since the close of the war, to be able to give 
a definite settlement to the question, by the testimony of the only competent 
witnesses. 

When at last the city against which so many eftbrts had failed, fell without 
a blow, General Gillmore was once more in command of the Department of the 
South. He moved directly up the channel— himself a passenger on the second 
vessel that adventured upon the path which the naval officers thought so stud- 
ded with horrors. Without encountering any accident or obstruction of note 
the vessel was laid alongside the wharves, v 

What then had stood in the way of the navy from the 23d of August, 1863, 
when the destruction of the oftensive power of Sumter was complete ? Admiral 
Dahlgren said, not specially Forts Moultrie and Johnson, against which, at 

■The good Professor is an unsurpassed judge of engineering, but he might have left out his 
musty classics. The somewhat alarming title which he bestows upon General Gillmore means 
«imph' " the taker of cities." It was known in Greek literature as the surname of Demetrius, 
■the son of Cassander, a fact which the Professor doubtless acquired from the Academy Plutarch, 



646 Ohio in the Wae. 

least in the earlier stages of the campaign, he professed entire readiness to con- 
duct his iron-clads. The channel obstructions he pi'onounced the real danger. 
But the channel obstructions seemed mythical, when Gillmore, sailing directly 
over their alleged locations, anchored before the city. When had they been re- 
moved ? 

An interesting correspondence sprang up between General Gillmore and 
General Eipley, whom Beauregard had in command of Charleston, General 
Gillmore asked this question: "Was there anything except the shore batteries 
to prevent the passage of our fleet up to the city and above it (at the time of the 
demolition of Sumter) by the channel left open for and used by the blockade- 
runners at night?" General Eipley answered, "No." General Gillmore then 
asked: "What were the relative condition and eflSciency of such obstructions 
and torpedoes as were used in Charleston harbor in the autumn of 1863, as com- 
pared with their condition in February, 1865, when the city came into our pos- 
session?" General Eipley answered: "The efficiency of the obstructions and 
torpedoes in the harbor was as great in January, 1865, as in the autumn of 1863. 
The torpedoes were more efficient just previous to the evacuation;" and he went 
on to say that the ideas prevailing in the fleet as to the dangerous nature of 
these obstructions were due to exaggerated reports purposely circulated by the 
defenders of the cit3^ The correspondence from which we have quoted is of some 
length, but it all goes to show that, in the estimation of the enemy themselves, 
the channel was practically ft'ee from any obstructions or torpedoes that ought 
to have delayed the passage of a fleet.* 

Yet on these obstructions Admiral Dahlgren seems to rest the greater part 
of his delay — finally resulting in the abandonment of offensive operations. We 
think, therefore, that the navy is clearly responsible for the failure; that Gen- 
eral Gillmore handsomely kept the promise made in Washington, and silenced 
the only opposition which the Navy Department then pi-ofessed to dread; that 
the engineer and artillery operations on Morris Island opened the way for the 
navy to Charleston; and that only unsailor-like timidity prevented the squadron 
from entering it. f 

After the surrender of Fort Wagner, on the 7th of September, 1863, Gen- 
eral Gillmore did little before Charleston, beyond the renewed fire on Sumter, 
which the navy requested, and the shelling of the city. 

But in February, 1864, having an available force of five thousand to six 
thousand, which could be spared from the works in the harbor, he forwarded 

*To this emphatic testimony should be added the statement of General Elliott, who was in 
command of Sumter from the 4th of September. He said to General Gillmore, after the close of 
the war, that there were no mounted guns in tlie fort from the 23d of August until the ensuing 
October. This would seem to rebut Admiral Dahlgren's complaints about the fire from Sumter 
as emphatically as General Ripley's statement does his complaint about the channel obstructions. 

t Of course there is no design in the above sentences to reflect on the many gallant oflBcers- 
m the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. On Admiral Dahlgren rests tlie full responsibility 
of the delay. Nor is there any disposition to question the skill or courage of that officer. But 
he lacked the warlike disposition that was required in the post he filled; and would have been 
better employed at his old work — casting great iron smooth-bores at the Washington Navy Yard. 



QuiNCy A. GrILLMOBE. 647 

them to Florida, to occupy a portion of the interior of the State. A double 
motive prompted the disastrous little campaign thus inaugurated. A large sup- 
ply of beef cattle found its way, over roads which General Gillmore now pro- 
posed to cut, from the interior of Florida to the commissariat of the Confederate 
armies. And a large tract of country seemed open to occupation, over which 
Mr. Lincoln was very anxious to establish the National authority, Avith refer- 
ence to the approaching Presidential election. General Gillmore's plan was to 
occupy Jacksonville, push up to Baldwin, the junction of the two railroads of 
Florida, and fortify and hold it. He accompanied the column until Baldwin 
was occupied. Then, giving directions for the fortification of both places, he 
returned to South Carolina. 

Thereupon General Seymour decided upon an advance toward some impor- 
tant roads beyond Olustee, to the SuwaneeKiver — a movement directl}' across the 
peninsula, in a country where the enemy could concentrate two to his one. He 
encountered General Finnegan, of the Rebel arm}", with a force not quite equal 
to his own, near Olustee.* But he was in marching order — only the head of 
his column was up — and he was disastrously defeated. General Gillmore. in 
reporting the matter, simply quoted the written orders he had given. The 
movement was in direct violation of them. 

Ko vindication, however, was needed. Nothing could be more unlike his 
habitual caution and careful style of movements than the ill-advised advance, 
and the public indignation was never directed toward him. Mr. Lincoln him- 
self, one of whose private Secretaries accompanied the march, with instructions 
looking to the registry and reorganization, was severely censured — with an in- 
temperance which most of the journals concerned soon afterward saAV reason to 
regret. 

It was now evident that the navy would make no adequate effort to enter 
Charleston Harbor, and that, by consequence, oj^erations there were practically 
ended. Chafing at the enforced idleness in which he was thus compelled to be 
a mere spectator of the great campaigns, Avhich, under the stimulus of Grant's 
recent appointment to the Lieutenant-Generalship, were then being organized. 
General Gillmore applied to be ordered, with the Tenth Corps (then a part of 
the force in his Department), to some other theater of war. He thus volunta- 
rily gave up his position as an independent Department Commander; and, as it 
soon turned out, exchanged it for a subordinate place under one of Grant's im- 
mediate subordinates, in which he was speedily to encounter a dangerous hos- 
tility. He was ordered to Fortress Monroe, to report to General Butler, then 

■•■ Finnegan liad about the same number of infantry as Seymour; but he had only four pieces 
of artillery, while Seymour had sixteen. 

Gillmore's order to Seymour said: "I want your command at and beyond Baldwin concen- 
trated at Baldwin without delay." After the receipt of this, Seymour wrote to Gillmore that he 
proposed to move clear across the peninsula to the Suwanee Eiver. Gillmore at once sent per- 
emptory orders forbidding such madness, but before the messenger sent post-haste with the orders 
could reach him, he had fought and lost Olustee — losing two thousand out of his five thousand 
men. The battle displayed conspicuously his personal bravery and his amazing incapacity. 



648 Ohio in the War. 

about to move up the James against Eichmond and Petersburg, in co-operation 
with G-rant's advance through the Wilderness. 

On the 4th of May General Gillmore reported with the Tenth Army Corps 
at Fortress Monroe. The next day he moved up the James, in rear of General 
W. F. Smith's corps, and on the night of the 5th both corps landed at Bermudas; 
Hundi-ed. On the 6th they advanced to the line stretching from the James to 
the Appomattox, and established themselves across the neck of the peninsula 
inclosed within the bends of the two rivers. No enemy had thus ftir been en- 
countered. Before them, within easy striking distance, laj^ Petersburg. But 
the next day was spent in an unimportant reconnoissance; the next seems to 
to have passed inactively, and it was not until the evening of the 8th that Gen- 
eral Butler ordered the troops out to the railroad between Petersburg and Eich- 
mond. Alread}^ however, there would seem to have sprung up an asperity of 
manner in the intercourse between the commander and his distinguished sub- 
ordinate. In ordering the movement upon the railroad. General Butler chose 
to use this language : " The enemy are in front with cavalry (five thousand 
men), and it is a disgrace that we are cooped up here. This movement will 
commence at daylight to-morrow morning, and is imperative. Answer if you 
have received this order, and will be ready to move." 

The order was promptly obeyed. The enemy was now met, for the first 
time, but in spite of his resistance, the road was torn up, and the advance was 
pushed forAvard to Swift Creek, a short distance in front of Petersburg. Here 
the line of the creek was found to be held by the enemy in some force, and there 
appeared to be no available crossing. Under these circumstances, Generals 
Gillmore andSmith, supposing the object of the movement to be an advance 
upon Petersburg, united in a note to General Butler, advising that the army 
draw back from Swift Creek, cross the Appomattox, swing around to the south 
of Petersburg, cut all the railroads, and enter the city. They submitted that 
all this could be accomplished in one day, that the route was easy, and that 
there was no probability of severe losses. General Butler's reply was — to say 
the least — tart: "While I regret an infirmity of purpose which did not permit 
you to state to me, when I was personally present, the suggestion which you 
make in your written note, ... 1 shall yield to the written suggestions, 
which imply a change of plan, made within thirty minutes after I left you. 
Military affairs can not be carried on, in my judgment, with this sort of vac- 
illation." 

Froni this point we must date the open appearance of the personal hostility 
which subsequently led to General Gillmore's leaving the Department. It must 
be confessed that the documents embraced in the official reports exhibit no suf- 
ficient justification for the tone General Butler had chosen to adopt. He had 
not explained his plans to his Corps Commanders. They imagined that he was 
seeking to isolate Petersburg. Having cut the connection with Eichmond, and 
having then encountered a formidable line of defense, they thought it wiser to 
draw away from this, swing southward and cut the other connections. General 
Butler doubtless somewhat influenced by the natural jealousy between a vol- 



k 



I 



QUINCY A. GrILLMOEE. 649 



unteer commander and regular army subordinates, preferred to regard this sug- 
gestion as offensive. He rebuked it in a manner which necessarily limited 
future intercourse with his Corps Generals to the dryest official forms, and 
which effectually cut him off from any probability of receiving further advice 
from these experienced officers in the conduct of the campaign. The evils that 
resulted are not far to seek. 

When General Butler landed at Bermuda Hundred he could have marched 
into Petersburg almost without firing a gun. When, three days later, he ad- 
vanced, the capture of Petersburg was still within his power — possiblj" by the 
approach over Swift Creek, which he seemed to wish — certainly and easily by 
the movement which Generals Gillmore and Smith suggested. But he was mis- 
led, as he states, by his information from General Grant, into the belief that his 
demonstration ought to be toward Eichmond, rather than Petersburg. And in 
the same way he was led to believe that General Kautz's cavalry had already 
cut the railroads below Petei-sbui-g.* 

So, after his tart note to his Generals, he ordered the troops back from Swift 
Creek, for a demonstration on Eichmond. But he conducted this so slowly that, 
beginning on the morning of the 10th, he only had his troops back in their in- 
trenchments at Bermuda Hundred the next morning. There, for the whole day, 
they lay inactive ; and it was not till the evening of the 12th that they moved 
out toward Eichmond and confronted the fast-gathering Eebel force under 
Beauregard f at Proctor's Creek. Meantime, in the withdrawal, a portion of 
General Gillmore's command had fallen into a sharp little engagement. Colonel 
Voris of the Sixty-Seventh Ohio, commanding a detachment from Terry's divis- 
ion, had been suddenly attacked and almost overpowered. Ee-enforcements 
were speedily sent in, and the enemy was driven back with an acknowledged 
loss of nearly three hundred. They had taken two pieces of artillery from 
Colonel Voria, which were recaptured. The action had a horrible ending. The 
shells fired the woods, and a large number of the enemy's dead and wounded 
were consumed in the flames. 

But now, on the evening of the 12th, Beauregard stood across the path of 
the proposed demonstration on Eichmond at Proctor's Creek. General Butler's 
orders here were judicious. He directed Gillmore to move off to the left (west- 
ward) and turn the flank of Beauregard's intrenched line. This flank was 
found on the commanding eminence of Wooldridge's Hill, half a mile west of 
the Petersburg and Eichmond Eailroad. Gillmore left a detachment on the 
railroad to assault the line then in front, so soon as the sound of his guns should 
give notice of his attack on the flank. These dispositions made the enemy ap- 
prehensive. The storming party sent against the hill was repulsed, but before 
another could be sent up it was seen that the enemy was rapidly evacuating. 

•■■ General Butler's reply to joint note of Generals Gillmore and Smith, dated Head-quarters 
Dept. of Va. and N. C, Bermuda Hundred, May 9, 1864. 

TThe Kcbels were taken by surprise by Gillmore's departure from Charleston; and, even 
with the advantage of railroads, had not begun to detach their surplus troops thence until after 
his landing at Bermuda Hundred. But the inconsequential movements that followed gave Beau- 
regard the needed time, and now he was up with the bulk of his command. 



650 Ohio in the Wae. 

Gillmoi-e thereupon moved into the deserted intrenchments, and following them 
down (eastward) toward the James Eiver, had occupied over a mile of the Eebel 
works when the night fell. Next morning he moved still further toward 
Drury's Bluff, whither the enemy's concentration tended, occupying a mile and 
a half more of the intrenchments, and forming a junction with the rest of But- 
ler's army, which had been moving up on the front. The line then moved for- 
ward, the enemy gradually falling back to his main line in front of Drury's 
Bluff. Thus the 14th and even the 15th were spent, with no more vigorous 
efforts than skirmishing. General Butler had proposed to assault on the 15th, 
but he had so disposed his line that the requisite force was not at hand, and the 
assault was postponed till the 16th. By that time Beauregard was ready to take 
matters out of his hands. 

The morning of 16th May was damp and foggy. Before daylight there 
came bursting through the fog a fierce fire of artillery and musketry upon the 
long thin line of General W. F. Smith's corps. Between the end of this line 
and the James River lay a stretch of over a mile of open country, covered only 
by a picket of one hundred and fifty cavalry. Through this also Beauregard 
sought to break; while another assault was shortly after delivered upon one of 
Gillmore's divisions, far to the left. 

At the first alarm. General Butler awoke to the perils of his thin, ill-pro- 
tected line. He hastily sent oi-ders to Gillmore to assault on his front, and thus 
relieve the attack that was bursting with such fury on Smith's front and flank. 
With the characteristic deliberation of the engineer, Gillmore replied that he 
would as soon as the troops were ready. Meantime the attack, already men- 
tioned, on one of his own divisions, had just been received and repulsed. 
While the troops were — not very rapidly as General Butler thought — getting 
ready for the assault he had ordered, this division had received two more attacks, 
and Gillmore was become apprehensive. An hour had elapsed since Butler had 
hastily sent his order to assault instantly; and we now find Gillmore writing: 
"The assaults on General Terry's front (in his corps) were in force. If I move 
to the assault and meet with a repulse, our loss would be fearful." Half an hour 
later he writes again : "I have just heard the report that General Brooks's right 
(of Smith's corps) is turned, and a twenty-pounder battery taken. I am ready 
to assault, but shall wait until I hear from you, as I may have to support Smith. 
Please answer soon." Presently the note came back with this indorsement: 
"No truth in report. Send reply, and use discretion as to assault. B. F. B." 
He used the discretion by still delaying. Then came orders to move by the 
right flank — the object being to shorten the line, and concentrate upon the j)oint 
where Smith was so heavily assailed. By thirty -five minutes past eight o'clock 
Gillmore was able to send word that his whole command was in motion as 
directed — but not ixntil renewed and anxious orders to that end had been 
received. 

He now decided, in the exercise of the discretion which General Butler's 
note had granted him, to make an attack upon the enemj^'s flank and rear with 
Terry's and Turner's divisions. But while the troops were beginning the en- 



QUINCY A. GiLLMORE. 651 

gagement, word came from Butler of Smith's having to fall back, and of the 
danger about the line of retreat, unless Gillmore hastened to cover it. Presently 
the anxiety about the road back to the intrenchments became greater. "If you 
don't reach the pike at once," wrote Butler, " we must lose it. Press strongly. 
This is pei-emptory. "We will lose turnpike unless you hurry." 

Two hours after the issue of this final order Grillmore reached the turnpike. 
The army at once retired to the intrenchments of Bermuda Hundred. On the 
20th Gillmore's pickets were driven in, and a part of his rifle-pits taken. The 
men rallied, however, and the enemy was finally driven out with considerable 
loss.* On June 9th General Gillmore was ordered, with the inadequate force 
of four thousand men, to make a reconnoissance of Petersbui-g and burn the 
bridge there over the Appomattox. He found the enemy in strong force in 
front of the bridge, behind earthworks. On the other side were strong works, 
with artillery sweeping the approaches. Doubting his ability to carry the 
works in front, and believing that, even if they were carried, it would still 
be impossible to burn the bridge under the fire from the other side. General 
Gillmore retired without attack. 

On his return he was relieved from the command of his corps, and ordered 
to report at Fortress Monroe. General Grant, hearing of this, and doubting 
whether Gillmore had been justly treated, ordei-ed him out of Butler's command 
altogether. 

The justice of these measures has since been the subject of acrimonious dis- 
pute betAveen the friends of the respective Generals. We do not j^ropose to add 
much to the discussion. It is plain that, whatever may have been General But- 
ler's dislike of General Gillmore's military performance, his feelings against 
him were much aggravated by the publication of a letter from Chaplain Hud- 
eon, of Gillmore's command, wherein Butler's indefensible conduct of the un- 
lucky battle of Drury's Bluff was severely criticised. Butler accused Gillmore 
with having inspired the letter. Gillmore averred that he knew nothing what- 
ever of it until he saw it in print. f 

Aside from this, Butler's complaints against Gillmore were of general slow- 
ness and apparent unwillingness in the execution of orders, and particularly of 
the return from Petersburg without firing a gun in any attempt to execute his 
orders. 

Now these complaints touch upon a general truth, which should have been 

. remembered by the authorities that assigned two such oflficers of engineers as 

Gillmore and Smith to command under a volunteer officer like Butler. 

^ The business of engineers is to devise means for making war safely. When 

in command of troops they rarely abandon the ideas of their old profession. 

They accustom themselves to look critically upon the orders even of officers 

*The losses in this affair were seven hundred and two; in the previous fighting on the lines 
about Drury's Bluff, three thousand three hundred and eighty-seven. 

tThe Chaplain was known to literary men as the editor of a popular edition of Shakspeare. 
Butler kept him imprisoned for some months. The Chaplain charged that he was treated with 
gross cruelty. The matter was finally carried to Grant, and was thought to have something to 
do with Butler's removal. 



652 Ohio in the War. 

whom, loj the West Point standards, they conclude to be skillful; and it rarely 
happens that they do not act as a check rather than a spur upon the prosecu- 
tion of an aggressive campaign. Under officers of whose capacity to conduct 
war scientifically they have doubts, their honest hesitation to execute orders 
which seem to them to offer only a wanton waste of life, often appears to their 
commanders to approach the verge of insubordination. It was so with Warren 
at Five Forks. In a less marked degree, and without complaint from his com- 
mander, it was so with McPherson at the outset of the Atlanta campaign. It 
was so with Weitzel (with reference to Grant's orders) at Fort Fisher. And it 
was so with Gillmore and Smith in the operations we have been tracing. 

At the outset they were cautious. Accustomed to reason upon large opera- 
tions, they concluded that Butler's intention must be to take Petersburg, and 
they took the responsibility of telling him what they thought the easiest and 
safest way to do it. General Butler apparently looked upon this as unwarrant- 
able interference, administered a sharp rebuke, and thus insured his deprivation 
of assistance from their sound judgments and skilled comprehension of topo- 
graphical difficulties again. They considered his line before the enemy, near 
Drury's Bluff, as too long, ill-supported, and without reserves; and General 
Gillmore took the liberty of protesting against it. General Butler neglected the 
warning, and regarded the author of it with an evil eye. In the ensuing battle 
General Gillmore was undoubtedly slow in obeying orders — the slower possibly 
because he could not fiiil to see the little wisdom that controlled some of them. 
His subsequent hesitation before the bridge at Petersburg was amply vindicated 
by the events of the campaign that followed. 

On the whole we may conclude that General Gillmore was harshly judged, 
because of the course which his engineering bias had led him to adopt from the 
outset; and that if he committed any errors, they were the natural errors of 
the engineer, who is unwilling to sacrifice lives, if he sees any way by which 
he can accomplish the end without such sacrifice. 

Soon after General Grant had rescued Gillmore from the enforced idleness 
to Fortress Monroe, to which General Butler ordered him, and had sent him 
at Washington, Early made his advance through Maryland upon the capital. 
Gillmore was at once seized upon, and placed in command of two divisions of 
the Nineteenth Corps the moment they arrived. While leading these in pur- 
suit of Early, three days after assuming the command, he was severely injured 
by the fall of his horse, and was necessarily relieved. He remained on leave of 
absence from 16th July to 21st August, 1864. 

When he was able to report for duty again, Mr. Lincoln was sorely harassed 
by the disputes and quarrels of the manufacturers of great guns with each other 
and with the authorities of the War and Navy Departments. Mr. Horatio 
Ames had constructed a wrought-iron rifled gun which neither Department was 
willing to adopt. He defied them to burst it, and claimed for it fiir greater 
durability and longer range than could be attained with any gun in the service. 
Mr. Lincoln finally thought that General Gillmore's great experience with rifled 



QUINCY A. GiLLMOEE. 653 

guns, made him the highest authority on the subject in the army, and ordered 
him to act as President of a Board for testing it. In this capacity he acted 
through the months of September, October, and November. 

The experiments were careful and severe. One of them was to load an 
imperfect fiftj'-pounder gun with sixteen pounds of powder and a three hun- 
dred-pound bolt, with the view of bursting it. This charge failed to injure it. 
Then twenty pounds of powder were used, and a four hundred and fifty-pound 
bolt. This caused the gun to recoil thirty feet, and sent the bolt through two 
mounds of earth ten and twelve feet thick respective^, and then eighty rods 
beyond. Finall}^, the gun was loaded with twenty pounds of powder and a 
two hundred-pound bolt, so inserted that the end of the bolt projected an 
inch beyond the muzzle of the gun. Against this projecting end was firmly 
placed a block of cast-iron weighing two thousand eight hundred pounds. 
The gun recoiled sixty feet. The cast iron block, 36 inches X 20 X 20, 
went through a bank of earth twelve feet thick, and flew forty feet beyond 
it. The gun seemed absolutely uninjured, and the attempts to burst it were 
abandoned. 

The process of manufacturing this remarkable gun is simple. It is built up 
of disks and rings of wrought-iron, separatel}^ heated and welded together. 
Two disks are first welded for the breech. Against these other disks are welded, 
until a sufiicient length of breech is obtained. Then rings are welded on wide 
enough to give the requisite size of bore, one after another being added until 
the desired length is attained. The gun is then bored out and rifled, the vent 
is drilled, and trunnions are screwed into the sides for mounting it. General 
Gillmore's report, finally made, was favorable, but the great expense of the gun 
has hitherto been urged as a sufficient reason for refusing to adopt them in the 
service. 

At the close of this work, Gillmore was appointed Acting Inspector-Gen- 
eral of Fortifications for the Military Division of the West Mississippi. The 
months of December, 1864, and January, 1865, were spent in a tour of inspec- 
tion, which extended from Cairo, Illinois, to Pensacola, Florida. 

At last the Government decided to return General Gillmore to the depart- 
ment in which his fame had been won, and in which his administration had 
been more satisfactorj' than that of any predecessor or successor. 

On the 30th of January the appointment was made ; on the 9th of Febru- 
ary he assumed command. Nine days later, leaving the navy afar off' at the 
outer bar to watch his adventurous course, he steamed up in a transport, over 
the obstructions they had found so formidable, entered the harbor, and, anchor- 
ing at the half-rotten wharves, occupied without opposition the city so long the 
object of so much hate and so many attacks. He had made its capture possible 
eighteen months before; it was fitting now that he should be privileged first to 
enter and take possession. 

He continued in the command of his large department, uninstructed as to 
the changes which the sudden coming of peace upon the land might involve. 



654 Ohio in the Wae. 

until the reorganization of the military departments. Meantime he reduced the 
entire region to order. He established provost courts in every town in Georgia 
and South Carolina, associating the local magistrates with his officers in the dis- 
charge of judicial duties. After thus giving an efficient government for imme- 
diate purposes, to the country under his command, he addressed an elaborate 
letter to the authorities at Washington, recommending the policy of establish- 
ing for some time a military government over the seceded States 

After the re-assigument of departments, he was given the command of 
South Carolina. His rule here was judicious and acceptable. He had little 
taste, however, for such military duties in time of peace. At his own request 
he was mustered out of the volunteer service, and assigned to the old familiar 
work in the Corps of Engineers. He bore back with him to his grade in this 
brilliant corps the clustering honors of the four highest brevets in the regular 
army, in reward for his achievements during the war. 

Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, United States Army, " For gallant and merito- 
rious conduct at the capture of Fort Pulaski, April 11, 1862." 

Brevet Colonel, United States Army, " For gallant and meritorious services 
at the battle of Somerset, Kentucky, March 31, 1863." 

Brevet Brigadier-General, United States Army, "For gallant and meritori- 
ous services in the assault on Morris Island, July 10, 1863." 

Brevet Major- General, United States Army, " For gallant and meritorious 
conduct in the capture of Forts Wagner and Gregg, and the demolition of Fort 
Sumter." 

General Gillmore's military standing is clearly defined by his career dur-* 
ing the war. He never displayed remarkable merits as a leader of troops 
in the open field. He was a good, but not a brilliant, corps General. If he 
committed no grave faults, on the other hand he never shone conspicuous above 
those that surrounded him. He was prudent, judicious, circumspect, not dash- 
ing, scarcelj^ enterprising. It is only fair to add that he was never tried on a 
large scale or under favorable circumstances. 

But in his proper province as an engineer and artillerist, he was as bold as 
in the field he was cautious. He ignored the limitations of the books. He ac- 
cepted theories that revolutionized the science, and staked his professional stand- 
ing on great operations based upon them. He made himself the first artillerist 
of the war. If not also the foremost engineer, he was second to none ; and in 
the boldness and originality of his operations against Wagner, he surpassed any 
similar achievements, not only in this war, but in any war ; so that now, not- 
withstanding the more varied professional operations around Eichmond, and 
Atlanta, and Vicksburg, when men speak of great living engineers, they think 
as naturally of Gillmore in the New World as of Todleben in the Old. 

General Gillmore is among the handsomest officers of the army. He is 
above the medium height, heavil}^ and compactly built, with a broad chest and 
general air of physical solidity. His features (shaded, not concealed, by his full 
beard) are regular and expressive. The face would be called a good-humored 



ii 



QUINCY A. GrlLLMORE. 655 

one. the head is shapely, and the forehead broad and high.* He speaks with 
nervous quickness, the more noticeable because of a slight peculiarity in the 
enunciation that gives a suggestion of his having sometimes lisped or stam- 
mered. He is an excellent talker, and is familiar with a wide range of subjects 
outside of his profession. In social life he appears as an elegant and accomplished 
gentleman. He was often remarked during the war for his apparent indiffer- 
ence to physical danger. His head-quarters on Morris Island were pitched 
under fire, and his soldiers used to tell of him that during the slow siege ap- 
proaches he often whiled away the tedium by reading novels or magazines while 
the enemy's shells were bursting in inconvenient proximity. 

His personal affiliations at "Washington have been mostly with Eepublieans, 
but he inclines a little to conservatism in his political views. He was never 
very emphatic in his approval of the policy of negro recruiting; and his rela- 
tions with Colonel Higginson, of Massachusetts, who commanded a negro regi- 
ment in his department, were scarcely kind. He sustained General Saxton in 
all his efforts for the good of the refugees on the Sea Islands, but it was known 
that he did not full}' agree with that earnest and humane officer in his belief in 
the enlarged capacities of the negro race. 

Long after the close of the war, General Gillmore was still a widower. 
His four boys were at West Point, under the care of their maternal grand- 
parents. He had bought the old farm on which he was born, and had converted 
it into a vineyard, which he still found time to visit on his occasional leaves of 
absence. 

* Elsewhere I have described the General's personal appearance thus : " Fancy a fine whole- 
some-looking, solid six-footer, with big head, broad, good-humored face, and a high forehead, 
faintly elongated by a suspicion of baldness, curly brown hair and beard, and a frank, open face, 
and you have him. A quick-speaking, quick-moving, soldierly man he is.". After the War. 
p. 131. 



(356 Ohio in the War. 



MAJOR-GENERAL IRVIN McDOWELL. 



IEVIN McDowell, Brigadier and Brevet Major-Greneral in the regu- 
lar army, Major-General of volunteers, the earliest to occupy high com- 
mand in the field at the East after the outbreak of the war, one of the 
best military scholars in the army, and one of the most unsuccessful of its offi- 
cei'S, "was born in the village of Franklinton, near Columbus, Ohio, on the 15th 
of October, 1818. 

The McDowell's were of Scotch-Irish descent. They had been driven out 
of Scotland by the religious persecutions. Finding an asylum in the north of 
Ireland they remained there until shortly after the siege of Londonderry (in 
which they took part), and then emigrated to the United States, settling first in 
the valley of Yirginia. Some of them, including the branch from which the 
future General sprang, removed thence to Kentucky. Abram McDowell sei-ved 
through the war of 1812 in his uncle's regiment of Kentucky volunteers. At 
its close he removed to Ohio, and settled near Columbus. His wife, Eliza Lord, 
was a member of the Starling family, one of the most influential in that county. 
Mr. McDowell is still spoken of by old citizens of Columbus as a perfect speci- 
men of the type of Kentucky gentlemen of the old school. But he was a victim 
to the convivial habits of those early times, and though he was always highly 
respected his last days were not happy. One other quality of his is described 
by those who remember him, which doubtless had much to do in shaping the 
character and history of his noted son. He was an intense aristocrat, priding 
himself on his culture, his social position, his refinement, and keeping haughtily 
aloof from the large mass whom he held to be beneath him. But he was never 
wealthy, and at one time was very much reduced in circumstances. 

His son, Irvin McDowell, grew up a warm-hearted, aff'ectionate, outspoken 
boy. But little by little, home influence and educational advantages began to 
change these characteristics. He was at first sent to the Columbus schools, 
where his old playmates remember him as being such a lad as we have de- 
scribed above. Then a French teacher, who had spent some time in Columbus, 
prevailed on Mr. McDowell to send his boy abroad for an education, and finally 
succeeded in taking young Irvin with him to Paris. The boy remained in a 
French school for a year or more. When he returned to his native country his 
father had procured for him a warrant for West Point, where he was accord- 
ingly admitted in 1834. 

On his return from France his playmates had observed the beginning of a 
change in his free, warm-hearted ways. At West Point the repressing influence 
seems to have continued. Socially he stood among the first in the Academy; 



Irvin McDo\yell. 657 

bui in his classes ho did not rank so high. P. G. T. Beauregard was graduated 
second in that ckiBs; Irvin McDowell was as low down as the twenty-third. 
But between these noted names was but one which the country now recognizes — 
that of Wm. F. Barry, the able Chief of Artillery to the Army of the Potomac; 
Avhile three places below McDowell was Wm. J. Hardee, and two below him was 
R. S. Granger. Fellow-students in the Academy with McDowell were Braxton 
Bragg, Jubal Ea-ly, E. D. Townsend, B. H. Hill, Wm. H. French, John Sedg- 
wick, John C. Pemberton, Joseph Hooker, and Wm. H. T. Walker, of the class 
above; and Henry W. Halleck, E. O. C. Ord, E. E. S. Canby, Wm. T. Sherman, 
George H. Thomas, E. S. Ewell, and H. G. Wright of those below him. Among 
these are some of the most noted leaders on both sides in the war of the re- 
bellion. 

On his graduation young McDowell was at once assigned to the Artillery, 
and ordered on duty on the Niagara frontier, where the "patriot difficulties"'^ 
were then exciting apprehensions. These settled, he was next ordered to the 
north-eastern boundary, during the progress of the controversy with Great 
Britain as to the disputed territory. A short interval of recruiting duty fol- 
lowed; then he was again on the Maine frontier; finally, in 1841, he was sent 
back to West Point as Assistant Instructor in Infantry Tactics. Here he re- 
mained for the next four years — one year teachin-g Infantry Tactics, and the 
other three serving as Adjutant of the Academy. 

Through this time he had grown to be a man of the world, reserved, formal, 
and polished. He had also devoted himself to the study of his profession, and 
had more than made up any of his deficiencies when a cadet. 

Such was the favorable impression which he now made upon the leading 
officer^ of the army, that he was selected as an Aid-de-Camp on the personal 
staff of General AYool — one of the positions then reserved for the most promis- 
ing and presentable of the younger officers. There thus began a long career 
of staff-duty (continued with few interruptions till the outbreak of the war of 
the rebellion) that gradually shaped the whole character of the man. Under 
its influence he became almost a martinet, rigid, precise, devoted to the routine 
methods, intolerant of innovations, little capable of accommodating himself to 
outside ideas. But he became at the same time thoroughly familiar with the 
whole theory of the art of war, and with the literature of his profession; while 
socially he was held to be one of the most jjolished and charming of men. 

From October 6th, 1845, to May 13th, 1847, he was Aid-de-Camp to General 
Wool. At Buena Vista he behaved handsomely; and for "gallant and meritori- 
ous conduct" there he was brevetted Captain. On May 13th, 1847, he became 
Assistant Adjutant-General, first for General Wool's division; 'then, on Decem- 
ber 9th, 1847, for the Army of Occupation, which last position he continued to 
hold till the end of the Mexican war. 

In June and July, 1848, he was engaged in mustering out the volunteers as 

they returned from Mexico; then for a year he was kept on duty in the War 

Department. By this time General Scott had fixed upon him for one of his 

staff. He Avas now thirty years of age; and his mental habits began to be 

Vol. L— 42. 



658 Ohio in the Wak. 

settled. Under the immediate supervision of General S30tt, they were not 
likely to change. He remained on staff-duty with the General-in-Chief of the 
army (with brief intervals of staff service with Albert Sidney Johnston and 
General Twiggs) until the outbreak of the war.* He was g'veii, however, leave ^ 
of absence for a year, which he spent in traveling in Europe Through all this 
time he veiy rarely visited his old home. It was thought by his former asso- 
ciates that the shadow on the home circle had something to do with his absence, 
and that he had thus grown colder and more reserved. It had certainly shaped 
his own habits in an important particular ; he was known amon^' his comrades 
as the most faultlessly pure and temperate man in all things in the army. He 
never played cards; never joined the drinking bouts of his comrades; never 
tasted even wine with them, and abstained so rigoi-ously from all stimulants 
that he never drank even tea or coffee. 

When the war came, McDowell, now a Brevet Major, was on duty in the 
War Department. Secretary Chase, whose residence at Columbus while Gov- 
ernor of Ohio, had made him acquainted with his histoiy, at once sought out 
the young Ohio officer. To every member of the Government military matters 
were a mystery. Yet a military system was a thing of instant demand. On 
Mr. Chase, far more than would have been expected from the nature of his 
office, fell the burden of organization. He has since repeatedly declared that 
he owed more to the clear head and admirable executive faculties of Major 
McDowell than to any other source. The Major was consulted about almost 
everj^thing — about the calls for troops, the assignment of regular officers, the 
number of Generals needed for the new troops, the organization, pay — in a 
word, about the multifarious details of a complex military organism, into the 
midst of Avhich the perplexed and bewildered authorities found themselves sud- 
denly plunged. Oil Lieutenant-General Scott, as the nominal head of the army, 
everything depended. But the veteran was old and bowed down with infirmi- 
ties; and he gladly left much to the vigorous and accomplished young officer 
who had been in his military family so long, and in whose professional knowl- 
edge he had learned to place confidence. 

Thus trusted by the General at the head of the army, and consulted by the lead- 
ing civil officers of the Government as authority on all matters concerning the war, 
McDowell had for the time, perhaps, the most potent influence exercised by any 
of our military men. He was found on all hands prompt, judicious, singularly 
clear-headed, and earnestly desirous to do whatever might aid the cause. 

"■■• For those who may desire an exact statement of his service, it may be added that from 
June, 1849, to January, 1851, he was with General Scott ; from January to May, 1851, with Gen- 
eral Clarke; from June, 1851, to March, 1853, with General Twiggs; from May, 1853, to Novem- 
ber, 1856, with General Scott; from December, 1856, to May, 1857, with Albert Sidney Johnston 
in Texas; from June, 1857, to November, 1858, with General Scott; from November, 1858, to 
November, 1859, on leave of absence in Europe; from November, 1859, to January, 1860, with 
General Scott; from February to April, 1860, with Sidney Johnston; then as Inspector-General 
in Minnesota, Missouri, and Kansas, from September, 1860, to February, 1861; and, finally, sent 
by Scott, and practically under him to the War Department, whence he was taken in 1861 for 
the command of the army to invade Virginia. 



Irvin McDowell. 659 

Meanwhile at his old home diverse interests were busy with his fortunes. 
The Governor of Ohio was bis relative by marriage, and was disposed to look 
on him, as they did at Washington, as among the best of our active soldiers. 
Grovernor Dennison at first — and indeed before he knew what I'ank such com- 
mander would require — proposed to appoint McDowell to the command of the 
Ohio contingent. He went so far as to inform him of this purpose. But about 
this time prominent gentlemen in Cincinnati began to urge upon him a Captain 
McClellan, whom he had once met in a railroad convention, and of whom army 
ofiicers spoke highly. At first he hesitated; then, as the pressure from Cincin- 
nati increased, and he was told more and more of Captain McClellan's standing 
in the army, he began to think his prestige greater than that of McDowell ; and 
his appointment therefore likely to have a better eff'ect upon the gathering 
forces. Furthermoi'e McDowell seemed likely to be kept busy and provided for 
at Washington, while McClellan was not in the service at all, and his friends on 
the ground were earnest in urging that he be set to work. Under such influ- 
ences McClellan was appointed, and the Governor wrote to McDowell, exjDlain- 
ing his action and motives. 

Just then, by McDowell's aid and generally in accordance with his sug- 
gestions, the War Department had issued its " General Order No. 15," prescrib- 
ing certain features of the organization of volunteer troojDS. One of its pro- 
visions was that, save in the three months' service, the Governors of States 
should have no power to appoint oflScers above Colonels of regiments. In his 
reply to Governor Dennison he alluded to this regulation as one under which 
he was likely to be promoted, and generously recited the praises of the officer 
who had been jireferred before him : 

"I congratulate you on the credit which justly attache.s to yon for your appointment of !Mc- 
Clellan to the chief command. Among al] our graduates yet in the vigor of youth, he is of the 
first order. I say it in all sincerity, that though he has the place to which I a.spired, the com- 
mand of the troops of my native State (of which I am still a citizen), you have done better for 
the State, and better for the Country, than if you had adhered to your first intention of ap- 
pointing me. Don't, therefore, take the trouble to say anything more about it. I know how 
you were placed, and can imagine your position, as well as if I had been present." 

It was a generous spirit which McDowell thus displayed, and of which he 
was soon to give further evidence. It would have been fortunate, indeed, if he 
had been himself dealt with as unselfishly when McClellan came to exercise 
command near the Capital. 

Within a few hours after this letter to Governor Dennison was written, 
General McClellan was, partly on McDowell's own recommendation, appointed 
to a Major-Generalship in the regular army. General Scott had consulted with 
his old staff officer as to the young men in the army best suited for large pro- 
motion. McDowell named McClellan and Buell. Scott praised both. But he 
was doubtful about McClellan's j-outh. Others in the Government, greatly 
pleased by this time with the accomplished, willing, and very serviceable young 
officer, suggested that perhaps McDowell himself would do better for one of the 
Major-Generalships. From this he modestly shrank 



660 Ohio in the War. 

He was soon to find, indeed, that even less rapid iDromotion was to work . 
him and the country great injury. Mr. Chase and Mr. Cameron were both so 
highly pleased with the ability and zeal shown by McDowell in all the coa- 
sultations and military arrangements into which they were plunged that they 
resolved on having him advanced to a position of higher influence. Accord- 
ingly the same order that announced McClellan's promotion told that Brevet- 
Major Irvin McDowell had been made a Brigadier-General in the regular army. 
But the honor was attended with an ill omen. It excited the disj^leasure of the 
old and petulant General-in-Chief, and the army was full of traditions to the 
eifeet that no man in it could ever prosi^er who had once, by any accident, 
aroused the hostility of Winfield Scott.* 

It Avas understood that the promotion was secured by the Cabinet, with 
reference to a command in the field, under the eye of his old chief For General 
Scott had already been forced to abandon his opposition to hostile operations in 
Yirginia, and his plan for sweeping down the Mississippi with a powerful force ; 
to the Gulf That the old strategist gave way with regret, may well be be^ 
lieved. But the popular demand for action was not to be resisted ; the seces- 
sion of Virginia was no longer doubtful, and the head and front of the Confed- ■ 
erate strength was there arraying itself Thither it was already decided to 3 
send General McDowell. In a letter that day written we catch some glimpses^ 
of the temper in which he contemplated his task : 

"I have intimations that I am to have an active command in Virginia. 
. . . If I am placed in any responsible jiosition here I wish you would write ■ 
to your friend the Postmaster-General — whom I know but slightly — of the 
friendship you bear me, that I maj also look to him for the support any one 
leading a body of raw men into a hostile State, with an excited countr}^, expect- 
ing some positive and immediate success, must daily need."t 

These words are suggestive. Plainly the new General had his full share 
of the regular army feeling against the volunteers. Plainly he had his full 
share of the regular army feeling against any intei'ference by the people in the 
war they were to support, and especially against an}^ popular demand for speedy 
movements. But something more may be seen here than mere army opinions 
or prejudices. It is evident that at the verj" outset the General was placed in 
the fiilse position of having to look to civil officers, rather than to his military 
superior, for support. | 

For General Scott, hostile originally to McDowell's promotion, was now^ 
found to be hostile to his assignment to duty in Virginia, and, indeed, to any 
movement in Virginia, beyond the mere fortification of Arlington. At first he 
proposed to leave the occupation of the Virginia side to a volunteer officer,^ 1 

■■■■■General Scott had opposed my somewhat rapid promotion because he thought it was doing 
a hurt to General Mansfiekl ; and when I was promoted, he insisted that General M. should also 
be promoted, to date back a week before my own promotion. McDowell's Testimony before 
Com. on Con. War ; Report Series of 1863, Vol. II, p. 37. 

t Letter of McDowell to Governor Dennison, under date, Washington, 14th May, 1861. 

t General Sandford, of the New York militia. 



Irvin McDowell. 661 

whom he wanted to get out of Washington. The Department told him he must 
send over a regular — either Mansfield or McDowell. Then, wishing to keep 
Mansfield in the city, he named McDowell, but made secret efforts to thwart the 
wishes of the Department b}' inducing him to prefer a personal request not to 
be sent across the Potomac. Twice he sent his Aid-de-Camp and military sec- 
retary to McDowell, urging him to make this request. The young General was 
not blind to the consequences of again arousing the displeasure of his chief, but 
he recoiled with some natural feeling from the proposition. "Just appointed a 
general officer," he says, "it was not for me to make a personal request not to 
be required to take the command which I had been ordered upon. I could not 
stand upon it. I had no reputation as he had, and I refused to make any such 
application." 

The baleful effects of the anger thus aroused were destined long to oppress 
the country. In three or four ways General Scott had been overruled and dis- 
appointed. He had wanted his old staff officer promoted less rapidly; he had 
wanted him reserved to lead the advance of his .proposed grand expedition 
down the Mississippi ; he had opposed any movement into Virginia beyond Ar- 
lington ; and he had striven in any event to keep McDowell out of it. He* 
yielded, indeed, to the authority of the Cabinet, which settled every one of these 
questions over his head ; but he yielded with a bad grace, and petulantly threw 
obstacles in the way of operations he could not forbid. 

On the night of the 23d of May, 1861, wnthin a few hours after the close 
of the polls at which Virginia had been voted out of the Union, the order for 
crossing the Potomac was given. By daylight General McDowell found him- 
self in possession of the heights of Arlington and the little stretch of country 
down to Alexandria, with an army of about ten thousand men. 

The country hoped for a speedy advance. Ignorant of war and war's re- 
quirements, it could see no obstacle in the lack of transportation, of supplies, 
of officers, of discipline. There may have been an element of wisdom in this 
haste. Quite probably the Eebel force then confronting McDowell was as ill 
off as his own, or even worse. And it was by no means impossible that, if the 
oolumn which on the 24th of May occupied Arlington, had been pushed out 
into the countr}', it might have taken Manassas with comparativel}- slight 
resistance. 

But General Scott wanted no advance, and for weeks he took effectual 
means to prevent it. "I got everything with great difficulty," says the unfor- 
tunate object of his displeasure. "I was there a long Avhile without anything. 
No additions were made to the force at all. With difficulty could I get any 
officers. . . . General Scott was cool for a ffreat while." * 

Meanwhile, in the discussions of the Government, Scott protested against 
going any further in Virginia, and renewed his old suggestions. He would ac- 
cumulate a large army at Washington solely to make the Capital safe. The 
eummer should be spent in drill. With the first frosts of autumn another great 

■■Kep. Com. Con. War, ubi siipra. 



662 Ohio in the Wak. 

army should be coiacentrtited at St. Louis and sent down the Mississippi Valley 
to the Gulf. 

General McDowell's views were asked on this project by the Cabinet officers 
who had previously learned to rely upon his military judgment. He was not 
prudent, perhaps ; and yet as General Scott had proposed giving him the ad- 
vance of this great expedition, he could not well refuse to express his opinion 
about it to the Government when called upon. "I did not think well of that 
plan, and was obliged to speak against it in the Cabinet," he tells us.* "I felt 
that it was beyond expression a hazardous thing for our paper steamboats to try 
to go down the river on such an expedition. ... I thought the plan was 
full of most serious and vital objections. I would rather go to Kew Orleans the 
way that Packenham attempted to go there." 

After this we maj' well believe that the angr}' Lieutenant-General would 
take still less pains to help along this presumptuous staff officer of his. Week 
after week went by, and still the commander of the column that was daily ex- 
pected to mcrve upon the enemy could get nothing that he wanted. His force 
was without organization, without commissariat, without transportation, with- 
out organized artillery. He was even himself without a competent staff. "1 see 
McDowell do things of detail," wrote gruff old Count Gurowski in his diary,t 
"which in any even half-way organized army belong to the specialty of a Chief 
of Staff." " He' receives his troops in the most chaotic state. Almost Avith his 
own hands he organizes, or rather puts together, the artiller3^ Brigades are 
scarcely formed ; the commanders of brigades do not know their commands, 
and the soldiers do not know their Generals." "There were only four small 
tents," writes Mr. Wm. H. EussellJ in an account of a visit to McDowell, when 
he was striving to beat his armj^ into shape for work, " for the whole of the 
head-quarters of the 'Grand Army of the Potomac,' and in front of one wo 
found General McDowell, examining some plans and maps. His personal staff, 
so far as I couM judge, consisted of Mr. Clarence Brown and three other offi- 
cers. ... I made some remark on the subject to the General, who replied 
that there was great jealousy on the part of civilians respecting the least ap- 
pearance of display, and that as he was only a Brigadier, though he was in 
command of such a large army, he was obliged to be content with a Brigadier's 
staff." 

In the midst of such difficulties, of which it knew nothing, the country 
saw week after week go by, till the time of the troops had nearly expired, and 
almost two months had been spent in Virginia without an advance of as many 
miles. Then there rose in men's minds all over the land a demand for action. 
One skillful in reading the popular will caught this demand and einbodied it in 
the pregnant motto, " On to Richmond." The Confederate Congress was soon 
to meet there; it would be a shame, it was said, if, with the great army gather- 
ing on the south bank of the Potomac, the stars and stripes should not once 
more wave over Richmond before the day for that assembly arrived. 

*Eep. Com. Con. War, ubi supra. ^ tFor 1861-2, p. 61. 

JMy Diary North and South, Am. Ed. p. 395. 



i 



Ievin McDowell. 663 

Thus beset by the popular will, as well as urged forward by its own desires, 
the Administration demanded a plan of movement from its General in the field. 
He promptly responded. The Confederate force was scattered, partly nk • 
Fortress Monroe, south of him, partly near Harper's Ferry, north of him, ana 
partly near Manassas, in front of him. He believed he could drive the force in 
his front, if he could on]y be protected from a junction of the others against 
liim. That secured, he would move out directly against Manassas ; would feign 
on his front, while passing the bulk of his force bj- the left around the enemy's 
flank, to fall upon the raih-oad in his rear. The plan was based upon sound 
military principles ; it was explained to the Administration with all that suave, 
plausible address which makes McDowell the best man in the army to present a 
case to a Congressional committee, or plead a professional cause before any tri- 
bunal; and it was promptly accepted by the Cabinet. The 9th of July was 
named as the day for beginning its execution. 

But now arose fresh difficulties. General Scott had indeed yielded, but he 
was no more dispo.sed than before to lend any aid for smoothing the path of his 
subordinate. General Mansfield, in command in Washington, still had the most 
of the troops, and he was ill-pleased at seeing his force divided, and his troops 
given to his junior to lead into action. And besides, there was still an actual 
want of many things essential to a moving army. So it came about that on 
every hand poor McDowell found himself hampered and thwarted and delayed. 
Some of his embarrassments he subsequently recited in his manly statement to 
the Committee on the Conduct of the War: 

"Some of my regiments came over very late; some of them not till the very day I was to 
move the army. I had difficulty in getting transportation. In fact I started out with no baggage 
train; with nothing at all for the tents; simply transportation for the sick and wounded, and the 
munitions. The supplies were to go afterward. I expected the men to carry rations for three 
days in their haversacks. If I went to General Mansfield for troops, he said, 'I have no trans- 
portation.' I went to General Meigs, and he said he had transportation, but General Mansfield 
did not want any to be given out until the troops should move. I said, ' I agree to that, but between 
you two I get nothing.' 

"The Quartermaster begged of me not to move, because he was not ready. I said, ' We must 
move on Tuesday,' which was one week after the time General Scott had fixed. All my force 
had not come over by the time he fixed. A large part came over on Sunday, and some on the 
very Tuesday I moved. I told the General I was not ready to go. Said I to him, ' So far as 
transportation is concerned, I must look to you, behind me, to send it forward.' 

"I had no opportunity to test my machinery; to move it around and see whether it would 
work smoothly or not. In fact, such was the feeling that when I had one body of eight regiments 
of troops reviewed together, the General censured me for it, as if I was trying to make some 
show. I did not think so. There was not a man there who had ever maneuvered troops in large 
bodies. There was not one in the army — I did not believe there was one in the whole country — 
at least I knew there was no one there who had ever handled thirty thousand troops. I had seen 
them handled abroad, in reviews and marches, but I had never handled that number, and no one 
here had. 

" I wanted very much a little time ; all of us wanted it. We did not have a bit of it. The 
answer was, ' You are green, it is true ; but they are green also ; you are all green alike.' " 

To put the whole story in a single sentence : General Scott having delayed 
and opposed the movement till the last moment, then hurried it forward with- 



664 Ohio in the War. 

out giving time for the needful prei^arations, and without even doing what he 
might to remove the obstacles in McDowell's way. 

It is quite possible that the young General, in the strength of his convic- 
tion that this conduct was unwise, held back a little more than was judicious. 
It is certain that he did not have very flattering opinions of the material with 
which he had to work, and that he did not succeed in gaining the confidence of 
the volunteers.* He had, indeed, oftended the most of them by his efforts to 
restrain them from pillage, and from the disgraceful wanton destruction of 
property which began with their entry into Virginia,. At the very time that, a 
few miles distant, General Beauregard was issuing an inflammatory appeal to 
the Southern army and people to resist the Vandal invaders who approached 
with fire and sword, under the banner of Beauty and Booty, General McDowell 
was rebuking his subordinates for the too lax enforcement of the following 
order, three days before issued : 

"Head-Quarters Department op North-East Virginia, | 
" Arlington, June 2, 1861. ^ 

" General Order No. 4: 

"Statements of the amount, kind, and value of all private property taken and used for 
Government purposes, and of the damage done in any way to private property, by reason of the 
occupation of this section of the country by the United States troops, will, as soon as practicable, 
be made out and transmitted to department head-quarters of brigades by the commanders of 
brio-ades, and officers in charge of the .several fortifications. These statements will exhibit : 

" 1, The quantity of land taken possession of for the several field-works, and the kind and 
value of the crops growing thereon, if any. 

" 2. The quantity of land used for the several encampments, and the kind and value of the 
growing crops, if any. 

" 3. The number, size, and character of the buildings appropriated to public purposes. 

" 4. The quantity and value of trees cut down. 

"5. The kind and extent of fencing, etc., destroyed. 

" These statements will, as far as possible, give the valufe of the property taken, or of the 
damage sustained, and the name or names of the owners thereof. Citizens who have sustained 
any damage or loss as above will make their claims upon the commanding officers of the troops 
by whom it was done, or, in cases where these troops have moved away, upon the commander 
nearest them. 



* Mr. Wm. H. Russell gives a description of McDowell as he appeared and talked about that 
time, which is, in some of its details, quite suggestive. My Dairy, North and South, Am. Ed., 

p. 389. 

" He is a man about forty years of age, square and powerfully built, but with rather a stout 
and clumsy figure and limbs, a good head, covered with close-cut, thick, dark hair, small, light- 
blue eyes, short nose, large cheeks and jaw, relieved by an iron-gray tuft, somewhat of the French 
style, and afiecting in dress the style of our gallant allies. His manner is frank, simple, and 
agreeable, and he did not hesitate to speak with great openness of the difficulties he had to con- 
tend with, and the imperfection of all the arrangements of the army. 

" As an officer of the regular army, he has a thorough contempt for what he calls 'political 
Generals,' the men who use their influence with President and Congress to obtain military rank. 
Nor is General McDowell enamored of volunteers, for he served in Mexico, and has, 
from what he saw there, formed rather an unfavorable opinion of their capabilities in the field. 
He is inclined, however, to hold the Southern troops in too little respect ; and he told me that 
the volunteers from the slave States, who entered the field full of exultation and boastings, did 
not make good their words, and that they sufiered especially from sickness and disease, in con- 
qnence of their disorderly habits and dissipation." 



Ikvin McDowell. 665 

" These claims will accompany the statement above called for. The commanders of brigades 
will require the assistance of the commanders of regiments or detached companies, and will 
make this order known to the inhabitants in their vicinity, to the end that all loss or damage 
may, as nearly as possible, be ascertained while the troops are now here, and by whom, or on 
wliose account, it has been occasioned, that justice may be done alike to the citizen and to the 
Government. The name of the officer or officers, in case the brigade commanders shall insti- 
tute a l>oard to fix the amount of loss or damage, shall be given in each case. 

" By order of Brigadier-General McDOWELL. 

"James B. Fky, Assistant Adjutant-General." 

Against sucli measures the volunteers, with loose ideas of discipline, or of 
the rights of non-combatants, but with a vague desire to see Virginia punished 
and humbled by the sufferings of war, revolted ; and fresh orders were soon 
needed to enforce obedience to the first. 

Meantime, with infinite confusion, McDowell had got together some of the 
elements of an army. The pressure of the Administration for movement, pow- 
erful enough before, now began to be intensified by another motive. The force 
in Virginia was mostly made up of three months' troops, whose term of service 
was now near its expiration. Unless an advance was made speedily it could 
not be made at all for months to come. This fiaet, which might have suggested 
the difficulty of maintaining the offensive, even if it were once assumed, the 
rather oj^erated to press on the ill -prepared movement. A single battle, it was 
still quite generally believed, would practically end the matter, and the contin- 
gency of an unfavorable result seems to have been scarcelj^ considered at all. 
Furthermore, there had been two unfortunate little affairs — those of Vienna and 
Big Bethel — the results of which had greatly mortified the peojjle, and had 
deepened the desire for a sudden victory that should wij)e out their memory. 

So, at last, on the afternoon of 16th July, the army moved. It was found 
within an hour or two that a new difficulty had arisen. The maps of Virginia 
were grossly imperfect. The topographical features of the country had never 
been studied with reference to militar}^ operations, before the war ; and now our 
officers found that they were moving out into a region of whose characteristics 
they had only vague information, and that what they had was often incorrect. 
This, and the childish delusion about " masked batteries,"' into which the folly 
of the newspapers and the talk about Vienna and Big Bethel had led the army, 
combined to make the advance slow. Another fact tended still more strongly 
to the same result; the men were utterly unaccustomed to marching, and but 
little under the control of their officers. The loose-jointed, ill-adjusted machine 
thus moved off awkwardly and cumbrously enough. 

The next afternoon (17th July) the army reached Fairfax C. H. General 
McDowell strove to push on to Centreville that night, but was unable to accom- 
plish it, and did not get there till the next day. Meanwhile he had himself 
been compelled to go off on staff duty of all sorts — actually returning once (on 
the evening of the first day) to hunt up a couj)le of batteries which were ex- 
pected by rail and had not yet arrived.* 

*"0n arriving at the Washington platform, the first person I saw was General McDowell, 
i alone, looking anxiously into the cars. He asked where I came from, and when he heard from 



666 Ohio in the Wak. 

From Centreville he was now forced to push out reeonnoissanees in the 
direction of his j)roposed turning movement b}' the left, to ascertain the nature 
of the country, for which he found that he could no longer rely upon his maps. 
Here one more piece of ill-luck befell this hapless commander. The officer ia 
charge of one of these reeonnoissanees, a division General, whose rank, at least, 
might have been supposed to bespeak some discretion,* came out upon a little 
stream, scarcely known then, but soon to be made memorable forever. He hud 
reached Bull Eun. jSTow this officer was thirsting for military glory, and, 
withal, little knew how to attain it. He was impressed Avith the conviction 
that "the great man of this war Avould be the man that first got to Manassas," 
and so, on finding scarcely an}' opposition thus far, he avowed his determina- 
tion to go on that night. He was not unmindful of the positive order of Gen- 
eral McDowell not to bring on an engagement; but in the height of his excite- 
ment over the prospect which he fimcied to be opening before him, he ordered 
up his artillery and opened on a Eebel battery on the opposite shore. Pres- 
ently he brought up his infantry also, and began a musketry fusilade. Some 
officers of the staff, who were present, now reminded the division commander 
that this was contrary to General McDowell's orders. While they talked, the 
enemy crossed below, presently fell upon the flank of the reconnoitering col- 
umn, and sent back the General who was going through to Manassas that night 
with his command in considerable confusion. 

This affair (subsequently knoAvn as the skirmish at Blackburn's Ford) had 
a dispiriting effect upon the army, which, starting out on the idea that nothing 
could stand before it, found one of its divisions retreating in the first skirmish. 
But it had a worse effect in disclosing the nature of our movements to the- 
enemy, and in drawing his attention specially to the flank which McDowell had 
proposed to turn. 

This and the difficult nature of the countrj^ combined to induce the aban- « 
donment of the plan which the Cabinet had approved, and for which the move- ' 
ment had been made. On the night of the 18th of July, therefore, in addition 
to all his other embarrassments Avith his new force and his own inexperience^ 
General McDowell found himself forced to devise some new plan of operations. 

Two days were spent bj' the engineers in seeking some spot along the line 
of Bull Eun where a comparatively unopposed crossing could be secured. At 
last, about noon on the 20th, they reported that far up on the right — on the 
opposite flank from that by which McDowell had proposed to move — there was 
a pi-acticable foi*d, at Sudle}^ Springs, very carelessly guarded. From the 
present positions of the armj^ there was no road to it, but the intervening 
woods were comparatively open. 

Annapolis, inquired eagerly if I had seen two batteries of artillery — Barry's and another — which 
he had ordered up, but which had gone astray. I was surprised to find the General engaged on 
such duty, and took leave to say so. ' Well, it is quite true, Mr. Eussell, but I am obliged to 
look after them myself, as I have so small a staff, and they are all engaged, out with my head- 
quarters. You are aware I have advanced?'" My Diary North and South, pp. 423, 424. 

•■'General Daniel Tyler. 



Ikvin McDowell. 667 

Within an hour or two after the reception of this report, General McDowell 
issued his orders for battle. He had four divisions (numbering in all nearly 
thirty-five thousand), commanded by General Tyler, General Hunter, General 
Heintzelman, and Colonel Miles. The last was to remain in reserve, near Cen- 
treville, and was to feign on Blackburn's Ford, on the left, whither the foolish 
skirmish had already attracted the attention of the enemy. With the other 
three the attack was to be made — those of Hunter and Heintzelman moving far 
up to the right, through the woods, to the ford at Sudley Springs, while the 
remaining one, under Tyler, moved straight forward to the crossing of Bull 
Eun at the Stone Bridge. Here the enemy's attention was to be held, while the 
turning column crossed above, struck the enemy in flank and rear, and doubled 
up his line. Then Tyler was to cross at the Stone Bridge and join the turning 
column as it came down the enemy's flank; and the three divisions, thus re- 
united, were to push straight for Manassas. After all the flood of criticism 
poured upon this battle, the plan stands approved as displaying good general- 
ship — as based on sound principles, well-adapted to the situation, and under 
any ordinary circumstances reasonably sure of success. 

But there was a blunder in the execution at the outset. McDowell's orders 
required the troops to move at six o'clock that evening, and to march most of 
the distance before going into bivouac. Then in the morning they would rise 
ready for the battle. But Colonel (since General) Burnside and others thought 
it would be easier to make the march before going into battle in the morning. 
To them nine and a half miles seemed a small distance to move, and they judged 
it best to let the men quietly sleep where they were, and start in time to make 
the march before daylight. McDowell unwisely assented. 

While these final orders were being issued, the fate of the coming battl? 
was already settled beyond the little stream that lay between the contending 
armies. The Eebel column was rapidly receiving re-enforcements from the 
army of Joseph E. Johnston near Harper's Ferry. General McDowell had ex- 
pressed the greatest uneasiness lest he should find this army joined to Beaure- 
gard's when he moved to the attack; but General Scott had assured him that 
Patterson should keep it busy in the valley. If it did escape, "it should have 
Pattei'son on its heels."* 

Now at last, however, Scott had grown sanguine. He believed that success 
was so sure, that when on the 20th he received a dispatch from Patterson an- 
nouncing that Johnston had escaped him and was moving to a junction with 
Beauregard, he did not think it worth while to damp the spirits of the young 
General who was about, under discouragements and difiiculties innumerable, to 
fight his first battle, by telling him of it. Frequent trains of cars were heard 
arriving at Manassas, and rumors passed from mouth to mouth, tiir they reached 
McDowell, that Johnston was coming; but he received no information that 
seemed authentic ; and by two o'clock on the morning of the 2l8t the troops 
were roused for the battle that was thus decided against them in advance. 

What followed may now be briefly told. 

*Rep. Com. Con. War. Series of 1863, Vol II, p. 36. 



668 Ohio in the War. 

Waked in the night, the troops, unaccustomed to orderly marching even in 
daylight, were long in getting fairly started. Then General Tj'ler, moving too 
slowly with his division which had the advance, blocked up the way. It was 
half-past five before the divisions of Hunter and Heintzleman, which formed 
the turning column, could get fairly upon their march. Then thej^ would strag- 
gle. Hundreds wandered off into the bushes to pick a few blackberries. When- 
ever they came to water they would stop, empty their canteens, and fill them 
afresh. McDowell struggled against delays; ordered and ordered again; but it 
was half-past nine before they reached the Sudley Ford, where he had hoped to 
cross by six. Here, as he despairingly adds, every regiment, as it came up, 
8toj)pcd all behind it, while file by file the men leisurely took a fresh drink, 
and again filled their canteens. 

Looking toward Manassas, he saw large clouds of dust rising, and began to 
apprehend that Beauregard, divining his movement, was about to fall upon his 
turning column before he could disentangle it from this confusion. At last, 
however, the force crossed and marched down upon the Confederate flank. 

Even now, after this four hours' delay, success might still have attended the 
excellent Generalship which had thus planted the bulk of the army in so favor- 
able a position for attacking the enemy in reverse. But the division Generals, 
en first confronting the enemy, delivered feeble fusilades from their heads of 
columns, and then halted. At last, after an hour's needless delay, the line was 
formed, and the turning column fairly pushed forward. 

Meanwhile Beauregard had been, as we now know from the Confederate 
reports, awaiting for hours an attack which he had ordered by way of Black- 
burn's Ford, upon McDowell's other flank. His orders for this proved to have 
miscarried, and he saw to his amazement that his own left was rajjidl}' crum- 
bling. In fact, by twelve o'clock the turning column had doubled up this flank 
80 far that it was now able to make a junction with Tyler's division at the 
Stone Bridge, where that officer had been all morning confronting the Eebcl 
center. 

Thus far then — save for the delay in the execution — McDowell's plan of 
battle was a perfect success. He had safely crossed the line of Bull Eun ; had 
turned the enemj^'s left flank and broken it; and had reunited his army. He 
was now ready to press upon the confused foe toward Manassas. But here be- 
gan a fatal hesitation. The troops confronted the enemy on the elevated pla- 
teau beyond Bull Eun, near the Stone Bridge. They were pushed forward in 
detail, and handled slowly and unsatisfactorily. Still they gained substantial 
advantages. The line was pushed around on the right to enveloj) the enemy's 
left flank, and was carried forward in front till it cleared the Warrenton Turn- 
pike. Once or twice the Eebels surged back over the ground thus carried. But 
at half-past three o'clock it was in McDowell's possession, the tide of success 
had been generally in our favor, the enemy was evidently disheartened, and 
our officers were already beginning to rejoice over a victory won. 

Just then came the apparition that drove the victors and ended the battle. 
Early's brigade, the last of Johnston's army to reach the ground, marched up, 



Ievin McDowell. 



669 




THE BULL RUN, RAPPAHANNOCK, ANTIETAM, AND GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGNS. 



Ikvix McDowell. 671 

striking the end of McDowell's right, which, as we have seen, he had been 
pushing around to envelop the enemy's flank. The onset was unexpected, and 
the line instantly crumbled as Early swept forward; and Beauregard, seeing 
the advantage gained, renewed his efforts to bring up again his retreating 
troops, the disorder increased. The men, who had thus far fought spiritedly, 
broke almost in an instant. Eunning from regiment to regiment, and brigade 
to brigade, there seemed to pass a conviction that ovewhelming re-enforcements 
had reached their antagonists, that the disaster to the right was flital, that the 
battle was lost, that they must retreat, that they must fly. What had been a 
successful army pressing its antagonist and seemingly on the very verge of glo- 
rious victor}-, was in ten minutes in full retreat, in ten minutes more in utter 
rout. 

McDowell did his best to rally the men, but they lacked discipline, and with 
the first reverse their confidence in themselves and their respect for authority 
were gone. The fiirther they went from the field, the more demoralized they 
became, and at last, recognizing the utter disaster, the General gave orders for 
the reserve division at Centreville, and for Schenck's brigade of Tyler's divis- 
ion, which remained in good order, to cover the retreat. These protected the 
rear, and showed so formidable an appearance that no pursuit was attempted. 
The rest of the army streamed back to Washington a panic-stricken mob. The 
loss was over two thousand; that of the Eebel army was one thousand eight 
hundred and fifty -two, of whom only two hundred and sixty-nine were killed.* 

Such was the battle of Bull Run. 

Looking at it now in the light of a great war's experience, we find little 
eause for wonder, save that it was no worse. Like Cato, the General, if he could 
QOt win success, had at least deserved it. His plan was excellent, and though 
there were innumerable faults of execution, they arose more because of the 
materials with which he had to work than because of his own inexperience or 
lack of judgment. After all the display of ability which the war has called 
3ut. we would be puzzled to-day if called upon to name any oflicer who, if then 
put in McDowell's place, would have done better. We may doubt indeed if 
there are any who, on the whole, would have done so well. For McDowell was 
not only correct in his plans and sound in judgment on the varying phases of 
the movement, but he bore with unusual amiability and philosophy the hinder- 
mces and embarrasments which vexed his whole course. No man knew better 
the dangers to which his lack of organization exposed him, and the myriad 
shances which, under such circumstances, might intervene to overturn his best- 

* Their official reports give the entire Eebel loss as one thousand four hundred and thirty- 
;ight -wounded and two hundred and sixty-nine killed. General McDowell reported his killed 
it four hundred and eighty-one, and his wounded at one thousand and eleven. Many of these 
last had but slight injuries, and soon returned to the ranks, so that he estimated the actual loss 
it about one thousand. But he failed to make any mention of his loss of prisoners; of whom, 
ivell and wounded, Beauregard reports that he took one thousand four hundred and sixty. Mc- 
Dowell crossed Bull Eun for the attack with about eighteen thousand men of all arms. Count- 
ing the last re-enforcements (Early's brigade, which did not arrive till between three and four) 
Johnston and Beauregard had about twenty-seven thousand. 



672 Ohio in the Wae. 

laid plans. But the Government represented that a battle was necessary. He 
honestly stated the difficulties in the way, and then, without a murmur, accepting 
the risks and preparing to sacrifice his opening career if need be, he addressed 
himself to fight it. 

Rightly considered, then, we look upon the battle of Bull Run as constitu- 
ting a title for General McDowell to the consideration and regard of the coun- 
try — the more deserved now, because of the misunderstanding and torrents of 
obloquy to which he was necessarily exposed at the time. 

Here we might leave the subject. But, as we have justified and praised 
McDowell, we may perhaps be rightly expected to say who or what, then, caused 
the disaster. The answer is complicated: 'i 

(1.) General »Scott paved the way for the disaster by his ill-tempered ob- 
structions and delays, which hindered McDowell from collecting or equipping 
the army with which he was to undertake this weighty venture, prevented him 
from drilling or disciplining it, kept it even unorganized to the last moment, 
and then precipitated it in a confused mass upon the enemy. With hearty co- 
operation on the part of all the authorities, that army might have been in satisfac- jj 
tory condition to move three weeks earlier, when it could have carried Manas- | 
sas with half the skill and courage wasted at Bull Run, could have damped the i^ 
rising enthusiasm of the insurgents, and ended the war within the twelve- 
month. But General Scott wasted the time in which the army might have 'j 
been drilled and organized, in opposing any movement into his native State, in 
hoping for compromises, and in urging his Mississippi Valley project. Then he ', 
demanded unreasonable haste, and moved the army unprepared. 1 

' (2.) In spite of these obstacles, the event shows very cleai'l}^ that McDowell ' 
would have forced success had the promise of the General-in-Chief, to keep 
Johnston away, been fulfilled. Without entering into the vexed question whether 
Patterson was criminal in suffeinng Johnston to escape him, or Scott in failing 
to inform McDowell of the escape on the day before the battle, it is enough 
to say that for the false arrangement of the Union troops in three columns* 
on exterior lines, by which they could not possibly concentrate as fast as the • 
respective opposing columns of the enemy could concentrate against any one o 
of them, General Scott is clearl}^ responsible. This fault was vital ; and it was 
in violation of one of the best established rules of military science. 

(3.) The event shows still further that McDowell would have forced success 
in spite of Johnston's re-enforcement, but for the greenness of trOojDS and com- 
manders, which first prolonged the march to Centreville, while they deranged ■. 
his plans by the skirmish at Blackburn's Ford, and so wrought the delay which 
enabled Johnston to get up ; and which finally wasted four precious hours in 
ill-ordered and exhausting marches that should have been spent in action. We ' 
have seen that the battle was substantially won when Johnston's last brigade, 
that of Early, marching up to the field, was able to strike McDowell's thin right 
flank "in air." But that brigade did not arrive till half-past three o'clock in 



*At Fortress Monroe, under Butler; Arlington, under McDowell; and Harper's Ferry, un- 
der Patterson. 



I 



Irvin McDowell. 673 

the afternoon. If the prior events of the battle had been shifted forward by 
the four hours lost in the morning, it would have been won three hours before 
Early's arrival.* On such slight circumstances do great events in war, the fate 
of campaigns, and the extension of hot^tilities over vast regions ultimately turn. 
(4.) And finally, General McDowell's own skill in handling troops in ac- 
tion — a thing to be acquired only by practice — was not equal to the commend- 
able ability he had thus far displayed. He might probably have prevented the 
loss of time after crossing Sudiey's Ford, in the first onset of the turning col- 
umn ; and he might certainly have handled the army better when he united all 
his divisions beyond the Stone Bridge, and was ready to storm the plateau. 
But this was a minor fault ; the battle was lost without it. 

The disaster fell at first with bewildering and stunning efiect upon the con- 
fident and eager country. Then, sobered by reverse, it began steadily to or- 
ganize for victory. But, in the meantime, a victim was wanted. General Scott, 
the real culprit, was saved by the popular regard for his long and valuable ser- 
vices, and by his protest that he had all along been opposed to the movement 
in Virginia.f The Administration could not well be assailed by patriots; for it 
must continue in the conduct of the war. It was not popular to say that the 
soldiers were in any respect to blame, to admit that their discipline fell short 
of jjerfection, or that b}- any possibility they could have run away without more 
than abundant cause. But the General that commanded them — was he not one 
of those shoulder-strapped gentry who had contrived to rise to sudden great- 
ness in the midst of his country's calamities? Had he ever commanded such 
an r.rmy before, in spite of all his pretenses of demanding disciiDline ? Had he 
not shown that he had too much regard for Eebels by wanting to take care of 
their property, and carry on a kid-gloved warfare against them, whilst he sent 
his own troops out to battle, with a march of ten miles before them, with no 
water on the route, in intensely hot weather, and without a supply -train to ac- 
company them? In short, was there not reason to suspect him of treason, and 

* Innumerable scraps of evidence point to this conclusion. Our own troops were animated 
with the conviction, and it is of accord that our staff officers were already exchanging congratu- 
lations over the victory. On the other hand, the enemy was greatly discouraged and demoral- 
ized. General Beauregard's chief of staff testifies (Swinton's Hist. Cam. Potomac, p. 68) that 
while he was escorting Mr. Jefferson Davis up to the front, just before the Union lines gave way, 
the road was so crowded with stragglers and skulkers that Mr. Davis supposed Beauregard to be 
completely beaten. " Battles are not won," he exclaimed, "when several unhurt men are seen 
carrying off one wounded soldier." General Jos. E. Johnston has, since the close of the war, 
openly stated that he was almost as much disorganized by the victory as McDowell by the defeat. 
The condition of his army, he declares, was such that pursuit was not to be thought of. The 
Richmond Dispatch (August 1, 1861), in its account of the battle, says that between two and 
three o'clock the matter looked very gloomy to their side, and that victory hung trembling in 
the balance. The Louisville Courier (letter from Manassas, dated 22d July, 1861) had it tliat 
I "the fortunes of the day were evidently against us. McDowell had nearly outflanked us, and 
' was just in the act of possessing himself of the railroad to Richmond. Then all would have 
been lost." 

j t As fully set forth by Governor Raymond, in the New York Times, in a report of a conver- 
Isation at General Scott's dinner-table. 
Vol. I.— 43. 



674 Ohio in the Wae. ': 

I 
I 

abundant evidence to convict liim of incapacity ? Presently it was reported 
that the commander of tlie reserve division was drunli: on the field. The peo- 
ple accepted it for truth, and leaped to the conclusion that the commandins.' 
General must also have been drunk. Ai^d so McDowell, who " never drank uiiy- 
thing stronger than a water-melon," who was absolutely and in perfect strict- 
ness a "total abstinent," came to be popularly regarded as a drunkard. 

But these were only the clamors of the ignorant populace, who must needs 
have a victim. Mr. Lincoln took occasion to say, the first time he met McDowell, 
" I have not lost a pai'ticle of confidence in you." The General rei^lied, in all sin- j 
cerity, " I don't see why, Mr. President, you should." But iii less than a week he ' 
was superseded, and the young Captain whom he had joined in recommending 
for a Major-Generalship in the regular army, was brought on to supersede him. 

Under this climax of his misfortunes General McDowell was not only phi- 
losophic, but absolutely amiable. He quietl}^ accepted the command of a divis- 
ion in the army of which he had been the leader, and proceeded, with great 
gladness, to the much-needed work of drill and discijiline.* 

By and by, however, in the midst of this congenial work, he was once more _ 
disturbed by his evil genius. As he had before been led into disgi-ace because! 
the Cabinet had called upon him to express an ojDinion about the plans of Gen- i 
eral Scott, so now he experienced a similar misfortune by reason of the confi- 1 
dence entertained in his judgment by members of the Cabinet, which presently 
led to a call upon him for his opinion about the plans of General McClellan. 

This officer had fallen sick. The President was in great distress. The 
whole fall had gone by, the whole winter was going by, and still the magnifi- 
cent army on the banks of the Potomac was idle, and the capital was under 

*■ Nothing can better illustrate the admirable .temper in which General McDowell met his 
trials, than some passages in the Diary of Mr. Eussell, of the London Times. Under date of 
July 21st he writes : (My Diary North and South, Am. Ed., p. 475.) 

"Cast down from his high estate, placed as a subordinate to his junior, covered with obloquy 
and abuse, the American General displayed a calm self-possesion and perfect amiability which ,^j 
could only proceed from a philosophic temperament, and a consciousness that he would outlive 
the calumnies of his. countrymen. He accused nobody, but it was not difhcult to see that he had 
been sacrificed to the vanity, self-seeking, and disobedience of some of his oflScers, and to radical 
vices in the composition of his army. . . . Notwithstanding the reverse of fortune, McDowell 
did not appear willing to admit that his estimate of the Southern troops was erroneous, or to say, 
'Change armies and I'll fight the battle over again.' He still held Mississippians, Louisianians, 
Alabamians very cheap, and did not see, or would not confess, the full extent of the calamity 
which had fallen so heavily on him personally. The fact of the enemy's inactivity was conclu- 
sive in his mind that they had a dearly-bought success, and he looked forward, though in a sub- 
ordinate capacity, to a speedy and glorious revenge." 

And again, under date August 26th : 

" While waiting for General McClellan, General McDowell talked of the fierce outburst 
directed against me in the press. 'I must confess,' he said, laughingly, 'I am much rejoiced to 
find you are as much abused as I have been. I hope you mind it as little as I did. Bull Eun 
was an unfortunate afiair for both of us; for, had I won it, you would have had to describe the 
pursuit of the flying enemy, and then you would have been the most popular writer in Amer- 
ica as I would have been lauded as the greatest of Generals. See what measure has been meted 
to us now. I'm accused of drunkenness and gambling ; and you, Mi-. Eussell — well — I really do 
hope you are not so black as you are painted.'" 



IJB 



tees 



Irvin McDowell. 675 

blockade. The disaster at Bull Run had made him cautious about pressing his 
militar}" leaders. Yet, as he quaintly said, " Something must soon be done, or the 
bottom would be out of the whole affair." So he sent for McDowell and for 
another of the division Generals, told them McClellan was sick, and that he 
wanted to talk with them about the prospects, and ask them what could be 
done. Fortunately, General McDowell, with the methodical habit which in all 
things had grown to a second nature with him, preserved a careful memoran- 
dum of these interviews, which Mr. Swinton, in his History of the Army of the 
Potomac, has published in full. It is as follows: 

"January 10, 1862. — At dinner at Arlington, Virginia. Eeceived a note from the Assist- 
ant-Secretary o f War, saying the President wished to see me that evening, at eight o'clock, if I 
could sal'ely leave my post. Soon after I received a note from Quartermaster-General Meigs, 
marked ' private and confidential,' saying the President wished to see me. 

" Repaired to the President's house at eight o'clock, P. M. Found the President alone. Was 
taken into the small room in the north-east corner. Soon after we were joined by Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Franklin, the Secretary of State, Governor Seward, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the 
Assistant-Secretary of War. The President was greatly disturbed at the state of affairs. Spoke 
of the exhausted condition of the treasury; of the loss of public credit; of the Jacobinism of 
(Jongress ;■••■ of the delicate condition of our foreign relations; of the bad news he had received 
from the West, particularly as contained in a letter from General Halleck on the state of affairs 
in Missouri; of the want of co-operation between Generals Halleck and Euell ; btit more tlian 
all, the sickness of General McClellan. 

" Tiie President said he was in great distress, and as he had been to General McClellan's 
house, and the General did not ask to see liim ; and as he must talk to somebody, he had sent for 
General Franklin and myself to obtain our opinion as to the possibility of soon commencing ac- 
tive operations with the Army of the Potomac. 

'•To use his own expression, ' If something was not soon done, the bottom would be out of 
tlie wliole affair; and if General McClellan did not want to use the army, he v;ould like to bor- 
row it, provided he could see how it could be made to do something.' 

"The Secretary of State stated the substance of some information he considered reliable as 
to the strength of the forces on the other side, which he had obtained from an Englishman from 
Fort Monroe, Richmond, Manassas, and Centreville, which was to the effect that the enemy had 
twenty thousand men under Huger, at Norfolk; thirty thousand at Centreville; and in all in our 
front, an efl'ective force, capable of being brought up at short notice, of about one hundred and 
three thousiind men — men not suffering, but well shod, clothed, and fed. In answer to the ques- 
tion from the President, what could soon be done with the army, I replied that the question as 
to the when must be preceded by the one as to the hoiv and the where. That substantially I would 
organize the army into four army corps, placing the five divisions on the Washington side on the 
right bank. Place three of these corps to the front — the right at Vienna or its vicinity, the left 
beyond Fairfax Station, the center beyond Fairfax C. H., and connect the latter place with 
the Orange and Alexandria Railroad by a railroad now partially thrown up. This would enable 
us to supply these corps without the use of horses, except to distribute what was brought uy by 
rail, and to act upon the enemy without reference to the bad state of country roads. 

"The railroads all lead to the enemy's position; by acting upon them in force, besieging his 
strongholds if necessary, or getting between them if possible, or making the attempt to do so and 
pressing his left, I thought we should in the first place cause him to bring up all his forces and 

* " General McDowell's manuscript was submitted by the present writer to President Lin- 

ix)ln, during the summer of 1864, and he indorsed its entire contents as a true report of these 

f war-councils, with the exception of the above phrase, 'the Jacobinism of Congress.' His autograph 

; indorsement o'- tiie manuscript states that he liad no recollection of using such an expression. 

It may be supposed that the phrase expresses the im-pression produced on McDowell's mind by 

Mr. Lincoln's words, though his precise language may have been different." 



676 Ohio in the Wae. 

mass them on the flank most pressed, the left; and possibly, I thought probably, we should again 
get them out of their works and bring on a general engagement on favorable terms to us ; at all 
events keeping him fully occupied and harrowed. The Fourth Corps, in connection with a force 
of heavy guns afloat, would operate on his right flank beyond the Occoquan, get behind the bat- 
teries on the Potomac ; take Aquia, which being supported by the Third Corps over the Occo- 
quan, it could safely attempt, and then move on the railroad from Manassas to the Rappahan- 
nock, having a large cavalry force to destroy bridges. I thought by the use of one hundred 
and thirty thousand men thus employed, and the great facilities which the railroads gave us, and 
the compact position we should occupy, we must succeed by repeated blows in crushing out the 
force in our front, even if it were equal in numbers and strength. The road by Fairfax C. 
H. to Centreville would give us the means to bring up siege-mortars and siege materials ; and 
even if we could not accomplish the object immediately, by making the campaign one of posi- 
tions instead of maneuvers, to do so eventually and without risk. That this saving of wagon 
transportation should be eflected at once, by connecting the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad with 
the Alexandria roads, by running a road over the Long Bridge. That when all this could be 
commenced, I could better tell when I knew something more definite as to the general condition 
of the army. 

" General Franklin being asked, said he was in ignorance of many things necessary to an 
opinion on the subject, knowing only as to his own division, which was ready for the field. As 
to the plan of operations, on being asked by the President if he had ever thought what he would 
do with this army if he had it, he replied that he had, and that it was his judgment that it should 
be taken, what could be spared from the duty of protecting the capital, to York River to operate on 
Richmond. The -question then came up as to the means at hand of transporting a large part of 
the army by water. The Assistant Secretary of War said the means had been fully taxed to pro- 
vide transportation for twelve thousand men. After some further conversation, and in reference 
to our ignorance of the actual condition of the army, the President wished we should come to- 
gether the next night at eight o'clock, and that General Franklin and I should meet in the mean- 
time, obtain such further information as we might need, and to do so from the stafl" of the head- 
quarters of the Army of the Potomac. Immediate orders were to be given to make the railroad 
over Long Bridge. 

" January 11. — Held a meeting with General Franklin, in the morning, at the Treasury 
Building, and discussed the question of the operations which, in our judgment, were best under 
existing circumstances — as season, present position of the forces, present condition of the country — 
to be undertaken before going into the matter as to when those operations could be set on foot. J 
urged that we should now find fortifications in York River which would require a movement in 
that direction to be preceded by a naval force of heavy guns to clear them out, as well as the 
works at West Point. That Richmond was now fortified ; that we could not hope to carry it by 
a simple march after a successful engagement; that we should be obliged to take a siege-train 
with us. That all this would take time, which would be improved by the enemy to mass his 
forces in our front, and we should find that we had not escaped any of the difiiculties we have now * 
before this position ; but simply lost time and money to find those difficulties when we should not 
have so strong a base to operate from, nor so many facilities, nor so large a force as we have 
here, nor, in proportion, so small a one to overcome. That the war now had got to be one of posi- 
tions, till we should penetrate the line of the enemy. That to overcome him in front, or cut his 
communication with the South, would, by its moral as well as physical effiect, prostrate the 
enerny, and enable us to undertake any future operations with ease, and certainty of success ; but 
that in order of time, as of importance, the first thing to be done was to overcome this army in 
our front, which is beleaguering our capital, blockading the river, and covering us day by day 
with the reproach of impotence, and lowering us in the eyes of foreign nations, and our people 
both North and South ; and that nothing but what is necessary for this purpose should go ■ 
elsewhere. 

" General Franklin suggested whether Governor Chase, in view of what we were charged 
to do, might not be at liberty to tell us where General Burnside's expedition had gone ? I went 
and asked him. He told me that, under the circumstances, he felt he ought to do so; and said 
it was destined for Newbern, North Carolina, by the way of Hatteras Inlet and Pamlico bound, 
to operate on Raleigh or Beaufort, or either of them. That General McClellan had, by direc- 



Ievin McDowp:ll. 677 

tion of the President, acquainted him witli his plans, which was to go with a large force of this 
Army of the Potomac to Urbana or Tappahannock, on the Rappahannock, and then with his 
bridge-train move directly to Richmond. On further consultation with General Franklin, it was 
agreed that our inquiries were to be directed to both cases of going from our present position 
and of removing the large part of the force to another base further south. A question was raised 
by General Franklin, whether, in deference to General McClellan, we should not inform liim of 
the duty we were ordered to perform, I said the order I received was marked private and con- 
tidintial ; and as they came from the President, our Commander-in-Chief, I conceived, as a com- 
mon superior to General McClellan and both of us, it was for the President to say this, and not 
us. That I would consult the Secretary of the Treasury, who was at hand, and could tell us what 
was the rule in the cabinet in such matters. The Secretary was of opinion that the matter lav 
entirely with the President. We went to Colonel Kingsbury, chief of ordnance of the Army of 
the Potomac, Brigadier-General Van Vliet, chief quartermaster, and Major Shiras, commissary 
of subsistence, and obtained all the information desired. Met at the President's in the evening, 
at eight o'clock. Present, the same as on the first day, with the addition of the Postmaster-Gen- 
eral, Judge Blair, who came in after the meeting had begun the discussion. I read a paper con- 
taining both General Franklin's and my own views, General Franklin agreeing with me — in view 
of time, etc., required to take to this army to another base — that operations could best now be 
undertaken from the present base, substantially as proposed. The Postmaster-General opposed 
the plan, and was for having the army, or as much of it as could be spared, go to York River or 
Fortress Monroe, either to operate against Richmond, or to Suffolk and cut off Norfolk ; that 
being, in his judgment, the point (Fortress Monroe or York) from which to make a decisive 
blow. The plan of going to the front from this position was Bull Run over again. That it was 
strategically defective, as was the effort last July. As then, we would have the operations upon 
exterior lines. That it involved too much risk. That there was not so much difficulty as had 
been supposed in removing the army down the Chesapeake. That only from the Lower Chesa- 
peake could anything decisive result against the army at Manassas. That to drive them from 
their present position, by operating from our present base, would only force them to another 
behind the one they now occupy, and we should have all our work to do over again. Mr. Sew- 
ard thought if we only had a victory over them it would answer, whether obtained at Manassas 
or further south. Governor Chase replied in general terms to Judge Blair, to the effect that the 
moral power of a victory over the enemy, in his present position, would be as great as one else- 
where, all else equal ; and the danger lay in the probability that we should find, after losing time 
and millions, that we should have as many difficulties to overcome below as we now have above. 
The President wished to have General Meigs in consultation on the subject of providing water 
transportation, and desired General Franklin and myself to see him in the morning, and meet 
again at three o'clock P. M. the next day. 

" Jantjaby 12. — Met General Franklin at General Meigs's. Conversed with him on the 
subject of our mission at his own house. I expressed my views to General Meigs, who agreed with 
me in the main as to concentrating our efforts against the enemy in front by moving against him 
from our present position. As to the time in which he could assemble water transportation lor 
thirty thousand men, he thought in about from four to six weeks. Met at the President's. Gen- 
eral Meigs mentioned the time in which he could assemble the transports as a month to six 
weeks. The general subject of operations from the present base was again discussed. General 
Meigs agreeing that it was best to do so, and to concentrate our forces for the purpose. The 
President and Mr. Seward said that General McClellan had been out to see the President, and 
was looking quite well, and that now, as he was able to assume the charge of the army, the Pres- 
ident would drop any further proceedings with us. The general drift of the conversation was 
as to the propriety of moving the army further south, and as to the destination of Burnside's ex- 
pedition. The Postmaster-General said that if it was the intention to tight it out here (Manassas), 
then we ought to concentrate. It was suggested and urged somewhat on the President to coun- 
termand, or have General McClellan countermand General Burnside's expedition, and bring up 
at Aquia. The President was, however, exceedingly averse from interfering, saying he disliked 
exceedingly to stop a thing long since planned, just as it was ready to strike. Nothing was done 
but to appoint another meeting the next day, at eleven o'clock, when we were to meet General 
McClellan, and again discuss the question of the movement to be made, etc. 



678 Ohio in the Wak. 

" Monday, January 13. — Went to the President's with the Secretary of Treasury. Pres- 
ent, the President, Governor Chase, Governor Seward, Postmaster-General, General MeClellan,. 
General Meigs, General Franklin, and myself, and, I think, the Assistant-Secretary of War. 
The President, pointing to a map, asked me to go over the plan I had before spoken to him of. 
He at the same time made a brief explanation of how he came to bring General Franklin and. 
General McDowell before hira. I mentioned, in as brief terms as possible, what General Frank- 
lin and I had done under the President's order, what our investigations had been directed upon, 
and what were our conclusions as to going to the front from our present base, in the way I have 
heretofore stated, referring, also, to a transfer of a part of the army to another base further south.. 
That we had been informed that the latter movement could not be commenced under a month to- 
six weeks, and that a movement to the front could be undertaken in all of three weeks. 
General Franklin dissented only as to the time I mentioned for beginning operations in the 
front, not thinking we could get the roads in order by that time. I added, commence ope- 
rations in all of three weeks ; to which he assented. I concluded my remarks by saying some- 
thing apologetic in explanation of the position in which we were. To which General MeClellan 
replied somewhat coldly, if not curtly, ' You are entitled to have any opinion you please ! ' No 
discussion was entered into by him whatever, the above being the only remark he made. General 
Franklin said that, in giving his opinion as to going to York River, he did it knowing that it was in 
the direction of General McClellan's plan. I said that I had acted entirely in the dark. Gen- 
eral Meigs spoke of his agency in having us called in by the President. The President then 
asked Avhat and when anything could be done, again going over somewhat the same ground he 
had done with General Fraaklin and myself. General MeClellan said the case was so clear a 
blind man could see it, and then spoke of the difficulty of ascertaining what force he could count 
upon ; that he did not know whether he could let General Butler go to Ship Island, or whether 
he could re-enforce Burnside. Much conversation ensued, of rather a general character, as to> 
the discrepancy between the number of men paid for and the number eflfective. The Secretary 
of the Treasury then put a direct question to General MeClellan to the effect as to what he in- 
tended doing with his army, and when he intended doing it? After a long silence, General 
MeClellan answered that the movement in Kentucky was to precede any one from this place, and. 
that that movement might now be forced ; that he had directed General Buell, if he could not 
hire wagons for his transportation, that he must take them. After another pause he said he must 
say he was very unwilling to develop his plans, always believing that in military matters the 
fewer persons who were knowing to them the better ; that he would tell them if he was ordered to 
do so. The President then asked him if he counted upon any particular time ; he did not ask 
what that time was, but had he in his own mind any particular time fixed when a movement could 
be commenced, lie replied he had. Then, rejoined the President, I will adjourn this meeting." 

It is easy to see what effect these consultations of his subordinates with the 
President had ujjon the mind of General MeClellan. We need not pause to dis- 
cuss the question whether the plan jjroposed by McDowell (substantial!}' that 
he had himself first contemplated for reaching Manassas), was better or worse 
than the one upon which General MeClellan had set his heart. It is enough 
that the President, and in general, the leading members of the Administration, 
were in favor of it; and that his military chief was not only opposed to it, but 
was disposed to look ujjon it as the ambitious effort of a subordinate to surpass 
him. Finally the President called a council of the leading Generals to consider 
McClellan's project of going to the peninsula. Out of the twelve McDowell 
found only three to agree with him in opposing it. The other eight were unan- 
imous for the j^eninsular route. 

By this time a vigorous MeClellan party assumed to control eveiything at 
the capital. To this party McDowell of course became odious, and through its 
influence the country was aided in still remembering his drunkenness, his ques- 
tionable loyalty, and his incompetence. The President presently took the 



Irvin McDowell. 679 

(L'layi'.ii;- organization of the army into his own hands, and completed it by 
appointing four Corps Generals. Foremost among them was McDowell, who, 
a few days later, was promoted to a Major-Genei-alship of volunteers. The cool- 
ness heretofore existing between the unlucky General, to whom even prcmo- 
tion still proved ill-fortune, and his commander was thus increased. 

And tinally, when General McClellan was at last ready to take the field, 
fresh questions arose between him and the Administration as to the number of 
troops that should be left on the Potomac to insure the safety of the capital, and 
so once more General McDowell being called upon for his views, was compelled 
to give to the Government an opinion disagreeable to his chief He thought 
the forts should be fully garrisoned on the right bank, and occupied on the 
left, and that then a covering force of twenty-five thousand men should be re- 
tained. "With this simple expression of ojjinion his whole connection with the 
dispute as to the protection of the capital ended. But it was long believed by 
the McClellan party, and openly charged through nearl}- all the newspapers of 
the country, that McDowell secretly strove to excite the apprehensions of Pres- 
ident and Cabinet as to the safety of Washington and thus to thwart the wislies 
of McClellan, for the sake of securing an independent command for himself. 

Circumstances soon seemed to confirm this suspicion. General McDowell 
supposed that his corps was to be embarked for the peninsula before that of Gen- 
eral Sumner. McClellan set out without giving him an}^ other information ; 
General Sumner's corps was taken and he was still left. Tlien, to his own 
astonishment no less than that of McClellan, his corps, forty thousand strong, 
was detached from the Army of the Potomac, and he was ordered to report to 
the Secretar}^ of War. It was a step honestly taken for the protection of the 
capital, which Mr. Lincoln believed McClellan had left in danger; but it was 
the beginning of a long series of fresh misfortunes, in the midst of which the 
active career of McDowell in the war of the rebellion was to close He was 
ordered down to the vicinity of Fredericksburg, and was specially instructed 
that he was "to consider the capital under his protection, and was to make no 
movement throwing his force out of position for the discharge of this prinnuy 
duty."^ 

There straightway arose against him a storm of clamor that surpassed even 
the defamation that followed Bull Eun. General McClellan regarded the with- 
drawal of this corps as fatal to his plans. He subsequently acquitted McDowell 
of all responsibility for it,f but at the time he attributed the whole matter to his 
subordinate's ambition for an independent command. His partizans Avere 
louder and less scrupulous. They made the army and the press of the country 
ring with their denunciations of McDowell. He was a drunkard. He was a 
gambler. He was disloyal. He had near relatives in high places in the Eebel 
army. He cared nothing for the country, eveiything for his own advancement. 

And now we come to notice the strange^ element in all the complex com- 
bination of the man's misfortunes. We have spoken of his coldness and habit 

* McDowell's statement in review of the evidence before the Court of Inquiry in hiscase, p. 6, 
tlbid, p. 9. 



680 Ohio in the Wae. 

of reserve. The volunteers could not understand it. They knew well enough 
that he had small respect for their militarj^ worth at the outset. They saw him 
shunning, even scorning, all the ordinary ways adopted hy officers who wished 
the good will of their men. He had no charity for small breaches of order; he 
was a rigid disciplinarian, exacting in his requirements, and unforgiving to of- 
fenders. Then he was particularly strenuous in the rejjression of their favorite 
sin, the destruction or spoliation of the property of wealthy Eebels. Other 
things they might forgive, but as for this — why it was flat treachery to the 
cause. They were already disposed to judge him harshly by reason of his rigid 
and unpopular ways; the general devotion of his troops to McClellan led them 
to look upon him as almost criminal, because of their detachment from McClel- 
lan's command; and now, when, in addition, he began to punish loyal soldiers 
for tearing up Rebel fences for camp-fires, he had filled the measure of his un- 
popularity and had become actually odious. 

So it came about that (as he afterward said in a recital that, but for its 
manly tone, would be piteous) men who agreed about nothing else agreed in 
denouncing him. The McClellan party abused him for not going to the penin- 
sula, and the whole army, including his own command, thus became intensely 
hostile to him. The Eadical party abused him for protecting Eebel property, 
using loyal soldiers to guard Eebel fence rails instead of marching on the 
enemy, waging a kid-glove war, taking care not to hurt either the feelings or 
the property of his friends, the Eebels. 

" There is hardly a form of reproach," he said to the Court of Inquiry, " that was not used 
toward me. Every possible way my feelings could be hurt seemed to be taken, not only by those 
who opposed the Government, under whose very eye I was serving, but by the friends and sup- 
porters of the Government as well. ... It was said of me that I was idling away the' time, 
doing nothing, on the banks of the Eappahannock ; flitting back and forth between Fredericks- 
burg and Washington for mere personal purposes ; fearing to cross the river when there was op- 
posed to me not more than a fourth of my force; clamoring for re-enforcements to guard against 
imaginary dangers; protecting Rebel property for the sake of the Kebels; instead of using my 
troops to go against the enemy, employing them only to guard the enemy's houses, fences, and 
fields; and then, when in hearing of the sound of the cannon of General McClellan at Han- 
over C. H., making no sign, but on the contrary Reaving Fredericksburg to go to the Shenandoah 
to avoid moving on Richmond and coming under General McClellan. This and much more was 
said of me, week after week, and month after month. The army seldom saw my name that it 
was not coupled with some disparaging remark, ... if, inded, not with some denunciation 
or discreditable charge. . . . These things were covered up or allowed, it was said, through 
the influence of two members of the Cabinet who were my brothers-in-law. . . . Whatever 
check or disaster the Army of the Potomac incurred on the peninsula, was attributed to my 
failure to re-enforce that army when I could do so, and to my having broken it up, as soon as its 
commander was out of sight of the capital. I think I have rather underrated the case than 
otherwise." 

A sorrowful narration, indeed, concerning a General at the head of troops 
whose confidence he was expected to retain, and under the control of a Grovern- 
ment daily growing more impatient of men who could not achieve success. 
Yet, as he says, it rather understates than exaggerates the facts. 

We have seen that the army, the press, and indeed the whole • country, 
teemed with such charges. Finally he was denounced in the Senate by a dis-' 



Ievin McDowell. 681 

tinguished Senator from his own State. Mr. Wade was shown an order which 
he had issued, in which, with some emphasis, he commanded a subordinate to 
stop the destruction of fences on a certain plantation. This the Senator read, 
and thereupon proceeded to hold its author up to the condemnation of the coun- 
try. 'Next a resolution was passed in the House of Eepresentatives ordering 
the Committee on the Conduct of the War to investigate his action. As a 
prominent gentleman about this time said to him, he was become the most 
odious man in the nation. 

We can now see that there was scarcely a particle of foundation for all this 
clamor, and that it only shows with what cruel and wicked injustice a Eepublic 
can treat its best servants in times of great poj^ular excitement. 

It has already been shown that General McClellan subsequently (on oath) 
exculpated McDowell from all responsibility for the order withdrawing his 
corps. He was as little responsible for his delay before Fredericksburg. Three 
several times he telegraphed for permission to cross over into the city, and 
finally he sent his Inspector-General to plead personally for it.* And as to the 
protection of Eebel property, we now have it, on the oath of so lamented a sol- 
dier and so earnest a Eadical as General James S. Wadsworth, of New York,f 
that he foraged on the country so far as was practicable, that he paid only loyal 
citizens for articles taken, and'that all the protection given Eebel property con- 
sisted in the stern suppression of disorderly j)illage and marauding — a policy 
which, after the experience of the war, the most ignorant know to be absolutely 
essential to the preservation of discipline. On this subject he simply published 
to his command the army i*egulations issued by the War Department, and re- 
quired their enforcement. His own views he. subsequently laid down : "There 
are some who think that to live off the enemy's country means to live at free 
quarters, and for every one to take whatever he needs or desires. This is 
simply pillage, and no army can exist where it is allowed. The only safe rule 
is to lay it down as a law that no one shall interfere with the rights of property 
save he who represents the Government; that the Government only has the 
right to take private property for public purposes; that until the Government, 
through its proper agent, seizes private property, it is to be protected, and those 
taking it without authority are to be considered as much guilty of thef<" or rob- 
bery as if they had done the sa'ne thing in their own State ; that all supplies 
seized by proper authori*^ uecome the property of the Government, and are to 
be accounted for as regularly as if purchased with Government funds." 

These are the views of an unbending disciplinarian; but they are unques- 
tionably to be commended. His conduct was entirely within them ; and but 
for the clamor that made him odious to his troops, it would have borne valuable 
fruits in their discipline. 

But while all this reproach was being heaped upon McDowell, McClellan 
was getting slowly up the peninsula, was attributing his delays to lack of 
troops, and was repeating perpetually his calls for McDowell's corps. 

At last, on the 17th of May, orders were issued from the War Department 

* Dispatches given in statement before Court of Inquiry, pp. 6, 7. t Ibid, pp. 20, 21. 



682 Ohio in the War. 

that, on being joined by General Shields's division, he should move on Eich- 
mond. This division arrived on the 22d — shoeless, ill-clad, and without ammu- 
nition. On the 23d it was refitted; on the 24th it was ready to move. But this 
was Sunday, and in deference to the general opinion as to his movement at Bull 
Run on Sunday, as well as because of the wish of Mr. Lincoln himself, who was 
there, the march was postponed until Monday. That night Stonewall Jackson 
was bursting upon the scattered forces in the valley, and before the Sunday 
was half gone came orders to move at once for the Shenandoah ! 

Here, then, practically terminates General McDowell's connection with Mc- 
Clellan's movements against Richmond, in any of the stages in which those 
movements took shajDe. The facts certainly show sufficient promptness on his 
part in endeavoring to join the army before the Rebel capital ; and the order 
calling him away drew from him an argument against its wisdom, and express- 
io:is of the keenest regret.* But he continued to be denounced for having 
abandoned McClellan to his fate. 

The forebodings with Avhich McDowell received this ill-considered order to 
go oif after Stonewall Jackson f were soon realized. The operations in the 
valley were in the nature of an ill-concerted and inharmonious combined move- 
ment. Banks, who had the Shenandoah for his department, lay beyond Stras- 
burg, threatening Staunton. Fremont, who had West Yirginia and the mount- 
ains for a department, was marching down bj" the old West Yirginia route 
through Cheat Mountain Gap and Monterey upon Staunton. Jackson had been 
sent north by Lee to fall upon either Banks or McDowell, as circumstances 
might seem to suggest. He saw at once that, scattered as the Union forces 
were, he could beat them in detail before they could possibly concentrate. 
Fremont's advance, as the nearest to Staunton, first invited his attention. On 
this he fell at the Bull Pasture Mountain, near McDowell, and hurled it north- 
ward toward Franklin and Moorefield.J Then he turned upon Banks. That 
officer had fallen back to Strasburg, and had a small outpost at Front Royal. 

■■• On the same day, 24th May, General McDowell wrote to the President : 

" I obeyed your order immediately, for it was positive and urgent ; and perhaps, as a subor- 
dinate, there I ought to stop; but I trust I may be allowed to say something in relation to the 
subject, especially in view of your remark that everything depends upon the celerity and vigor of 
my movements. I beg to say that co-operation between General Fremont and myself, to cut ofi" 
Jackson and Ewell, is not to be counted upon, even if it is not a practical irapo.ssibility; next, 
that I am entirely beyond helping distance of General Banks, and no celerity or vigor will be 
available, so far as he is concerned ; next, that by a glance at the map it will be seen that the 
line of retreat of the enemy's forces up the valley is shorter than mine to go against him. It 
will take a week or ten days for the force to get to the valley by the route which will give it food 
and forage, and by that time the enemy will have retreated. I shall gain nothing for you there 
and lose much for you here. It is therefore not only on personal grounds that I have a heavy 
heart in the matter, but I feel that it throws us all back, and from Kichmond nortli we shall 
have all our large mass paralyzed, and shall have to repeat what we have just accomplished." 

t See his letter to the President, quoted in above note. 

X Not without a hard fight, under the leadership of General Schenck, in which he was held 
at bay till nightfall. Schenck then retreated under cover of the darkness, and though Jackson 
the next day pursued, he did not see fit to attack. 



Irvix McDowell. 683 

On this Jackson suddenly fell and destroyed it. Then pushing straight for 
Winchester, he strove to get upon Banks's rear and cut him oflF. It was on the 
night of the 23d that Banks discovered his danger. He immediately began a 
hasty retreat. On the 24th McDowell— just ready to start to Eichmond— was 
ordered to strike the Shenandoah Yalley behind Jackson — connecting with 
Fremont, who was to come over into it from the other side. 

Eegretting the order and predicting the failure, he nevertheless started at 
once. When he reached the neighborhood of the valley he found that Jackson 
was retreating up it; that Fremont, before crossing into it from the other side, 
had marched northward instead of southward, and so had entered it just as 
Jackson had passed back. Hastily sending his cavahy to join Fremont in the 
pursuit, he then, yielding to the judgment of his division commander, General 
Shields, who had previously campaigned through that country, sent him south- 
ward to strive to plant himself in front of Jackson and across his path. 

The movements met with the usual ftite of combined operations carried on 
under independent commanders. Each force was beaten in detail. Jackson 
turned suddenly upon Fremont's pursuing column, fought it all day at Cross 
Keys, and so gained time for his advance and trains to cross the river. Then, 
dashing across and burning the bridge behind him, he struck Shields's advance 
Csent up by McDowell) at Port Eepublic, and, after an obstinate little fight, 
drove it. Thus freed from all his pursuers, he leisurely turned south through 
the valley, leaving Fremont, and Banks, and McDowell to count their bruises. 
McDowell's sad prediction at the outset had been more than verified, and for the 
very reason which he assigned: The distance for the co-operating troops to 
march was greater than that over which Jackson had to retreat. They could 
not possibly combine until his opportunity came to turn first upon the one and 
then upon the other. 

• McDowell instantly recognized the failure, and begged for permission to 
resume forthwith the abandoned movement to Eichmond. More than that ; with 
a keenness of foresight quite new in the war, he warned the Administration of 
the terrible peril next in store: " I fear precious time is being lost so far as 1 am 
concerned, by my having to wait for General Banks, and that I am delaying the 
re-enforcements for Eichmond, where they will be needed more than ever, if. as 
I {(771 led to think may be the case, Jackson has gone to re-enforce i^ee."* Prophetic 
warning ! But it fell upon inattentive ears, alike with the Administration at 
Washington, and Avith the delaying General astride the Chickahomin}-. It was 
us earl}' as the 14th of June that it was given. 

Ten days before this McDowell had begun his ettbrts to get out of the val- 
ley and back to Fredericksburg on his way to Eichmond. On the 14th he tele- 
graphed General Banks, also, begging him to relieve the troops from Fredericks- 
burg still kept in the valley. On the 15th he sent an earnest dispatch to the 
President, renewing his petitions to be allowed to draw out of the valley and 
start to McClellan's aid. On the same day he telegraphed in similar terms, but 
more at length, to the President. Day by day he continued his efibrts. At last 

* McDowell's Statement to Court of Inquiry, p. 15. 



684 Ohio in the Wae. 

he got leave to withdraw his troops from Front Eoyal. On the 20th they started. 10 
By the 23d they began to reach Fredericksburg. Already General McDowell 
had written to McClellan, expressing great pleasure at the pi'osjject of being at 
last able to join him and fixing the 20th for his start. As we have seen, he had 
been delayed. On the 26th came the President's order, abolishing McDowell's 
Department of the Eappahannock, and assigning him to command under Gen- 
eral Pope, in the new, "Army of Vix'ginia."* 

With this ended General McDowell's career as an independent commander. 
Its leading features maybe brieflj'^ recapitulated : He had fought Bull Eun. 
Then, on again receiving independent command, he had entered Fredericksburg, 
and had begged permission to join McClellan. Then, just as he was ready for this, 
he had been directed to the Shenandoah Valley to aid in co-operative movements 
for the capture of Stonewall Jackson, which, through no fault of his, utterl}^ 
failed. And, finally, he had striven to get his troops out of the valley, again 
to march on Eichmond ; when, as he was nearly ready, came new arrangements, 
assigning him to another army and a subordinate command. 

Throughout his plans had been good, his execution quite equal to that of 
an}' of his compeers, and his earnest desire to serve wherever his services might 
be efi'ectual, conspicuous. Throughout he had been, overwhelmed by outside 
causes, and forever attended by a persistent ill-fortune. 

When, alarmed by Stonewall Jackson's easy triumphs in the valley; by 
the inharmonious operations of the three prominent General8,f to each of whose 
independent commands was attached the duty of defending the capital and the 
northern frontier; and by the ominous delays before .Eichmond, Mr. Lincoln 
decided first to concentrate the several columns before Washington under one 
commander, and then, in the swiftly rushing current of events, to use this com- 
mander for an attack upon Lee, under cover of which McClellan might escajDe 
from the peninsula, it was decided that to neither of the three indej)endent 
Generals lately striving in vain to co-operate, could the new trust be confided. 
A fresh commander, with the prestige of success was sought; and the West sent 
forward the hero of Island No. 10. Thus General McDowell once more came 
under the command of a junior whom, a year ago, he had left out of sight in 
the race for promotion — an ofiicer of less repute in the old armj^ than himself, 
and unquestionably of inferior professional acquirements. He submitted to 
his hard fate, not only without a murmur, but with jDerfect good grace and 
cordiality. 

But the circumstances under which he now took the field for the severe 
campaign that was speedily inaugurated were, if possible, even less auspicious 
than at any pi'evious time in his ill-starred career. Before the late operations 
toward the Shenandoah, his troops, for the various reasons already enumerated, 
had come to regard him with almost as much hostility as the enemy. Now 
their temper was still worse. They had been subjected to severe forced marches, 

■•McDowell's Statement to Court of Inquiry, pp. 17, 18. 
T Fremont, Banks, and McDowell. 



Ievin McDowell. 685 

to exposure without tents and with half rations, on a movement that had re- 
sulted in nothing. These, were, it is true, but the incidents of an honest obedi- 
ence to the orders he had received, but, as we have already seen, it was the fate 
of this commander to be forever held responsible for the requirements which 
others chose to lay upon him. So now there was fierce complaint among his 
soldiers. They were worn down, they said, tramping back and forth on fools' 
errands on which McDowell had sent them. Their transportation was cut down 
to seven or eight wagons to a regiment, because McDowell didn't want to see 
his men comfortable.* They were often treated like felons, because McDowell 
would have them arrested for straggling, or for appropriating the enem3''s prop- 
erty without orders. 

In such temper the unlucky General had to lead his troops into an active 
campaign. 

When General Pope assumed the command of the department he expected 
to be able to lead his whole army down to co-operate with McClellan. But on 
that very day Lee's onset on McClellan's right began. The foreboding of Mc- 
Dowell that Stonewall Jackson would next appear at Eichmond, had been veri- 
fied. Then Pope sought at least to effect a diversion which might aid McClellan 
after his " change of base." To this end he concentrated his army, and moved 
down to Culpepper. But by this time Stonewall Jackson's mission at Richmond 
had been accomplished, and he was again detached northward ; so that now his 
pickets and those of Pope began exchanging shots along the Rajjidan. Banks 
was then pushed up to Cedar Mountain, with orders to hold his ground, and to 
attack if the enemy advanced upon him. Stung, however, by the recollections 

'■ of his late retreat, and, perhaps, also by the needless earnestness with which 
General Pope's Chief of Staff volunteered to urge upon him that " there must 
be no backing out this time," General Banks, instead of awaiting the enemy's 

■ advance, himself precipitated the attack, on unfavorable ground and with terri- 
ble odds against him. His own conduct and that of his troops was superbly 
gallant, but no bravery on the field could avert the consequences of his blunder. 
Pope had ordered Sigel up in support, but that officer was culpably tardy in 
obeying. Banks was left to struggle alone with his single corps, not eight 
thousand strong, against Stonewall Jackson, with three divisions numbering 
twenty-five thousand men, in strong defensive positions ; and the result was a 

I sad swift slaughter. McDowell, in prompt obedience to Pope's orders through 

[ the day, disposed his divisions at points near Culpepper, awaiting developments. 
Up to five o'clock in the afternoon Pope had no idea that Banks was bringing 
on a severe engagement. Then he ordered McDowell up, in time to prevent the 
enemy from attempting to profit by Banks's repulse, but too late to have much 
share in the brief and bloody fighting. 

AVithin a few days captured dispatches now revealed the plans of the wary 

* Very great discontent was aroused by theso efforts to mobilize the army — measures wise and 
necessary — objections to which only showed the greenness as soldiers of the men who made them. 
In this, as in so many other things, it was simply McDowell's misfortune to be ahead of his 
timef. 






QSQ Ohio in the War. 



'm 



General-in-Chief of the Eebel forces. McClellan was considered out of the way. 
Leaving a small force to garrison Eichmond, Lee meant to concentrate suddenly 
on Pope and overwhelm him. Thus fully advised of his danger, Pope still held 
his advanced positions till the last, hoping thereby to relieve McClellan, and 
give time for his return and junction, which the Grovernment had now ordered. 
Meantime he represented his danger, and began praying for re-enforcements ; 
in reply to which the Administration begged him to hold out a little longer, 1 1 
and promised speedy re-enforcements from the Armj^ of the Potomac. He felt 
constrained to fall back from the Eapidan to the Eappahannock ; but here, near 
Warrenton, he stood. Finally, Stuart, with the Eebel Cavalry, crossing above 
his right, circled about his rear, captured his head-quarters baggage-train, and 
gained an accurate knowledge of his positions. Still Pope held his ground, 
facing westward, to oppose the threats from the direction of his right flank, and 
concentrating his army ; while he ordered forces from about Manasses otf 
westward to observe the gaps in the mountains, behind which it was feared 
that Lee (who had now arrived) might be trying to turn his right and foil upon 

his rear. 

The precaution was too late. Lee's advance, under Stonewall Jackson, was 
already behind the mountains. On the 26th of August it rapidly debouched 
through Thoroughfare Gap, fell upon Pope's rear (at Bristoe Station), and ca])- 
tured trains and supplies. Thence, without delay, Jackson pushed on to Ma- 
nassas Junction, carried the post, captured large quantities of supplies, with 
o-uns and prisoners. Then, as General Scammou and others, with fragments of 
hastily collected forces pushed out from near Washington against him, he routed 
them in detail, and drove forward, with flying bands of his cavalry, past Cen- 
treville, and even up to Fairfax C. H. and Burke's Station, within striking dis- 
tance of the capital itself. 

Meantime Pope, with his whole army, had been cut off. Jackson stood 
between him and Washington. In this crisis his action was judicious. He gave 
such orders to his several corps as to effect a rapid concentration— not at Ma- \ 
nassas Junction, where the enemy was, but at Gainesville, to the west of it— 
thus hoping to cut off the possibility of Jackson's retreat, and to interpose be- 
tween him and the rest of Lee's army, advancing through the gap. McDowell, 
holding the left, was to push straight for Gainesville, and Sigel, Avho was next 
him, was to come under his orders. 

Now it happened that among McDowell's particular aversions were the 
Captains and Majors from European armies, who, by virtue of their supposed 
experience abroad, were made Brigadier and Major-Generals in our service. 
Thus far the conduct of General Sigel had done little to create a more fovorable 
impression in his case.* But, on the night of the 27th, McDowell arrived at 
Gainesville with both corps in as good order as could be expected. 

Here McDowell proposed to hold Sigel's corps, while a division was to be j 
sent to Haymarket, just this side of Thoroughfore Gap, to resist and at least t 

'* Siegel had been ordered to Banks's relief at Cedar Mountain, before McDowell, but had : 
sent back°to know what road he should take, there being but one road ! 



Ievin McDowell. 687 

delay the passage of tno rest of Lee's arm^- to Jackson's relief With the rest 
of his command he would march at daylight toward Jackson's supposed posi- 
lion at Manassas, to co-operate with the rest of Pope's forces. The substance 
of these dispositions was, in fact, embodied in an order, written about midnight. 
But Avithin an hour a confident dispatch was received from Pope. The 
enemy was between Manassas and Gainesville. McDowell was to move at day- 
light toward Manassas with his whole force. If he did so. they were "to bag 
the whole crowd." 

A new order was therefore issued, prescribing the movements of the sev- 
eral divisions in accordance with these directions. Realizing, however, the 
danger from Thoroughfare Gap, McDowell still, on his own responsibility, made 
it the special duty of one of the divisions to keep watch in that direction— 
away from which the command was to march— and to turn and resist any force 
that might be discovered coming through it. General Pope afterward expressed 
his regret at this step, but subsequent events, as well as sound military precau- 
tions, abundantly sanction its wisdom. 

On the morning, then, of the eventful 28th, McDowell's command Avas by 
Pope's order to march south-east to Manassas Junction. It was the first dan- 
gerous error. For, by every step taken in this direction, the army was carrying 
itself off the direct line between Jackson and the rest of the army in whose 
coming now lay his only safety— was moving out of position to prevent the junc- 
tion. Jackson adroitly moved northward from Manassas Junction toward 
Groveton. Then, between him and the approaching troops of Lee stretched an 
.•open road. 

I ^ Meantime, partly perhaps because of the secret antagonism of feeling be- 
tween the two, but more because of direct misconduct on the part of Sigel, that 
officer had failed to obey promptly McDowell's order for movement at two 
fM-Iock toward Manassas Junction. At daylight he was still in camp : by noon 
he was only two miles from Gainesville, where he had spent the night. Even 
then he persisted in going south of the railroad, after repeated orders sent over 
by McDowell to move along the north side of it. The line of advance was thus 
carried away from the direction in which Jackson was moving to evade the 
threatened blow. The delay had also hindered the advance of the other corps ; 
and so the division commander charged to watch Thoroughfare Gap construed 
it to be his duty, while the rear of the army was thus exposed, to take post in 
that direction. 

So it came about that when Pope, having about noon discovered that Jack- 
son had escaped from Manassas northward, sent orders to McDowell to change 
his route northward also, and take the direct road to Centreville, that office'r, 
out of his two corps, had but one division so in hand that he could promptly 
turn it. Before the rest could get up this division, late in the afternoon, was 
approaching Jackson's position just north of the old Bull Run battle-field at 
Groveton. Jackson instantly fell upon it, and a fierce conflict ensued. The 
troops maintained themselves, as Jackson officially reported, with obstinate de- 
termination, but they were effectually checked ; and their commander, being 



688 Ohio in the War. 

alarmed by his apparently isolated jjosition, fell back after nightfall toward 
Manassas again. McDowell himself was absent trying to find Pope. 

While this fight was going on, the division ordered by McDowell to watch 
Thoroughfare Gap was in sorer sti-aits. Long-street's corps of Lee's army com- 
ing up through the gap to Jackson's relief attacked it. The ground was obsti- 
nately contested, but Longstreet sent flanking forces along bridle-paths in the 
mountains ; and, in effect, the passage was forced, and the rest of Lee's army 
was long before nightfall hastening due east along the ojDen road past Gainesville 
to Jackson. For Pope's grave error in turning McDowell south-eastward to- 
ward Manassas Junction had taken him off the road bj^ which Lee advanced. 
The last obstruction was thus removed to the junction of the rest of the Eebel 
army to Jackson's previously isolated wing. 

What follows is a pitiful stor3^ Pope had been moving not only McDow- 
ell's two corps, but all the rest of the army, including the re-enforcements from 
the Army of the Potomac, by converging routes on Manassas Junction, where 
he had hoped to surround Jackson. When now, on the morning of the 29th, he 
discovered that Jackson had eluded him, his columns were all out of place with 
reference to a speedy onset at Groveton. The parts of the army were all dis- 
located. 

But he collected them as he could; sent Sigel to open the attack, while 
McDowell, relieved of his unwilling subordinate, by coming again under the 
direct orders of the General commanding the army, was to take one division 
along with Porter's corps back again to Gainesville to keep off Lee — thus 
returning directly over the advance of the da}^ before. Some time was spent in 
issuing rations to the troops, who were worn out and disgusted with this con- 
fused marching and counter-marching. Then McDowell started toward Gaines- 
ville. Presently he found Porter halted. That officer believed that Longstreet 
was already joining Jackson on his front. McDowell says he ordered him to 
attack. Porter says the order was to remain where he was. At any rate, 
taking his own troops, McDowell once more turned back toward Groveton, 
where he did not arrive till late in the afternoon. 

These contradictory orders and marches, it is plain, frittered away the 
chance that still remained on the morning of the 29th for overpowering Jack- 
son. By noon, according to the reports of the Confederates themselves. Long- 
street had effected the junction.* But it does not appear that McDowell is to 
blame for this. It is not, indeed, clear that he was distinct in his own ideas as 
to the true policy; but he obeyed his orders. 

The battle of the 29th was indecisive. But Lee's whole army was now up, 
and was flushed with this great success in effecting the junction in the face of 
Pope's efforts. Pope's army, on the other hand, was exhausted, scattered, and 

* This is a point much disputed. Pope maintains that no considerable part of the army 
leached Jackson till the evening of the 29th, and the question of Fitz John Porter's action turns 
largely upon the correctness or error of this view. General D. E. Jones, who commanded the 
rear division of Longstreet's corps, says in his report: "Arriving on the ground about noon, my 
command was stationed," etc. This would seem to settle the matter, since no conceivable motive 
can be assigned for his making a misrepresentation on such a point. 



Irvin McDowell. 689 

bewildei-ed with the confused movements. It had begun to lose faith in all its 
commanders; and, as a whole, it did not fight as well as it should. The opening 
of the battle on the 30th was signalized by another mistake. Lee was projios- 
ing to attack Pope's left, just as Pope began an attack upon Lee's left. Naturally 
this flank was found a little retired — troops having been drawn off to the other 
wing for the attack Lee was preparing. Thereupon Pope leaped to the con- 
clusion that it was a retreat, that Lee "was fleeing to the mountains," and so 
ordered a "pursuit," which McDowell was to conduct. The pursuit was met by 
the outbursting of fierce fire from an enemy suddenly seen swai-ming over posi- 
tions he was thought to have abandoned. At the same time Lee's attack on 
Pope's left was delivered. Seeing this, McDowell instantly detached a division 
to hold Bald Hill, back on the old Bull Eun battle-field, whither the attack 
seemed to be driving the whole left wing. This step was wise, in that it pro- 
tected the only road by which the army could retreat ; but it v%^eakened the 
offensive force on the right. This was of the less consequence, as the enemy's 
position liere, in an old railroad cut, was not to be carried. Eepeated assaults 
ended in bloody repulse. Finally Longstreet established an enfilading fire 
along McDowell's line, and he was compelled to fall back. Jackson instantly 
advanced, the rest of the Eebel line followed, and the second battle of Bull Eun 
was over. McDowell's fortunate disposition of troops on the hills covering the 
road secured the passage across the stream. 

Palpably the campaign was over. The next day Pope began retiring to the 
defenses of Washington — an operation not completed without the indecisive but 
costly battle of Chantilly, by the way, with the addition of Kearney and Ste- 
vens to the ghastly list of our slain. 

And thus, as at the outset of McDowell's career in the war, a cruel fortune 
had sent him drifting back on the capital from the lost field of Bull Eun, with a 
mob for an army — so now it was fated that his career should end, as from the 
self-same field, in similar confusion, he drifted back with the remnants of two 
greater armies. On the 6th of September he was relieved of command. 

General Pope jDrofessed himself, not only satisfied, but highly pleased with 
McDowell's conduct through this brief but crowded campaign.* General Hal- 
leck declared that McDowell had rendered signal service and deserved national 
gratitude. The President and Cabinet said he had done nothing deserving 
of blame. 

But all this was of no avail. The hatred of his soldiers and the hostility 
of the McClellan party could not pass for nothing. A storm of obloquy burst 
upon him, compared with which the storm after the first Bull Eun was but a 
summer breeze. The soldiers everywhere denounced him as a drunkard and a 
traitor. The newspapers poured upon him an incessant stream of abuse — many 

•^Subsequently, in his official report, Pope said: "General McDowell led his corps through 
the whole of the campaign with ability and vigor; and I am greatly indebted to him for zealous 
and distinguished service, both in the battle of the 29th and 30th August and in the operations 
which preceded and succeeded those battles." 
Vol. I. — i4. 



690 Ohio in the Wak. 

of those from his own State taking the lead in this calumnious work. Every- 
day the poltroon's threat was heard from some of those who professed to hare 
served under him, that they meant to shoot him in the very next action in 
which they should be engaged. Finally all this calumny took tangible shape in 
the publication of a letter written by Colonel Thornton F. Broadhead, of the 
First Michigan Cavalry, of McDowell's command, after he had received a mortal 
wound: 

"Dear Brother and Sister: — I am passing now from earth, but send you love from my dying 
couch. For all your love and kindness you will be rewarded. 

"I have fought manfully and now die fearlessly. I am one of the victims of Pope's imbe- 
cility and McDowell's treason. 

" Tell the President would he save the country he must not give our hallowed flag to such 
hands. But the old flag will triumph yet. The soldiers will regild its folds, polluted by imbe- 
cility and treason. 

" John, you owe a duty to your country. Write — show up Pope's imbecility and McDowell's 
infamy, and force them from places where they can send brave men to assured destruction. 

"I had hoped to live longer, but I die midst the ring and clangor of battle, as I could wish. 

"Farewell ! To you and to the noble officers of my regiment I confide wife and children. 

"THORNTON." 

Nothing can well be conceived more distressing to an innocent commander 
than charges like these, honestly put forward by a dying subordinate. Yet we 
may well believe that, agonizing as they were, McDowell was rejoiced at their 
publication. For now, at last, though no superior had one word of complaint 
against him, he was able to treat this letter of a dying man in the light of 
charges formally preferred, and to demand thereon a trial before a properly- 
organized court. This, in language properly chosen, and in a temper every way 
honorable to him as a patriotic soldier, he instantly did, as follows: 

" Washington, September 6, 1862. 
"To JSis Excellency the President: 

" I have been informed by a Senator that he has seen a note in pencil, written by a Colonel 
of cavalry mortally wounded in che recent battles, stating, among other causes, that he was dying 
a victim to McDowell's treachery, and that his last request was that this note be shown to you. 
That the Colonel believed this charge, and felt that his last act on earth was a great public serv- 
ice, there can be no question. This solemn accusation from the grave of a gallant officer, who 
died for his country, is entitled to great consideration, and I feel called upon to meet it as well 
as so general a charge from one now no longer able to support it can be met. I therefore beg you 
to please cause a court to be instituted for its investigation ; and in the absence of any knowledge 
whatever of the particular act or acts, time or place, or general conduct, the deceased may have 
had in view, I have to ask that the inquiry be without limitation, and be upon any point and 
every subject which may in any way supposed to have led to this belief; that it may be directed 
to my whole conduct as a general officer, either under another or whilst in a separate command; 
to my correspondence with any one of the enemy's commanders, or with any one within the I 
enemy's lines; to my conduct or the policy pursued by me toward the inhabitants of the country j 
occupied by our troflps, with reference to themselves or their property ; and further, to any indi- 
cations of indirect treachery, or disloyalty to the nation, or any individual having, like myself, j 
an important trust ; whether I have or have not been faithful as a subordinate to those placed 
over me — given them a hearty and, to the best of my capacity, all the support in my power ; and 
whether I have or have not failed, through unworthy or personal motives, to go to the aid of, or 
send re-enforcements to my brother commanders. 

"That this subject of my alleged treachery or disloyalty will be fully inquired into, I beg 



Ievin McDowell. 691 

• 

that all officers, soldiera, or civilians who know, or think they know, of any act of mine liable 
to the charge in question, be invited and allowed to make it known to the court. 

" I also beg that the proceedings of the court may be open and free to the press from day 
to day. I have the honor to he, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"iKviN Mcdowell, 

" Commanding Third Army Corps Army of Virginia." 

The request was granted, an able court was appointed, and manj- weeks 
were spent in the protracted investigation. General Pope was examined ; Gen- 
eral McClellan, General Wadsworth, General Sigel, and scores of less important 
officers were examined ; every one who hated McDowell, or who professed to 
know aught against him was requested to come and testify to it. The results of 
this patient and tedious search may be briefly stated. 

(1.) It was proved that, instead of being a drunkai'd, no living mortal had 
ever seen him taste liquors or wines; and his associates, those who had known 
him from boj^hood, and those who had seen his daily life in the army, declared 
him to be a rigid and absolute " total abstinent." 

(2.) It was proved that, instead of intriguing to withdraw his corj)S from 
McClellan, he was utterly ignorant of such intention on the part of any one till 
the withdrawal was ordered ; that instead of seeking to retain his independent 
command at Fredericksburg, he was constantly striving for permission to march 
to McClellan's relief; and that, instead of suggesting the foolish diversion to the 
Shenandoah after Stonewall Jackson, he had foreseen and earnestly pointed out 
its impracticability. 

(3.) It was proved that, instead of refusing to employ the resources of the 
■enemy's country, he had issued orders to forage liberally upon the enemy, but 
had insisted with the rigor of a severe disciplinarian, that this should be done 
in an orderly manner, and that marauding and pillage should be sternly pun- 
ished ; whereupon the marauders and pillagers denounced him, and the excited 
country espoused their cause. 

(4.) It was proved that, instead of carrying on frequent and friendly cor- 
respondence with the Eebel commanders, almost his only correspondence was 
■concerning the wanton murder of a noted loyal Virginian, Eobert E. Scott, 
whose admission to the Cabinet had been contemplated. He deplored the act, 
.-and earnestly strove to further the personal wishes of the bereaved widow. 

(5.) It was proved that, instead of devoting his army to the protection of 
Eebel citizens, he had only devoted himself to the protection of his army. Ut- 
ter demoralization must have resulted from the permission, which he refused, to 
commit acts of license upon the inhabitants. 

(G.) And, finally, it was proved that, throughout the campaign from Cedar 
Creek to the defenses of Washington, he had obeyed every order promptly and 
skillfully; and that when left to his own judgment he had acted, not perhaps 
always for the best, but certainly as always seemed for the best. General Sigel 
undertook to make strictures upon an alleged want of promptness aiad co-ope- 
ration at certain stages, which resulted in the conclusive proof of General Sigel's 
'Own disobedience of orders at the stages referx'ed to, and of other serious mis- 



692 Ohio in the War. 

conduct. And General Milroy made strictures upon his alleged refusal to fur- i 
nish him re-enforcements near the close of the battle of the second Bull Eun, 
which led to the proof of Milroy's not having a command of even a company 
on the field at that time to re-enforce; of his attempting to interfere with the 
commands of othei'S ; and of his being in a frenzy of excitement, which left him 
scarcely responsible for his actions. 

And so the investigation ended. At its close General McDowell submitted 
a singularly calm statement in review of the evidence, which he concluded 
as follows : 

"It is now more than five months since, upon an intimation from the highest authority, I 
asked for this investigation. It has been held near where all the alleged acts of commission or 
omission took place. It has been open. All persons have been invited, in the most public way, 
to disclose to the court whatever they knew which would tend to show criminality in my conduct 
as an officer or as a man ; and the court have asked witnesses not only what they knew, but what 
they knew others knew. Those who do not wish me well have been asked every question likely 
to develop anything to my prejudice. I feel now, after this tedious and patient investigation, 
which this court has so faithfully made, that as to the past, on all matters concerning my loyalty 
or sobriety, I may be spared the charges that have been so freely made against me. 

" Nearly two years ago I was here, organizing the small beginnings of the grand Army of 
the Potomac. When I commenced, we had here in Washington Cooper, now the senior Gen- 
eral in the secession army ; Lee, commanding at Fredericksburg ; Johnston, the commander of 
the Rebel Array of the Mississippi ; Magruder, the commander of the enemy's forces in Texas ; 
Pemberton, the commander at Vicksburg; Jones and Fields, prominent on the other side, besidea 
many others of less rank. Alexandria was mostly, if not wholly, secession ; Georgetown and 
Washington were very much so. I organized the first hundred, the first thousand, and the first 
brigade of the loyal citizens of the place, and this in opposition to all the bad influences brought to 
bear against us. And when the troops from the North came down, and the capital had been 
saved and the opposite shore taken, I organized the army of which the present one is but an 
extension — a great one, it is true. 

"I have been in constant active service. No doubt of my loyalty has been entertained by 
the authorities or my superiors, and no evidence questioning it has been brought before this court. 
And yet I have had to leave my command and undergo the humiliation of an investigation on a 
charge, in my case, as baseless as it is senseless ; and this in as intelligent a country as ours claims 
to be. The charge of treason is a fit pendant to the one of drunkenness, and quite as true, seeing 
that to this day I have never drank anything but water. 

"Is it not a bad symptom in the nation when such things can take place? Can its officers 
Bustain themselves under such a system, and render that service which the country needs in its 
present critical state, and must have as a condition of its salvation?" 

The appeal was in vain. The court completely vindicated McDowell, but : 
the country was not then in a mood to do justice to those against whom it had 
prejudices, and the troops were as violent as ever in their hostility. It was thus 
impossible to assign him to the command of forces in the field. He was made 
President of a court for investigating alleged cotton frauds, and in this capacity 
he served, mostly in the South-west, through the months of May, June, and July, 
1863. He was made President of a Board^ at Wilmington, Delaware, for retir 
ing disabled officers of the armj'^ ; and in this service he continued from July, 
1863, to May, 1864. Then, in July, 1864, he was sent to the Pacific coast, in 
command of that department. When, at the close of the war, in the I'edistri- 
bution of commands to the Major-Generals in the regular army, it became nec- 
essary to assign Halleck to the military district composed of the Pacific slope 



Irvin McDowell. 693 

McDowell was given (June, 1865) the most desirable of its departments, that of 
California. Here he long continued, serving in the rank of Brigadier-General 
and Brevet Major-General* in the regular army, in honor after so much deti'ac- 
tion, but cheated of the large career and brilliant fame to which his fine capa- 
cities, his early start, and his continued devotion entitled him to aspire. 

And now, what shall we say in attempting to estimate the military charac- 
xer of an officer with such a career? Pursued, as he was, by misfortunes, for- 
ever the victim of circumstances, forever on the point of accomplishing brilliant 
results, and foi'ever toppling backward instead into an abyss of disasters, 
doomed to see his wisest prepai-ations frustrated by outside causes, his most 
earnest devotion doubted, his most careful discipline begetting insubordination, 
and his most exposed service procuring tlie charge of treachery, — in what light 
can we fairly consider him but as the jest and plaything of malevolent Fates? 

Yet we shall not judge him aright if we trace the sources of his persistent 
ill-fortune exclusively to outside causes. Faults inherent in the character of 
the man helped to swell the bias against him. His aristocratic ideas led to an 
imprudent scorn of popular opinion. His dislike for adventurers led to an ill- 
concealed contempt for the suddenly-advanced officers of foreign services. His 
prejudices against the unquestioned irregularities of volunteers led to an unwise 
narshness of bearing and of discipline. Sadl}^ ill -fitted to the management of 
the troops of a democratic Eepublic, he was not free from the current talk of the 
VV^est Pointers against the politicians who had made them. His intellectual 
conservatism led to a revulsion against the abolition current which was the life- 
olood of the war. His somewhat torpid habit of perceptions caused him some- 
limes to persist in a wrong course, where men of quicker and shallower thoughts 
would have seen its tendencies, to be blind to the injurious woi-kings of his dis- 
cipline, to be incredulous of evil reports. His pride was so great that, knowing 
"himself odious, he would resort to none of the common modes for acquiring or 
regaining popularity. 

These habits of thought and of action helped the failure which they were not 
sufficient to create; and it is for this reason that the career of McDowell becomes 
a notable warning and example to younger officers. His faults were not vices — 
they were simply the excess of qualities commendable enough in themselves. 

At the outset he seemed to have before him the most brilliant opportunities 
of an}' officer in the arm}'. He had seen the war in Mexico from the best of 
positions — the staff of a commanding^ General. He had enlarged upon the 
knowledge thus acquired by copious study. He had seen the organizations and 
movements of European armies. He had long enjoyed the personal instruction 
of Winfield Scott. Profiting by all these advantages, he had become probably 
the best military scholar, the best theoretical soldier in the service. He enjoyed 
the favor of the General-in-Chief. He was likewise in high favor with the Ad- 

* The Brevet Major-Generalship in the regular army was not conferred until March 18^ 
1865, long after the calumnies against him were refuted. It was "for gallant and meritorious 
fier\ ices at the battle of Cedar Mountain, Virginia." 



694 Ohio in the War. 



ministration, and was peculiarly esteemed by the member of the Cabinet then 
the most influential. 

With such brilliant auguries he entered the war. Within little over a year 
he was retired from active service, the most odious officer in the ;irmy. His 
active career embraced two great lost battles, a movement on Fredericksburg, 
an inconsequential race after Stonewall Jackson, and the minor operations at 
the head of his corps in Pope's Yirginia campaign. In the battle in which he 
exercised independent command his conduct was skillful and able. In that in 
which he was subordinate, he so bore himself as to receive the highest praises 
of his chief His military conduct throughout, if not brilliant, was at least in a. 
high degree judicious and well-conceived. But he displayed an utter incapacity 
for acquiring the confidence of volunteers. 

In a somewhat sad letter of McDowell's, which we have lately seen, he { 
speaks mournfully enough of his record in the war of the rebellion as being a 
disagreeable subject : " I feel," he says, "that I am one of the 'might-have-beens' 
rather than one of those who have been and are. I was much struck by a report 
of General Sherman's speech in Columbus,* which, in enumerating the Ohio 
Generals, omits my name altogether!" 

He should dismiss this feeling. Eepublics may not always be grateful; 
and it often happens that in the heat of exciting events they are grossly unjust. 
But honest services, conspicuously rendered, can not be always misrepresented, 
nor can they every pass out of men's memories. History, he may be sure, will 
plead successfully with Oblivion for his name. 

His place, in the sure judgment of coming times, is secure. He will not be 
reckoned brilliant or great. But his ability and his devotion will be recog- 
nized. His manifold misfortunes, the amiability with which he encountered per- 
sonal reverses, the fortitude with which he endured calumny, will be recounted. 
Men will do justice to the services he rendered us in our darkest hours; and he 
will leave an enduring and an honorable fame. 

General McDowell is a man of large, well-developed frame, of excellent 
presence and consummate address. His head is large, and the face is strong 
and heavy. Among his friends, and in the freedom of the social circle, no man 
can be more winning. In his general intercourse he is reserved and cold. Po- 
litically, he is understood to be a Conservative Eepublican. He has long been 
married, and a promising family grows up about him. Army life has become a 
habit with him. and there is little likelihood now of his ever leaving the serv- 
ice. He enjoys the respect and confidence of his superiors — as he did through 
the whole season of his troubles ; and officers generally still look upon him as 
one of the most accomplished soldiers in the army. 

•■■ Sherman's appointment to a Colonelcy in the regular army at the outbreak of the war, when 
opposed by some of the authoritiejs was warmly indorsed and seconded by McDowell, who was 
then powerful. It is little wonder, then, that he should be struck by Sherman's complete for- 
getfulness of him. 



Don Caklos Buell. 695 



MAJOR-GENERAL DON CARLOS BUELL. 



DON CAELOS BUELL, one of the most accomplished military schol- 
ars of the old army, and one of the most unpopular Generals of vol- 
unteers during the war of the rebellion — an officer who often er deserved 
success than won it — who was, perhaps, the best organizer of an army that the 
contest developed, and who was certainly the hero of the greatest of the early 
battles of the war, was born near Marietta, in Washington County, Ohio, on 
the 23d of March, 1818. 

Captain Timothy Euell, one of the early settlers of Cincinnati, was the 
General's grandfather on the maternal side, and Salmon Buell on the paternal 
side. Captain Buell is said to have built the first brick house erected in Cin- 
cinnati. He did not remain there long, however, but yielded to the wishes of 
some other members of his family and removed to Washington County, where 
they were then settled. Shortly afterward the war with the Indians broke out, 
and the Captain, raising a company, and taking with him his nephew, Salmon 
D. Buell, went into the field. They served till the close of the war. Shortly 
after their return young Salmon married Eliza, the daughter of his uncle and 
Captain. Of this marriage, the first son was Don Carlos Buell. 

Before the lad, that was afterward to hold so prominent positions, had com- 
pleted his seventh year his father died. The mother, after some time, married 
Mr. Dunlevy, who was then clerk of the Washington County Court, and con- 
tinued in that office until his death. Young Don Carlos, however, was soon 
taken by his uncle, George P. Buell, to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where his boy- 
hood was passed. Among the men of that place verging on the fifties are many 
who remember him as playmate and school-fellow. They unite in describing 
the future General as a reserved and taciturn lad, having few intimate asso- 
ciates, but regarded by them as a " most genial and companionable fellow." 
He excelled in the boyish sports of the time, was a fearless hunter, and noted 
as the best skater in all that region. Usually undemonstrative and quiet in 
demeanor, he nevertheless gave proof enough that, when roused, he was not 
onl}^ a brave but almost a savage fighter. Shortly alter his arrival, the "town 
bully "among the lads of the time, one Joseph Danagh, determined to see what 
stuff the " new boy " was made of. They met at the town pump one morning, 
a ring was formed, and the new boy proved his mettle by beating the bully. 
From that time his position was secure. 

Until his sixteenth 3-ear young Don Carlos attended school at Lawrence- 



696 Ohio in the War. 

burg, making fair progi'ess, and being regarded as a promising boy, of excel- 
lent moral habits, and remarkable for his sturdiness of purpose. At sixteen 
he entered the dry -goods store of John P. Dunn & Co., in Lawrenceburg, as a 
clerk. Here he remained until, a year later, Hon. Amos Lane, then the Eepre- 
sentative in Congress from that district, gave him an appointment as cadet at 
West Point. 

Cadet Buell graduated in the class of 1841, standing thirty-second in gen- 
eral merit. Above him were Horatio G. Wright, who stood second; Amiel 
W. Whipple, fifth; Nathaniel Lyon, eleventh; Schuyler Hamilton, twenty- 
fourth; James Totten, twenty-fifth, and John F. Eeynolds, twenty-sixth. Be- 
low him were such men as Alfred Sully, thirty -fifth, and Wm. F. H. Brooks, 
forty-sixth. In the Academy at the same time, though in other classes, were 
many who have since been regarded as among the ablest men of the army: 
Sherman, George H. Thomas, and E. S. Ewell one year ahead of him ; Halleck, 
Stevens, Eicketts, Ord, and Canbj^ two years ahead ; Beauregard, Irvin McDow- 
ell, and Hardee three years ahead; Eustis (Professor in Harvard), Newton, 
Eosecrans, Pope, McLaws, Earl Yan Dorn, and Longstreet one year behind 
him;^ Wm. B. Franklin, John J. Peck, Jos. J. Eeynolds, TJ. S. Grant, and Eu- 
fus Ingalls two years behind ; Alfred Pleasanton, S. B. Buckner, and W. S. 
Hancock three years behind him. 

On graduation General Buell was assigned to duty as Brevet Second-Lieu- 
tenant in the Third Infantry. Thenceforward he led the monotonous and com- 
paratively obscure life of a subordinate officer of regulars, bearing his share in 
the Mexican war, rising by slow gradation, till, in 1861, we find him in the Ad- 
jutant-General's office at Washington, regarded by the few who concerned 
themselves with the affairs of the army as one of its best administrative officers, 
and ranking as Lieutenant-Colonel in the Adjutant-General's Department. 

In the autumn of 1861 Kentucky had already enjoyed the services of three 
Department Commanders. Under the first (General McClellan), nothing of 
consequence had been done, save the agreement upon an ill-understood and 
afterward disputed compact recognizing the neutrality of this sovereign State. f 
Under the second (General Eobert Anderson), the- volunteering of Kentuckians 
in the Union army had gone rapidly forward ; but he was enfeebled by disease 
and the shock of Sumter, and under his nerveless grasp of the .State the Eebel 
armies had carried on recruiting within its limits quite as successfully, and 
almost as openly. Under the third (General W. T. Sherman), the reign of 
panic had been begun. The advance toward East Tennessee had been con- 
verted into a hurried race toward the Ohio for no sufficient cause; the invasion 
by Buckner had created alarm for the safety of Louisville ; troops had been 

* Among the scores of illustrations which the Army Register offers of the worthlessness of 
academy standing as an indication of military ability, may be mentioned the fact that in this 
last class the ablest of the Rebel corps commanders (after Stonewall Jackson's death), James 
Longstreet, stood fij'hj-jourth. ' 

t See ante Life of McClellan. 



Don Caklos Buell. 697 

I 

I ordered to destroy railroads, burn baggage, and make hasty retreats northward; 
the abandonment of Louisville and concentration of the army on the north side 
of the Ohio, at New Albany, had been seriously contemplated ; the Secretary 
of War and the Adjutant-General of the army had been gravely assured that 
the instant wants of the service in Kentucky demanded two hundred thousand 
men ! * 

The Administration was now thoroughly alarmed, not so much at its dan- 
ger from the enemy as at the condition of its own commander, and on the return 
of the Secretary to Washington there was a hasty consultation as to the best 
man to be forthwith sent to Kentucky. With both General Scott and Gen- 
eral McClellan, as well as with all familiar with army matters at Washington, 
the cautious and correct Adjutant-General stood high. He was presently 
selected, without any previous knowledge that such promotion was awaiting 
him, and on the 9th of November, 1861, the States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, 
Tennessee, and that portion of Kentucky east of the Cumberland Eiver were 
constituted "the Department of the Ohio," to be commanded by Brigadier-Gen- 
eral Buell. The same order sent Halleck to St. Louis to succeed Fremont. 

Kentucky was thought to be in a critical condition. A provisional govern- 
ment had been inaugurated by the Eebels at Eussellville, near the south-western 
border, and nearly one-half the State acknowledged its authority. It was sup- 
posed, as General Buell subsequently said.f that "the Union element was 
confined, for the most j^art, to the old men ; that the mass of the young men 
were on the eve of joining the Eebel cause, and that nothing but extraordinary 
exertion and judicious management could secure the State from the vortex 
toward which the excitement of revolution was carrying her." On this theory 
his opening policy in the administration of affairs in his Department would 
seem to have been based. He soon succeeded in securing the perfect confidence 
of the Union men of the State. The same species of admiration for his execu- 
tive ability that was already turning the head of the Young Napoleon to the 
Eastward, sprang up with reference to the new commander of the Department 
of the Ohio. His decisions were accepted as infiillible ; his calls for troops 

■•■ In preceding pages of this work (Life of Slierman) I have mentioned the fact that an 
authorized biographer of General Sherman has since explained that he said, " Sixty thousand to 
drive the enemy out of Kentucky ; two hundred thousand to finisli the war in this section ; " and 
have discredited the explanation, as bearing signs of being an after-thought. Since those pages 
were stereotyped, I have been authorized by the gentleman then acting as Private Secretary to 
Adjutant-General Thomas (Mr. Samuel Wilkeson, of New York), who was the only other person 
present at the interview on the part of the Washington authorities, to pronounce the explanation 
utterly without warrant in fact. His recollections and those of the Secretary and Adjutant-Gen- 
eral are concurrent and clear. They unite in saying that General Sherman had been explaining 
the immense preponderance of Kebel forces in Kentucky, his great and imminent danger, and the 
pressing demand for re-enforcements; that Mr. Cameron asked, "How many men do you need, 
General?" and that Sherman promptly and with great emphasis answered, "Two hundred thou- 
sand, sir." They describe his manner and appearance as those of a man terribly excited and 
alarmed, using the wildest language, and, as they thought, scarcely conscious of the purport of 
his words. 

t Buell's statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission in his case. 



698 Ohio in the Wak. 

were held to result from a wise understanding of the wants of the service ; in 
all ways men sought to hold up his hands and exalt his authority. Meantime 
his dignified bearing, and his manifest desire to conciliate the prejudices of 
Kentucky Unionists, had combined to make him personally popular. The 
newspapers praised him ; he was eulogized at public meetings ; steamboats were 
named after him ; special delight was taken in the fact that though he was a 
Unionist he was not an Abolitionist. 

The new General found about twenty -seven thousand effective troops in 
his Department, besides forty or more Kentucky regiments, complete and incom- 
plete, which were still scattered through the State, some without arms or organ- 
ization, and nearly all without discipline. There was no transportation for a 
campaign, supplies had not been accumulated, and a large part of the force wa& 
still a heterogeneous mass. Meanwhile the Government, embittered at the 
untoward result of the former movement, was urging a new advance toward 
East Tennessee. To this, therefore, his first thoughts were directed. Looking 
southward from Louisville he saw on his immediate front an army which he esti- 
mated at thirty-five thousand men,* with railroad connections to Nashville and 
Columbus that would enable a rapid concentration of all the Rebel force in the 
West. Away to the eastward of this formidable army stretched the route,, 
through Bast Tennessee, two hundred miles from the end of railroad transpor- 
tation, a rough and comparatively barren country. Over this sujDplies must 
be carried in wagon trains, and through the whole extent of the route these 
must be carefully guarded. 

On this estimate of the conditions of his problem. General Buell formed 
his plans, and within two weeks after assuming command of the Dejjartment, 
communicated them in elaborate letters to the General-in-Chief. For the 
East Tennessee movement he would require a column of twenty thousand men, 
with ten thousand more to act as reserve, and guai-d the line of supplies. For 
the movements against the enemy in front, which he seems to have regarded as 
more important, he had a notable proposition to make. He would leave the 
Eebels to hold their intrenchments at Bowling Green, would march rajiidly to 
the eastward around their flank, through Glasgow and Gallatin, and fall upon 
Nashville in midwinter. Meantime he would rely upon a force from Missouri 
to ascend the Cumberland under protection of the gunboats, bearing uj) am- 
ple supplies on transports, and meeting him at JSTashville. It was the origin 
of the first great camj)aign of the West that cut the Eebel line and threw back 
their armies to Northern Mississippi. f 

Of the plan thus outlined nothing can be said but praise. Its stolen laurels 
raised another General to the head of the army for a time, till his proved 
incompetency fairly drove him out. A prominent share in its execution started 

* Buell's statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission in his case, p. 2. 

tBuell's letters to McClellan, 27th and 30th November, 1861; letter to New York World. t 

m review of Sherman's speech at Planter House banquet, September 5, 1865; statement in y ■ 
review of evidence before Military Commission, p. 4. 



Don Caelos Buell. 699 

another on tho career Avhich led to the Lieutenant-Generalship, and to the cre- 
ation for him of a grade higher than that which a grateful Congress thought 
sufficient reward for George Washington. Of the estimates for troops for the 
work less can be said. Precisely what was General Buell's belief at the time 
as to the strength of the opposing force we can not tell. But as late as Ma}-, 
1863, he committed himself officially to the declaration that Sidney Johnston 
had at Bowling Green twenty-five thousand men, and that, including the out- 
posts north of the Cumberland, his strength was about thirty-five thousand.* 
There are not wanting evidences that to a much later period General Buell con- 
tinued to maintain that the force which held him back from Nashville, through 
the winter of 1861-62, was fairly stated in these figures. 

Now it so happens that there is at hand evidence on this subject of the 
Eebel strength at Bowling Green, which dispassionate judges will not hesitate 
to accept. In March, 1862, the Confederate Congress appointed a committee to 
investigate the surrender of Fort Donelson, and the evacuation of Nashville, 
whereof Henry S. Foote was chairman. Appended to the report of this com- 
mittee f is an unofficial letter from Sidney Johnston to Jefferson Davis, Avhich 
seems to have been given to the committee after the death of Johnston at Pitts- 
burg Landing had removed the bar of secrecy. In this letter the Eebel strength 
with which Bowling Green was first occupied is fixed at four thousand. B3- the 
15th of October Johnston says it was raised to twelve thousand; and at that 
strength it remained till the end of November. Meantime, he naively says: 
•I magnified my forces to the enemy, but made known my true strength to the 
Department and the Governors of States." He then explains that he decided to 
fight for Nashville at Donelson, and gave the better part of his army to do it, 
retaining only fourteen thousand to cover his front, and giving sixteen thousand 
to defend Donelson. And he adds that while the reports led him to believe that 
he had fourteen thousand at Bowling Green, yet when this column reached 
Nashville it was found to number less than ten thousand.^ An average force, 
therefore, of twelve thousand at Bowling Green may be fairly said to have held 
back the twenty-three thousand effectives whom Buell found awaiting him on 
his arrival, and the re-enforcements which more than doubled his strength before 
he moved. To leave the burden of censure for this wholly upon General Buell 
would be unjust. For he had to deal with the marplot at St. Louis, who was after- 
ward to harass the whole Nation for a time from the post of General-iu-Chief at 
Washington ; and, as we are soon to see, he found co-operation with Halleck a 
thing not to be attained. Nor is it clear that if he had been given permission 
to carry out his own plan with his own forces alone, he would not have attemjDted 
it. But there had now sprung up about the General a clique of super-service- 
able defenders, who filled the newspapers, and even the councils of men influenc- 
ing the business of the war, with silly stories concerning the fortifications at 

* Buell's statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission in his case, p. 2. 
t Richmond Official Edition, pp. ]71, 175. 

+ This is explained by the violent attacks of camp mea-sles, which had so enfeebled the men 
that four thousand of them were unable to endure the fatigue of the retreat to Nashville. 



700. Ohio in the Wae. 

Bowling G-reen — the Manassas, as they chose to sfyle them, of the "West — the 
Gibraltar of the country between the mountains and the Great Eiver. These 
tremendous fortifications, it was declared, were fully manned with a force as 
complete as that which at Bull Eun had shattered McDowell ; and whoever 
reduced the statement of the Kebel strength to a reasonable limit, was set down 
as one of the fanatical agitators who were bent on ruining the cause by starting 
a new " On to Eichmond " crusade, with as little preparation, and on a more 
dangerous field. General Buell was too cautious and too reticent a man to say 
these things ; but they were freely said about his head-quarters, and not always, 
it may well be believed, without his tacit approval. 

While the discussion of plans went on, the organization and discipline of 
the army were vigorously pushed. Much as General Buell afterward did to 
merit grateful remembrance, this was the most valuable service he rendered to 
the Nation. He took the Army of the Cumberland a disjointed, undrilled, 
unsoldierly militia mob — not without excellent troops, but with a vast pre- 
ponderance of men who bore no resemblance to real soldiers save in their uni- 
form. He left it the best drilled, best disciplined, most thoroughly trustworthy 
of the great armies that through the four years' fighting upheld and advanced 
the banner of the Eepublic* 

Under General McClellan there had been no army in Kentucky to drill. 
Under General Anderson little had been accomplished save to gather the 
inchoate elements of an army. Under General Sherman regimental and bri- 
gade commanders had, in individual cases, made efforts at establishing disci- 
pline, but there was no guiding head, acting on uniform rules for its enforcement; 
since, with all the brilliant qualities he was afterward to disjilay. General Sher- 
man neither then, nor at subsequent periods of his career, proved himself a 
good disciplinarian. f Such was the state in which General Buell found his 
force that on the very day after assuming command he thought it necessary to 
order reports of the number and condition of troops to head-quarters — there 
being, as it would seem, no data at hand from which he could satisfactorily 
learn what he had. A day or two later the growing evidences of irregularities 
made him regard it as needful to instruct commanders as to the drill of their 
men, the hours for reveille, tatto, and taps, the mode of guard-mounting, the 
necessity for the presence of oflScers at the daily di-ills, the importance of having 
ammunition in the cartridge-boxes, and haversacks and canteens ready for the 
march! At such elementary points was it necessary to begin his work. if 

* That which was afterward called the Army of the Tennessee was too small a body to be 
included in this comparison; and of other armies few will suggest any that should be named in 
advance of or even in connection with the Army of the Cumberland, unless it be the Army of the 
Potomac. Into that comparison I do not consider it needful to enter. For over a year Buell's 
army was known as the " Army of the Ohio." I have preferred to speak of it throughout by the 
name by which it is best known. 

t Through the winter of 1861-2 large numbers of troops passed from West Virginia into 
Kentucky, who had already been seasoned to campaigning under the eye of General Rosecrans. 
To these the description of the condition of the army in Kentucky does not so fully apply. Even 
in their cases, however, there was still ample room for the enforcement of a rigid discipline. 

t General Order No. 3, Department of the Ohio, 20th November, 1861. 



Don Caklos Buell. 701 

A day or two later we find him discovering the necessity of admonishing 
officers that they must not appear on parade without uniforms, or live away 
from the encampments of the troops they commanded;* and, three days after- 
ward, that there were regular military channels for the conduct of official 
correspondence; that subordinate commanders must not assume to accept the 
resignations of officers or order the discharge of soldiers; that free passes over 
railroads must not be distributed miscellaneously by officers to their friends; 
that leaves of absence for long or indefinite periods could not be accorded by 
subordinate commanders; and finally, that it was necessary to distribute and 
read general orders ! f 

Beginning thus at first principles, General Buell soon made the reins of 
authority felt throughout his slowly-forming army. Presently he organized the 
artillery. Then he began weeding out incompetent officers ; ordering them before 
courts-martial ; checking the unsoldier-like performance of holding regimental 
or company elections of officers to fill vacancies, for the instruction and guidance 
of the appointing powers. | Then the transportation was cut down to a rational 
limit ; officers were taught that they could not delay a whole army that their 
piles of trunks might be hauled along; even Colonels were remorselessly brought 
down to a maximum of one hundred pounds of personal baggage. || The cavalry 
was taken in hand, and stripped of the load of useless weapons and baggage 
with which the troopers were burdening their horses like pack-mules; officers 
of infantry companies were stopped from riding while their men walked, and 
remitted to their proper places ; Quartermasters were held to a rigid responsi- 
bility for the management of their trains; buggies and family carriages, which 
acquisitive camp followers had been accumulating, were driven out. §' Detailed 
instructions as to marching were issued, and every officer was required to study 
them. The duties of sentries and outposts were in like manner enforced. An 
elaborate order was issued, embi*acing the pith of the Army Eegulations on the 
whole subject of the conduct of troops in a campaign, the order to be observed, 
the conditions under which private property might be taken, the precautious 
against pillage or disorderly coiniuct to be required, the imperative necessity 
for vigilance. And, after a month or two of leniency, the officers absent with- 
out leave were suddenly brought up with all the rigor of the army rules, and 
dismissed the service without the slightest regard to personal influences or 
appeals for mercy. 

Into the details of this great work we can not further enter. It is enough 
to say that in these and similar ways, with the most jiatient care, and with an 
admirable administrative ability, was formed and shajsed the basis of that fire- 
ti'ied organization of brave men that, from Pittsburg Landing to Mission Eidge 
and Kenesaw and Nashville, never yielded a foot to the enemy without exacting 
a bloody cost, and never, when pro]Derly led, failed to add fresh laurels to the 
honored name of the Army of the Cumberland. 

* freneral Order No. 4, November 22, 1861. t General Order No. 5, November 25, 1861 

T General Order No. 7, November 26, 1861. ||General Order No. 8, December 3, 1861. 

g General Order No. 10, December 5, 1861, 



I' 



702 Ohio in the War. 

"While the work of discipline went forward, and General Buell was urging 
his plans for an advance upon jN'ashville, there were two incursions into Ken- 
tucky, that would seem to have been skillfully planned with a view to such an 
endangering of his flank as would effectually prevent any forward movement. 
One under Humphrey Marshall entered Eastern Kentucky through Pound Gap ; 
the other under Zollicoffer crossed the Cumberland Eiver near Somerset. Buell 
had early advices of each. Against Marshall he sent Garfield, who routed him 
and drove him out of the State. Against Zollicoffer he sent George H. Thomas, 
then a freshly-made Brigadier-General of volunteers, but known to all officers 
of the old army as a sturdy, trustworthy soldier. The victory which he won 
at Mill Springs was the first considerable one in Kentucky, and perhaps the 
most important thus far won in the war. Zollicoffer was killed, his army was 
driven across the river in confusion, fourteen pieces of artillery, with stores, 
prisoners, etc., were captured. The success was inspiring, and the country, and 
particularly the Kentucky Unionists, who had the most direct interest in his 
operations, came to regard General Buell's plans with a confidence perfectly 
implicit. 

Meantime, receiving little encouragement as to the prospect of securing the 
necessary transportation for the East Tennessee campaign, the General was 
directing his thoughts mainly to the advance upon Nashville. "We have seen 
that as early as 27th November, 1861, he had proposed to General McClellan an 
advance on Nashville around the east flank of the Eebel force at Bowling 
Green, while supplies and re-enforcements should move rapidly up the Cumber- 
land under the convoy of gunboats. On the 5tb of December, after twice calling 
on General Halleck as to the necessary co-operation, General McClellan tele- 
graphed Buell : "As soon as I receive reply from Halleck, will arrange details 
with you." But, while there was still delay as to these details, and while Buell 
was placing his forces, one small column at Munfordsville, one at Green River, 
on the road to Glasgow, one at Columbia, one at Lebanon, and another — for the 
purpose of deceiving the enemy as to the real object of. these dispositions — on 
the lower Green River, McClellan fell ill. Th^s the time passed without action 
till the last day of the year, when the President — already in sore distress at the 
inaction of our armies and the danger of foreign intervention — telegraphed to 
Buell to inquire whether he and Halleck were acting in concert. The General 
replied that they were not, and that he was awaiting orders from a superior 
authority that would insure such action. He moreover explained that if his 
movement against Nashville should be left to be an isolated one, there would 
of coux'se be nothing to hinder the Rebels from concentrating by rail against 
him from all quarters, and particularly from Columbus on the Mississippi. 
Thereupon the poor President replied that McClellan was too ill to be disturbed, 
but — " I think you better get in concert with Major-General Halleck at once." 

Now the difficulty in the case, as the President left it, was this: Halleck was 
a Major-General in the regular service; Buell only a Brigadier-General of vol- 
unteers. Furthermore, Halleck was already engrossed with operations in 
- South-western Missouri; and, even if he had not been, he was not a man of such 



Don Carlos Buell. 703 

temper as to be eager to enter upon the task of furnishing mere assistance in the 
execution of a plan devised by an officer so greatly his inferior in rank. It was 
more grateful to his habits of mind to appropriate the plan, and try to monopo- 

1 lize the glory of its execution. • 

So it came about that when Buell, in obedience to the President's sugges- 
tion, opened a correspondence with Halleck and explained the details of his 

! proposed movement, he met with a cold response. After preliminary dispatches. 

: Buell wrote at length : 

" Head-Quakters Department of the Ohio, Louisville, January 3, 1862. 

"General: I received your dispatch, and, with more delay than I meant, proceed to the 
subject of it, in compliance with your request, and I may add also at the wish of the President. 

" I do not underrate the difficulties in Missouri, but I think it is not extravagant to say that 
the great power of the rebellion in the West is arranged on a front, the flanks of which are Co- 
lumbus and Bowling Green, and the center about where the railroad between these points crosses 
the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, including Nashville and the fortified points below. It is, 
I have no doubt, within bounds to estimate their force on that line at eighty thousand men. 
including a column about Somerset, Kentucky, in rear of their right flank, it is more. 

"Of this force, forty thousand may be set down as at Bowling Green, twenty thousand at 
Columbus — though you doubtless have more information on that point then I have — and twenty 
thousand at the center. Considering the railroad facilities, which enable the enemy to concen- 
trate in a few hours on any single point of this front, you will at once see the importance of a 
combined attack on its center and flanks, or at least of demonstrations which may be converted 
into real attacks and fully occupy the enemy on the whole front. It is probable that you may 
have given the subject, as far as Columbus and the center are concerned, more attention than I 
liave. With reference to the former, at least, I can make no more than the general suggestion 
already exjsressed, that it should be fully occupied. 

" The attack upon the center should be made by two gunboat expeditions, with, I should say, 
twenty thousand men on the two rivers. They should, of course, be organized with reference to the 
depth of water in the rivers, and whether they should be of equal or unequal strength would de- 
pend upon that and other considerations, and can hardly be determined until the moment of 
departure. The mode of attack must depend on the strength of the enemy at the several points and 
the features of the localities. It will be of the first importance to break the railroad communi- 
cation, and if possible that should be done by columns moving rapidly to the bridges over the 
Cumberland and Tennessee. The former probably would not be reached at first, being some 
thirty-one miles above the first principal battery that I know of at Dover. The other is 
eighteen miles above Fort Henry — the first I know of on the Tennessee. If the expedition 
should not be strong enough to do the work alone, they should establish themselves firmly at the 
nearest possible point, and remain at least until they ascertained that re-enforcements from my 
columns or some other source would not reach them. By uniting they could establish themselves 
permanently under the protection of the gunboats. 

" I say this much rather to lay the subject before you than to propose any definite plan foi 
your side. Whatever is done should be done speedily, within a few days. The work will become 
more difficult every day. Please let me hear from you at once. 

" Very truly yours, D. C. BUELL, 

" Brigadier-General Commanding. 

" General H. W. Halleck, Commanding Department of the Missouri." 

To this General Halleck made no immediate reply — though, as subsequent 
events now show, he gave it careful study. Waiting in all impatience for sev- 
eral days. General Buell then telegraphed : "I am telegraphed by the President. 
Can you fix a day for concerted action?" Halleck responded that he might fix a 
<iay fora demonstration — he could do nothing more. And a day or two later came 



704 Ohio in the War. 

a letter which, though dated on the 6th, does not ajjpeai' to have been written 
80 early: 

" Head-Quarters Department op the Missouri, St. Louis, January 6, 1862. 
" Bbigadier-GiBNERAL D. C. Buell, Louisville, Kentucky: 

"General: I have delayed writing to you for several days, in hopes of getting some favor- 
able views from the South-west. The news received to-day, however, is unfavorable, it being 
stated that Price is making a stand near Springfield, and that all our available forces will be 
required to dislodge and drive him out. 

" My last advices from Columbua represent that the enemy has about twenty-two thousand 
men there. I have only about fifteen thousand at Cairo, Fort Holt, and Paducah, and after leav- 
ing guard at these places, I could not send into the field over ten or eleven thousand. Moreover, 
many of these are very imperfectly armed. 

"Under these circumstances it would be madness for me to attempt any serious operation 
against Camp Beauregard or Columbus. Probably, in the course of a few weeks I will be able to 
send additional troops to Cairo and Paducah to co-operate with you, but at present it is impossi- 
ble ; and it seems to me that if you deem such co-operation necessary to your success, your move- 
ment on Bowling Green should be delayed. I know nothing of the plan of campaign, never 
having received any information on the subject; but it strikes me that to operate from Louisville 
and Paducah, or Cairo, against an enemy at Bowling Green, is a plain case of exterior lines, like : 
that of McDowell and Patterson, which, unless each of the exterior columns is superior to the; 
enemy, leads to disaster ninety-nine times in a hundred. 

" Very respectfully your obedient servant, H. W. HALLECK, Major-General." 

One or two conclusions that have an important effect upon existing mili- 
tary reputations may be deduced from these letters. It is plain that General! 
Buell suggested the campaign which led to the fall of Forts Henry and Donel- 
son, and the evacuation of Bowling Green, Nashville, and Columbus. It isi 
equally plain that General Halleck sought to discourage it, and even committed: 
himself to the absurd criticism that it would be an operation on exterior lines, 
which, ill ninety-nine cases out of a hundi'ed, would lead to disaster. And it is 
clear that each of them was completely deceived by the magnificent game of' 
brag which the enemy was then playing, that each was guilty of the McClellan 
weakness of viewing the opposing forces through a magnifying glass of inordi- 
nate powers. "When Sidney Johnston had twelve to fourteen thousand at 
Bowling Green, Buell estimated his strength at forty thousand. When he had 
sixteen thousand at Donelson, Buell estimated his strength at twenty thousand. 
And to complete the self-deception, Halleck estimated the Eebel strength at 
Columbus at the preposterous number of twenty-two thousand. Yet we shall 
deal the more tenderly with such errors of judgment — the incidents of the uni- 
versal rawness, the reaction from Bull Eun, and the McClellan spell — when we. 
remember that so able and clear-sighted a commander as Sidney Johnston be- 
lieved, in November, 1861, that Buell then had fifty thousand men, an exagger- 
ation of not less than two-thirds.* 

General Halleck's open disapproval, and the failure of the Washington au- 
thorities to give peremptory orders for co-operation on this plan, not unnat- 
urally caused Genei'al Buell to slacken his personal efforts, and to direct his 
attention once more to the East Tennessee movement. To this same end the 

* Confederate Report Com. on Surrender Donelson, etc., p. 172. 



Don Carlos Buell. 705 

Government was now exhibiting renewed urgency. Buell's plan was to move 
Thomas's command from Somerset. A force was set to work corduroying the 
roads; and he strove to accumulate sufficient transportation, but found diflSculty 
in even subsisting ten thousand at this point of departure. At last it was ad- 
mitted that, with the existing resources of the Quartermaster's Department, the 
expedition to East Tennessee in midwinter was impossible. 

The roads were now far worse than when General Buell had first proposed 
the Cumberland Eiver and Nashville movement ; and it would seem that he 
regarded the resistance likely to be offered by the enemy as considerabl}^ in- 
creased. It was under these circumstances that, without a word of previous 
warning, he received, on 30th January, 1862, a dispatch from General Halleck, 
announcing that he had ordered an advance on Forts Henry and Donelson. 
He made no explanation and asked no co-operation. Buell, however, asked the 
one and offered the other — not without some manifestations of surprise that a 
plan he had sketched and proposed to execute should be thus entered upon 
without even giving him notice of it. Finally, after being informed by Hal- 
leck that co-operation at present was not necessary, and receiving onlj^ vague 
explanations, he wrote : 

" Head-Quarteks Department of the Ohio, Louisville, February 5, 1862. 

" General : My plan of operations was sketched in the letter I wrote you on the 3d ultimo. 
You have, I learn from your letter and dispatches, entered upon what would have concerned it 
on your side, and that is a very important part of it. I regret that we could not have consulted 
upon it earlier, because my work must at first be slow. Besides, since I wrote you, those plans 
have been changed, or at least suspended, in consequence of the diversion of a large part of my 
efficient force for other objects, which the General-in-Chief urged as of primary importance, 
namely, an advance into East Tennessee. I hear, however, in consequence of the want of trans- 
portation, and, more than all, the impassable condition of the roads, urged him to allow me to 
resume my original plan, and, if I am not restricted, shall enter on its execution at once. My 
troops have, however, been thrown somewhat out of position, and it will take some days to get 
them into place. My progress, too, must be slow, for we are dependent on the railroad for sup- 
plies, and that we must repair as we go, the enemy having very much damaged it between Green 
River and Bowling Green — forty miles. That will take ten or twelve days. I must go provided 
with a siege-train, because the enemy is strongly intrenched, with heavy artillery, behind a river, 
and the condition of the roads will, I fear, effectually bar any plan of attack which will depend 
on celerity of movement. 

" I think it is quite plain that the center of the enemy's line — that part which you are now 
moving against — is the decisive point of his whole front, as it is also the most vulnerable. If it 
is held, or even the bridges on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers destroyed, and your force 
maintains itself near those points. Bowling Green will rapidly fall, and Columbus will soon fol- 
low. The work which you have undertaken is, therefore, of the very highest importance, with- 
out reference to the injurious effects of a failure. There is not in the whole field of operations 
a point at which every man you can raise can be employed with more effect, or with the pros- 
pect of as important results. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, D. C. BUELL. 

" General H. W. Halleck, St. Louis, Missouri." 

In this spirit, without waiting for a request, he dispatched, the next day, a 
brigade from the mouth of Green River, and eight new regiments, to re-enforce 
the movement against Fort Henry. Then, on the 7th, Halleck, by this time 
alarmed for the success of his movement, asked for more men. Buell himself 

Vol. 1.— .45 



706 Ohio in the War. \AI 

now feared that before he could seriousl}^ threaten Bowling Green heavy re-en- 
forcements might be withdrawn from it to Donelson ; and so, with a readiness 
to weaken his own column in supporting anothei- — never too common among 
military men, and certainly not sj^ecially deserved by Halleck's treatment of 
him — he hastilj' detached three entire divisions by water to Fort Donelson. In 
all he had sent twenty-four regiments, with appropriate artillery, and was in 
the act of sending more when the fall of Donelson was announced.* 

Meantime he would seem to have decided, since his column was thus weak- 
ened, to content himself with a demonstration against Bowling Green, which 
would prevent its detaching troops to Donelson, and await the action on the 
Cumberland as sure to decide its fate. Moving rapidly forward, with the ener- 
getic Mitchel in advance, he came before Bowling Green on the morning of the 
14th — to find the bridge in flames and the last of the enemy moving out by 
rail. Sidney Johnston had decided upon its evacuation after the fall of Fort 
Henry, and had executed the work with remarkable dispatch. f Crossing the 
swollen river in midwinter without a bridge was found a diflScult task, but it 
was vigorously pressed, and after a little the oflScers succeeded in getting a pon- 
toon bridge, which was at once laid down. Then, starting with one thousand 
men on cars, and leaving Mitchel to push forward on foot, followed by all that 
was left of the army, Buell started straight for Nashville. He had grasped in- 
tuitively the necessities of the position and divined the certainty of the fall of 
Nashville. I Meantime he telegraphed around to Donelson (which had now 
fallen) for his troops there to hurry on up the river. All arrived almost 
together; and, after a scene of wild confusion, while awaiting the advent of 
the Yankee invaders, the capital of Tennessee fell without a blow. || 

"•■• Buell's Statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission in his case, p. 7 ; 
Letter on Sherman's speech at Planters' House banquet, New York World, 5th September, 1865. 

t" The evacuation of Bowling Green was imperatively necessary, and was ordered before 
and was executed while the battle was being fought at Donelson." — Sidney Johnston's letter to 
Jefferson Davis, March 18, 1862. 

JThat this involves much praise maybe inferred from the state of mind in which such 
commanders as Halleck are known to have been now thrown. General Halleck, being advised 
of General Buell's purpose to march straight on Nashville, made haste to remonstrate : 

" St. Louis, February 15, 1862. 
" Genkeal Buell. Louisville : Telegram about division relieves me greatly. To move from Bowling Green on 
Nashville is uot good strategy. Come and help me take and hold Fort Donelson and Clarksville, [then] move to 
Florence, cutting the railroad at Decatur, and Nashville must be abandoned, precisely as Bowling Green has been. 
All we want is troops in mass on the right point, and the enemy is defeated with scarcely a blow ; but I fear I have 
not forces enough for this new strategic move and at the same time observe Columbus. Come and help me and all 
will be right. We can clear Tennessee as we have cleared Kentucky. H. W. HALLECK." 

And again, about the 20th, General Halleck telegraphed his subordinates that they must 

rally for such a struggle in the vicinity of Nashville as the continent had never witnessed ; and 

appealed at the same time to Buell for aid to be sent to Clarksville, below Nashville, on the 

Cumberland : 

" St. Louis, February 20, 1862. 
"General Buell : We are in possession in Clarksville in large force, with plenty of supplies. Move to that place 
rapidly, by forced marches, and effect a junction. Send all available troops around that can reach there by water 
sooner than by land. Do n't hesitate a moment. If you will come, we are sure of Nashville and Columbus, and per* 
haps Memphis also. Answer, yes or no. H. W. HALLECK." 

II February 24th, 1862. I 



Don Caelos Buell. 707 

G-eneral Albert Sidney Johnston, a wary and experienced commander, fully 
equal to the high position to which the Confederates had assigned him, was now 
emancipated from the controlling political considerations which had enforced 
the vital errors of his long and weak defensive line from Bowling G-reen to Co- 
lumbus. While the Rebel press was denouncing him in unmeasured terms he 
was really giving the crowning proofs of his capacity. G-athering together the 
fragments of his defeated or retreating forces, those from Donelson, from Bowl- 
ing G-reen, from Mill Springs, he presently had them fused once more into a 
compact mass, and was crossing the Tennessee at Decatur with them, having 
lott the whole width of the State between himself and his pursuers. He was 
soon to show what means of offense yet remained within his grasj), on the fate- 
ful field of Pittsburg Landing. 

General Buell could make no immediate pursuit, since the country was 
jiooded. bridges were destroyed, and there were no adequate means for carrying 
•supplies away from rivers or raih'oads. But he soon sought once more, on his 
own motion as well as under advice from Washington, to get into co-operation 
with Halleck for further operations. He had hitherto been disposed to urge 
haste. It can not now be said that he was quite alive to the dangers which 
Sidney Johnston's rapid movements were threatening. But as soon as he had 
crossed his arm}' at Nashville, he sought an interview with Halleck, for which 
that officer professed to have as yet no time. When Columbus fell he would be 
read}^ for it. Then, on a further dispatchTrom McClellan, advising him to hold 
Nashville firmly, feel toward Chattanooga, "arrange details with Halleck, and 
co-operate together fully," Buell again asked Halleck what he could do to aid 
him. Halleck replied that he would like him to come over to Savannah or 
Florence, to separate Rebel forces on the Mississippi from Johnston's army. It 
was on the 4th of March that this proposition was made, and on the 5th that 
Buell acceded to it, but suggested some slight modifications. Precisely two 
weeks later Sidney Johnston was writing to the President of the Confederacy: 
-"I marched southward . . .to co-operate or unite with General Beauregard 
for the defense of the Yalley of the Mississippi. The passage is almost completed, 
and the head of my column is already with General Bragg at Corinth. The 
movement was deemed too hazardous by the most experienced members of my 

staff, but the object warranted the risk Day after to-morrow, unless 

tlie enemy intercept me, my force will be with Bragg The test of 

merit in my profession, with the people, is success. It is a hard rule, but I think 
it right. If I join this corps to the forces of General Beauregard (I confess a 
hazardous experiment) then those who are now declaiming against me will be 
without an argument."* 

Here then, in those critical two weeks, was the lost opportunity. We are 
now to see who lost it. 

The preliminary consultations between Halleck and Buell, which might 
have been settled in a forenoon's talk, dribbled through telegraphic dispatches 
from the Ist to the 10th of March. It was agreed that Halleck should push a 

* Confederate Report, Com. on Surrender Donelson, etc., pp. 173-175. 



708 Ohio in the War 

strong force up the Tennessee, and that Buell should march overland from 
Nashville to join it somewhere near Savannah, on the Tennessee Elver* Buell 
had begun his arrangements for this march when, on the 12th, came an order 
placing him under Halleck's command. The obvious necessity for a common 
head to the movement now in hand, and the superior rank of Halleck seemed 
to make this a necessary, as it certainly was an obvious measure. Buell himself 
styled it "eminently proper." Yet its results were not good. 

* The dispatches possess historic interest. The more important ones are as follows : 

"St. Louis, March 3, ISDi. 
" General Buell, Nashville: Columbus is nearly turiifd. The mortar boats will bombard it this afternoon, and 
Pope will attack New Madrid to-morrow morning. ... I will make an appointment to meet you as soon as the 
Columbus movement is ended. H. W. HALLECK." 

" Nashville, March 3, 1862. 
"General Halleck, St. Louis: What can I do to aid your operations against Columbus? Remember I am sepa- 
rated from you by the Tennessee Eiver. Johnston is moving toward Decatur, and burning the bridges as he goes, 

"D. C. BUELL." 

" St. Louis, March i, 16C2. 
"General Buell, Nashville: If Johnston has destroyed the railroad and bridges in his rear he can not return to 
attack you. Why not come to the Tennessee, and operate with me to cut Johnston's line with Memphis, Kandolph, and 
New Madrid? Columbus has been evacuated and destroyed. Enemy is concentrating at New Madrid and Island No. 
10. I am concentrating a force of twenty thousand against him. Grant, with all available force, has gone up the Ten- 
nessee to destroy connection at Corinth, Jackson, and Humboldt. Estimated strength of enemy at New Madrid, lian- 
dolph, and Memphis, is fifty thousand. It is of vital importance to separate them from Johnston's army. Come over 
to Savannah or Florence, and we can do it. We then can operate either on Decatur or Memphis, or both, as may appear 
best. H. W. HALLECK." 

"Nashville, March 5, 1S62. 
"General Halleck, St. Louis: Tour views accord with my own generally, but some slight modiiications seem to 
me necessary. At least there are details about which we ought to be able to consult freely. Can we not meet at Louis- 
ville in a day or so ? I think it very important. The|k3ncentration of my troops and transportation can not be com- 
pleted for some days. We have had two formidable rivers to cross, and have forced ourselves here without transporta- 
tion or baggage. The thing which I think of vital importance is that you seize and hold the bridge at Florence, in 
force. Johnston is now at Shelbyville, some fifty miles south of this. I hope you will arrange for our meeting at 
Louisville. D. C. BUELL. ' 

" St. Louis, March 6, 1862. 
"General Buell, Nashville: I can not possibly leave here at the present time. Events are passing on so rapidly 
that I must be all the time in telegraphic communication with Curtis, Giant, Pope, and Commodore Foote. We must 
consult by telegraph. News down the Tennessee that Beauregard has twenty thousand men at Corinth, and is rapidly 
fortifying it. Smith will probably not be strong enough to attack it. It is a great misfortune to lose that point. 1 
shall re-enforce Smith as rapidly as possible. If you could send a division by water around into the Tennessee it would 
require only a small amount of transportation to do it. Would receive all its supplies by the river. 

"H. W. HALLECK." 

" Nashville, March 9, ls(i2. 
"General Halleck, St. Louis: 1 did not get your dispatch of the 6th until yesterday— that of the Sth to-day. 1 
suggest the following: The enemy can move from one side of the river to the other at pleasure, and if we attempt to 
operate on both sides without the same facility of transit, we are liable to be beaten in detail. The point I previously 
suggested is the only one from which we can operate centrally. That secured, we can act according to circumstances 
either way. If you occupy that point, I will re-enforce you by water or join you by land. Otherwise, I may detach too 
little to serve you, or else so much as to endanger middle Tennessee, the importance of which I need not allude to. 
If we could meet, I think we could better understand each other. D. C. BUELL." 

"St. Louis, March 10, 1862. 
" General Buell, Nashville: My forces are moving up the Tennessee Kiver as rapidly as we can obtain transpor- 
tation. Florence was the point originally designated, but on account of enemy's forces at Corinth and Humboldt, it 
is deemed best to land at Savannah, and establish a depot. The transportation will serve as ferries. The selection is 
left to C. F. Smith, who commands the advance. Pope has turned Island No. 10, but the enemy shows no disposition to 
evacuate. Curtis is asking for re-inforcements in Arkansas. I must send him some troops intended for the Tennessee. 
Tou do not say whether we are to expect any re-enforcemeuts from Nashville. H. W. HALLECK." 

"Nashville, March 10, 1862. 
" General Halleck, St. Louis: The possession and absolute security of the country north of the Tennessee River, 
with Nashville as a center, is of vital importance, both in a political and military point of view. Under no circum- 
stances should it be jeopardized. It enables us, with the Tennessee as a base, to operate east, west, and south. AH 
our arrangements should look to a centralization of our force for that object. We can not tell now which direction to 
take when we get within reach of the enemy. You can not well tell what force you may meet at the west ; still less 
can I tell what may come in the direction of Stevenson. With this view the establishment of your force on this side 
of the river, as high up as possible, is evidently judicious ; and with the same view it would be unnecessary and unad- 
visable to change the line on which I propose to advance. I can join you almost if not quite as soon as by water, in 
better condition, and with greater security to your operations and mine. I believe you can not be too promptly nor 
too strongly established on the Tennessee. I shall advance in a very few days— as soon as otir transportation is ready. 

"D. C. BUELL." 



[ Don Caklos Buell. * 709 

General Grant had been deprived of his command in the field by reason of 
difficulties with Halleck and others, and ordered to Fort Henry ; while Charles 
F. Smith had been given the command of the expedition up the Tennessee. 
That veteran ofiicer, however, had soon fallen ill of the disease which in a few 
weeks brought him to the grave, and Grant had been sent up to resume com- 
mand. Contrary to General Buell's expectations, and to the dictates of military 
science or of common prudence, the army had been encamped on the further 
side of the swollen Tennessee, within less than twenty miles of the fast-concen- 
trating Rebel armies at Corinth. Of this fact Genex'al Buell was not advised ; 
and when, grown apprehensive, as it would seem, on the subject, he asked if he 
were not right in understanding Grant's army to be on the hither side of the 
river, he received no reply. 

Without orders from Halleck, and in pursuance of the general understand- 
ing attained while yet they were independent commanders, Buell moved on the 
15th of March, three days after being placed under Halleck's command. First 
he sent forward his cavahy to sweep rapidly over the route to be crossed and 
prevent the small bodies of the enem}^ that were known to infest it from burning 
the bridges. All were saved except the important bridge across Duck River at 
Columbia. The infantry soon reached this point, but was here delayed b}- a stream 
out of its banks and without a bridge. The ample engineering supplies which a 
year later would have made this a thing of little moment, were not yet introduced ; 
the officers who undertook the work wei'e still raw ; and though the building of a 
bridge was zealousl}" prosecuted, it was only finished on the 31st of March, the 
ver}- da}' on which (the flood having passed) the stream became once more forda- 
ble. Nine days had been given to the march of one hundred and thirty miles be- 
tween Nashville and Duck River, and twelve days had now been consumed here 
in bridge building. Then, on being at last able to cross. General Buell pushed 
forward vigorous!}", but in no special haste, and with no warning that there was 
any need for special haste. Fi*om Columbia to the Tennessee is ninety miles. 
He marched it, with his arm}^ in compact shape, in six days. 

That this movement was quite up to the average of good marching by the 
best armies during the war is undeniable. That it was accomplished over bad 
roads, and at a period of such general rawness as March, 1862, is the best testi- 
mony to the masterly manner in which General Buell had organized and disci- 
plined his army. But the extraordinary feature of the case is, that neither 
General Halleck, who commanded both armies, nor General Grant, who was in 
charge of the one on which the storm of Pittsbui-g Landing was about to buist, 
thought it needful to advise General Buell that there was any special occasion 
for forced marches. Halleck even suggested that Buell should halt at Waynes- 
boro', thirty miles short of Savannah ; and Grant, as late as the 4th of April, 
sent word to the advanced division of Buell's column (General Nelson com- 
manding), that it was unnecessary to hasten his march, as he could not at any 
rate cross the river before the 8th !* 

■ Buell's letter to editor United States Service Magazine, January 19, 1865. His words are: 
"The day before his arrival at Savannah, General Nelson, who commanded my leading division, 



710 ' Ohio in the Wak. 

Great events were to come before the 8th — events of such a nature that 
Buell was subsequently justified in saj'ing to G-rant: " Had I acted on your dis- 
patch to General Nelson . . . the time you designated for me to commence 
crossing the river would have found the remnant of your army prisoners in the 
camps of the enemy." 

On the morning of the 6th of April the sleepers at Savannah were aroused 
by cannonading up the river in the direction of the camp. When the continu- 
ance of the firing indicated a serious attack Buell, conceiving that quite 
possibly General Grant's feeling of security might be unwarranted, went over 
to his head-quarters to inquire. He found that Grant had just started for the 
field, leaving word for Nelson's division of Buell's army to march up the river 
on the northern side. At Savannah the eas}^ -going officers still maintained that 
it was only an affair of outposts. As, howevei*, it continued, Buell decided to 
go up in person. All along the river bank he encountered the crowds of fugi- 
tives whose appearance too plainly told the story of the day. On his arrival, 
therefore, he did not need General Gi'ant's assurance of danger to prompt him 

advised General Grant by courier of his approach, and was informed, in reply, that it was unnec- 
essary to hasten his march, as he could not at any rate cross the river before the following Tues- 
day. Nevertheless that division and myself arrived at Savannah on Saturday, as I had directed. 
The next morning General Grant was attacked at Pittsburg Landing.' In a long letter to Gen- 
eral Grant, tartly commenting on the General's implied opinion that he ought to have moved 
more rapidly (New York World, April 6, 1866), Buell says: " Your dispatch of the 4th of April 
to General Nelson showed that so fiir from intending to be the attacking party at an earlier day 
than that on which I arrived, you were not even prepared to pass my army over the river for 
three days after it commenced to arrive." 

In this same letter General Buell produces an array of dispatches, between himself, Halleek, 
and Grant, on the various stages of the movement. Much of the matter in them is unnecessary | 
now for an understanding of the facts. He afterward condenses their substance, with entire fair- 
ness, as follows: 

" From the foregoing dispatches the following material facts are to be drawn : 

" 1. You were ordered up the Tennessee River for a specific object, and without reference to any support from lue ; 
that is, according to Gt-noral Hallecls's dispatch on the 4th of March, you had ' gone up the Tennessee to destroy con- 
nection [railroad connection] at Corinth, Jackson, and Humboldt.' 

"2. On the 10th, six days later, according to the same authority, you were 'moving up the Tennessee River as. 
rapidly as you could obtain transportation ; ' from which it would appear that you had more troops than transporta- 
tion, notwithstanding I was sending you all the boats I could spare from tlie Cumberland. In the meantime the plan 
of operations had been changed. Quoting again from General Halleck's dispatches of the 10th : ' On account of the 
enemy's forces at Corinth and Humboldt, it was deemed best to land at Savannali and establish a depot. The trans- 
portation would serve as ferries.' That is, your chief. General Halleck, had concluded to proceed with deliberate prep- 
aration, under the shelter of the Tennessee River, for an attack on the enemy's position at Corinth, or elsewhere in 
that vicinity. 

" 3. On the 16th, General Halleck reports you still ' concentrating at Savannah ; ' by which it appears that he did 
not consider you yet concentrated. 

"4. On the 28th he reports that ' large re-enforcements are being sent to you ;' that is, the force w^hich he thought 
necessary was still not concentrated. ' We must,' he says, ' be ready to attack as soon as the roads are passable ; ' from 
which is to be understood that General Halleck had been informed— for he was not present to see for himself— that at 
that time the roads from Savannah to Corinth were not in a condition to admit of an attack. 

"5. The invitation to co-operate came from me to General Halleck, as independent commanders, he commanding 
the Department of Missouri, and I the Department of the Ohio; and our consultations resulted in the designation 
of Savannah, which is on the east bank of the Tennessee, and was therefore a secure place for you, as the point at 
which we were to form a junction for our ulterior object. As late as the 5th day of April— the day of my arrival at 
Savannah, and the day before you were attacked—' future movements ' were not determined upon by General Halleck, 
your commander, and at that time mine also. 

" 5. General Halleck and yourself were informed from time to time of the progress of my movement, and the 
obstacles which retarded it. 

" 7. I was in communication with you by couriers, and with General Halleck by telegraph ; and neither you nor 
he informed me of your actual position, though I telegraphed him distinctly on that point ; far less did you advise me 
that you considered yourself in peril. On the contrary, on the 4th of April, you sent a dispatch to General Nelson, 
who commanded the advance of my column, telling him not to hasten his march, as he could not at any rate com- 
mence crossing the river until the following Tuesday, three days after the time which I had appointed for him to arrive 
at Savanjiah." 



Don Caklos Buell. 731 

t>:' ask that ti-ansports be at once sent down for Crittenden's division, then 
ari'iving at Savannah. He reconnoitered the field a little, then returned to has- 
ten the movements of his troops. 

"We need not repeat the sad story of that first day's disaster, which, in otlier 
pages, has been fully traced. Before Nelson could get up with his advance 
division, Grant was sending back earnestlj- for assistance, and representing the 
force with which he was engaged at a hundred thousand.* 

The advance of Nelson's division, after waiting for some time opposite the 
].andiug for means of crossing, reached the field just as the Eebels were making 
tlu'ir last advance. It rapidly took post, under General Buell's direction, and 
oj^ened with musketry and artillery. No more ground was yielded, and the 
troops encamped in line of battle. 

There was no conference between the commanders. One of Grant's sub- 
ordinates furnished Buell with a rough map of the ground, and there was a 
common understanding that operations must be renewed at da3'light. Through 
the night Crittenden's division of Buell's army arrived, and was moved out 
upon Nelson's right. McCook's, which ai'rived in time to get into action only a 
little later than the others, was used for further prolongation to the right. 

And now was seen — even more conspicuously than in the steady march- 
ing — the results of the fine discipline which Buell had been enforcing. At 
daybreak Nelson, moving in line of battle, drove in the enemj-'s pickets and 
engaged his artillerj^. The other divisions were then brought up, and with 
varjnng fortune the whole line advanced. It stretched over three-fourths of 
the battle-field. The remainder was left to the surviving fragments of Grant's 
army. There was no straggling from that line ; no confused breaking and 
fleeing to the rear, on the first onset of the enemy. Many of the troops had 

*In the public letter from Buell to Grant quoted from in the last note, Buell gives this 
curious document: 

"PiTTSBUKG, April 6, 1S62. 
" Commanding Officer Advance Forces, near Pittsburg, Tennessee : 

"General: The attack on my forces has been very spirited from early this morning. The appearance of fresh 
troops on the field now would have a powerful effect, both by inspiring our men and disheartening the enemy. If you 
will get upon the field, leaving all your baggage on the east bank of the river, it will be a move to our advantage, and 
possibly save the day to us. 

" The Rebel force is estimated at over one hundred thousand men. 

" My head-quarters will be in the log building on top of the hill, where you will be furnished a staff" officer to guide 
you to your place on the field. Respectfully, etc., U. S. GRANT, Major-General." 

After producing this dispatch, Buell adds some pungent comments with reference to the 
charge, which he alleges to have been encouraged at Grant's head-quarters, that, but for the 
delay in the arrival of Buell's army, Grant would have advanced to attack the enemy at Corinth 
before the date of this battle : 

"This letter was sent by a steamer, and was delivered fo me probibly between twelve and one o'clock, as I was 
on my way to the scene of action. Of course the estimate which it gives could not liave been based on the more noise 
of battle ; it must have been formed upon information previously obtained. It is true, I believe, that during the ^\ar 
you ilid not in any instance move to attack an enemy with less than double his strength— unless the battle of luka, 
fought by General Eosecrans, may be an exception. Now, our combined armies would have amounted to some eighty- 
seven thousand men. Is it supposable that you would have moved with eighty-seven thousand men to attack, in 
a fortified position, an enemy whose strength yon estimated at over one hundreil tlumsand men? Would it have been 
wise? Would it have been in accordance with your invariable practice before and since? You had not the transpor- 
tation for such a movement, if you had the disposition. Blorcover. General Halleck evidently supposed the roads were 
not practicable for it. I do not say that he derived his information from you, but it is certain that, being himself in 
St. Louis, five hundred miles distant, you, who were on the ground and in command of the troops, were the person t-j 
whom he should have looked for information on such a point. If you gave it to him, no one will question that you 
believed it, and I have no doubt that it was very nearly if not entirely true. The fact that as late as the 4th and 5tli 
of April General Sidney Johnston moved forty-three thousand men over these roads to attack you, is no proof to the 
contrary." 



712 Ohio in the Wae. 

nevei- before been under fire ; and thej^ were commanded bj^ a man who before 
that eventful day had never handled so large a force as a single regiment in 
action. But he was a Soldier, and he was maneuvering men of whom he had 
made soldiers. An effort was made to turn his right flank — he promptly threw 
in McCook's division to check it. An effort was made against his left flank — he 
parried it, then brought up the reserves at that point, hurled the whole force 
against Beauregard's right, drove it, and so flanked the rest of the Eebei line, 
which speedily fell back. Then again the whole line advanced. 

At no time did the force thus wielded lose its cohesion. Yet there were 
moments when the prospect looked gloomy. A battery was driven, with its 
supports, and a caisson was lost. Another battery was driven, and several guns 
were lost. But the line speedily rallied, and they were recaptured. Then again 
it pressed forward. For hours still the struggle continued, through the alternate 
strips of woodland and little intervals of farmland, over which, the day before, 
Grant's army had retreated. McCook's division had the honor of ending the 
struggle, and its last charge carried it into the camps from which Sherman had 
been driven. The disaster was i-etrieved — at a cost to Buell's army of two 
thousand one hundred and sixty-seven killed, wounded, and missing. An equal 
or greater loss had been inflicted; and twenty pieces of Rebel artillery had 
been captured. 

It was General Buell's singular fortune that his first battle should be his 
greatest, and the only one in which he should exercise personal command on 
the field. His conduct here certainly warranted the expectations then generally 
cherished of a brilliant future for him. His strategic ability had been pre- 
viously displaj'ed in the plans for the campaign that began at Fort Henry. 
His tactical skill in the management of troops in action was now exhibited in 
a favorable light. At a time when men who could handle troops under fire 
were rare, and the best of our Generals were only learners, he did not make a 
single mistake; and the soldiers who saw what he did and obeyed his orders, 
were his warmest eulogists. He came into the action when, without him, all 
was lost. He redeemed the fortunes of the field, and justly won the title of the 
hero of Pittsburg Landing.* 

General Halleck now took the field in person; and the solemn siege of 

■•■ There is no need to enter upon the dispute between the two armies concerned in this mem- 
orable engagement. In the Life of Grant, I have sought to exhibit the nature of the disaster, as 
the documents in the case, as well as personal observation, convinced me that the facts should be 
presented. If now, any one, objecting to the slight mention of Grant's army in this second day's 
fighting, should complain that undue prominence has been given to General Euell's performance, 
I need only point to the significant fact which that officer has himself brought to public atten- 
tion. Buell's army fought in a compact, continuous line of battle, which stretched from the left 
of the field up to the point where it found coherent fragments of Grant's army to join. Yet 
General Lew. Wallace, commanding the extreme riglit of Grant's army, acknowledges, in his 
ofiicial report, the assistance received from Colonel Willich, commanding a regiment on Buell's 
right. The inference is obvious and irresistible. Between his own extreme right and Buell, 
Grant had no troops forming a line of battle sufficiently compact to prevent the necessity that 
this regiment should extend its line for Wallace's relief. 



Don Carlos Buell. 713 

Corinth followed. General Buell kept his army up with the foremost in the 
tedious advance, held the center, and did whatever Halleck required. That 
there was no further opportunity for distinction before Corinth was not his 
fault. His troops claim the honor of being the first to discover the evacuation, 
and to enter the abandoned stronghold.* 

There was now opened before General Buell that campaign to which, from 
the first, his attention had been directed — the occupation of East Tennessee. 
He was to enter upon it as a subordinate; and when he again attained inde- 
pendent command it was to find himself hampered by restraints at Washington. 

On the 10th of June (1862) General Halleck advised him as to the work 
of liberating East Tennessee, which he was now to undertake — directing an 
advance on Chattanooga through Noi:th Alabama. General Buell urged a more 
northerly route, leading through Middle Tennessee and McMinnville, but having 
for its end the occupation of the same points, Knoxvilie, Chattanooga, and Dal- 
ton. To this Halleck consented. On the 12th he withdrew this consent, and 
required the advance along the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, 
with Corinth as the secondary base — the railroad to be repaired as he advanced. 

And now began the unfortunate portion of General Buell's career. He had 
about twenty -five thousand men, and there were subject to his orders in Mitch- 
el's column in North Alabama, about sixteen thousand more. With this force 
he was to undertake a campaign in midsummer against the strongest point in 
the chain of positions then held by the Confederate armies, to guard his own 
line of supplies, and to locate this line, not directly south from Nashville, but 
around by Paducah, up the Tennessee, thence to Corinth, and thence eastward 
along a ruined railroad — describing three sides of a quadrangle, through an 
enemy's country, to accomplish the distance measured by the remaining side. 
"It was my error to believe at the time," General Buell has since frankly said,f 
*' that the thing was practicable, and I did not represent it otherwise when I 
was assigned to the execution of it; but I must say also, in extenuation, that I 
did not anticipate that the enemy was to be left so unemployed at other points, 
that he could devote his greatest efi'ort against mj^ enterprise. Besides, I 
regarded it as in the highest degree important, and I supposed that no larger 
force could be spared for it." For it must be remembered that, while Buell 
was left to undertake this perilous campaign against a point where the enemy, 
driven from Corinth, was now concentrating the bulk of his resources, the rest 
of the great forces in the South-west were practically doing nothing. It was 
not until at luka, Price and Van Dorn themselves chose to bring on active 
operations in Grant's department, in the last daj'S of August, that active opera- 
tions there began. 

General Buell, indeed, saw from the outset that Nashville, and not Corinth, 
must be his true base ; and, with this view, he gave orders that the two rail- 
roads leading south from Nashville (one to Decatur and the other to Steven - 

■■ Buell's official report of the advance on Corinth says Nelson's division was the tirsi to 
enter. 

t Statement befoi'e Military Committee, p. 14. 



714 Ohio in the War. 

son) should be promptl}^ repaired. But the task proved a greater one tlian ho 
had supposed, and it is probable that he did not imj^ress with sufficient earnest- 
ness upon his subordinates the necessitj^ for vigor; and, besides, he was delayed, 
under Halleck's orders, to repair the road from Corinth to Decatur — a work, as 
it afterward proved, utterly useless. By the 1st of July his divisions began to 
arrive at Huntsville, and by the 6th began to cross the Tennessee at Decatur, 
where means of crossing had been, with no little difficulty, provided. 

By this time came ominous warnings : " The President is not satisfied with 
your progress." True to his calm and methodical wa3's, he contented himself 
with explaining the causes of the delay's, and proceeded as before.* 

To concentrate his army at the farthest point accessible on the route he 
was to take would have seemed to the impatient country like progress; but to 
the enemy it would have clearly revealed the whole plan. Genei-al Buell 
Avisely, therefore, avoided crowding them forward while the railroads were 
undergoing repairs. They were scattered at convenient points for supplies, em- 
ployed in building stockades along the lines, or transferred to Battle Creek and 
other points where some danger seemed to threaten. 

While these movements went deliberately on, John Morgan was bursting- 
into Kentucky and spreading alarm along the Ohio. The ease with Avbich 
Buell's lines of supply could be cut was thus revealed to the enemy. Long be- 
fore this, our cautious General had himself perceived the danger. As early as- 
the 12th of May he had begun his appeals to the Secretary of "War for more 

* The following are the dispatches. They are not accessible in any published form, but tliey 
may be found on the files of the War Department : 

" CosiNTH, July 8, 18f'.2. 
" Majok-General Btjell, Huntsville : The President telegraphs that your progress is not satisfactory, and that 
you should move more rapidly. The long time taken by you to reach Chattanooga will enable the enemy to anticipate 
you by concentrating a larger force to meet you. I communicate his views, hoping that your movements hereafter 
will be so rapid as to remove all causes of complaint, whether well founded or not. H. W. HALLECK." 

" Head-Quarters, Huntsville, July 11, 1862. 
"Major-General H. W. Halleck: I appreciate the importance of moving promptly, though it is idle to sup- 
pose that the enemy, with his railroad communications complete, and our lines diflScult and broken, will not always 
be able to anticipate us at any important point. I regret that it is necessary to explain the circumstances which must 
make my progress seem slow, though, pei'haps, it is not to be expected that they should otherwise be understood. I 
understand what you have given me to do, and, if permitted, I expect to accomplish it without any unnecessary delay, ■ 
and in such a manner as to neither jeopardize my army or its honor, nor trifle witli loyal citizens, betrayed to the 
vengeance of their enemies by a promised protection and a hurri<>d abandonient. The advance on Chattanooga must 
be made with the means of acting in force; otherwise it will either fail or prove a profitless and transient prize. The 
railroad communications as far as Stevenson must be securely established. From that point the transportation must 
at first be by wagons for twenty-five miles. The river must be crossed by a pontoon bridge, which I am now prepar- 
ing. It is not possible to establish the requisite means of communication by any means of ferrying which we can pro- 
vide. These arrangements are being pushed forward as industriously as possible. The troops are moving forward ta 
the terminus of the railroad without any unnecessary delay, and one division has already arrived tliere. It ouglit to 
be borne in mind that they have had a march of about two hundred miles to make, with a large train, in hot weather, 
crossing a wide river by a ferry. The report of General Mitchel led me to expect that the Chattanooga road would be 
completed by the first of this month. I do not censure him for being mistaken. I have since nearly doubled the force 
on it, and it can not be finished before JSIonday next. The gap of twenty-two miles on the Decatur Eoad, the o!ie we 
are dependent upon for supplies, has, from the character of the road, made it more expeditious to take another route, 
forty miles long ; and it requires every wagon that can possibly be spared to keep the troops from starving, and at that 
we are living from day to day. We consume, of provisions alone, about one hundred thousand pounds daily, which, 
with our animals in their present condition, it requires about sixty wagons to carry. The trips can not be made, 
going and coming, in less than five days. Three hundred and fifty wagons are, therefore, required to haul provisions 
alone over this gap. To haul forage over the same distance, even at half rations would require seven hundred wagons 
more. We are running about five hundred wagons, managing, with great difficulty, to subsist our animals 
mainly in the country already nearly exhausted of supplies. It will thus be seen that we can not advance beyond .Ste- 
venson until the road is completed so as to release the wagons now absolutely required in rear. Three mills are get 
ting out lumber for boats, which will be finished as soon as possible. These are matters of fact, which can not be got 
rid of by sophistry or fair promises, however gratifying. The dissatisfaction of the President pains me exceedingly. 
I request that this dispatch may be communicated to him. D. 0. BUELL." 



Don Caklos Buell. 715 

cavalry.^ From time to time be continued the appeals. Presently came fresh 
incursions to re-enfore his arguments. He was holding a front of from three 
hundred to four hundred miles through the enemy's country, with a cavalry 
force which the subsequent experience of his successor in the same field, as well 
as his own reasonings and the teachings of the whole war, were to show to be 
inadequate. Through one part of the line Morgan had worked his way. Next 
came Forrest before Murfreesboro', swooping down upon the gai-rison, and cut- 
ting the railroad connections of Buell's army with Nashville. Brigade after 
brigade was necessarily detached from the front to strengthen these exposed 
points at the rear; the army that was to sweep forward upon Chattanooga was 
undergoing a jjrocess of disintegration, into bridge-guards and guerrilla-hunt- 
ers, and the continued appeals for cavalry went unanswered. f 

It is now the time to observe that other causes had combined with the 
dissatisfaction at Buell's slow progress, to bring him into disfavor at Washing- 
ton. It was the season of intense hostility to McClellan in Administration cir- 
cles, and Buell was known as McClellan's friend. The spirit of the public 
press, and the tone of public feeling, called for harsh treatment of the conquered 
tcrritoi-y, and Buell insisted upon the laws of war. Most of all, the people 
were not disposed to censure soldiers too harshly for excesses committed in the 
Rebel country-, provided they exhibited (or possessed) a willingness to fight the 
Rebel armies. Yet Buell had devoted much time, while awaiting the bridge- 
building and railroad repairs, in stri'^ing to enforce discipline, and to reduce 
the somewhat loose habits of Mitchel's command to the army standard. Courts- 
martial were constant, their verdicts in those days appeared severe, and Buell 
seemed rarely to find fault with them, save for imdue lenity. The case of 
Colonel Turchin attracted particular attention. He was found guilty of per- 
mitting gross excesses, and was dismissed from the service ; but the city of 
Chicago accorded him a public reception on his return, and the President pres- 
ently signified (as it would seem) his approval of the conduct Buell had pun- 
ished by appointing him Brigadier-G-eneral. 

Thus, while the delays dragged on from the 12th of June to the second 
week in August, the delaying General was steadily losing the confidence of the 
Government and of the country. | He was next and suddenly to lose that of 
the army. 

* Statement before Military Commission, p. 16. 

rOf numerous dispatches with which Buell now burdened the wires, this one may be taken 

as a sample: 

" Head-Quarters, Huntsville, July 23, lS(i2, 
"General Halleck or General Thomas, Washinoton, D. C: I can not err in repeating to you the urgent impoi-tanco 
of a larger cavalry force in this district. The enemy is throwing an immense cavalry force on the four hundred 
miles of railroad commnnication upon which this army is dependent for its supplies. I am building sfockades to 
hold from thirty to one hundred men at all bridges, but such guards, at best, only give security to certain points aud 
against a small force. There can be no safety without cavalry enough to pursue the enemy in large bodies. Twice 
already cur roads have been broken up by these formidable raids, causing great delays and embarrassment, so that 
wt are barely able to subsist fronuday to day. I am concentrating all the cavalry I can spare, to operate actively in 
foice. I do n't pretend to know whether you have cavalry that you can spare elsewhere, but if so, it can find abun- 
dant and very important service here. D. C. BUELL." 

i .So grave had this loss of confidence become that the President seriously considered the 



716 Ohio in the War. 

We have seen that, on the 12th of June, General Buell had received his 
final orders for the campaign against Chattanooga. On the 7th of August he 
notified General Halleck that Bragg had concentrated against him at Chatta- 
nooga a force at least sixty thousand strong. He was then at Huntsville, with 
divisions of his army occupying Stevenson, Battle Creek, Decherd, and McMinn- 
ville. A few days' marching would bring him to Chattanooga ; and he may still 
have hoped, by falling on isolated wings of the enemy, to beat him in detail and 
attain the end of his campaign. "Within a week this was impossible ; within a 
fortnight he was laboring to concentrate his own forces, lest the enemy should 
beat him in detail. 

For a little there were plans of concentration at McMinnville, or at Alta- 
mont; marches and counter-marches that led to nothing. Meanwhile Kirby 
Smith had marched through East Tennessee into Kentucky; the railroad con- 
nections seemed hopelessly cut ; the army was reduced to fifteen, and finally to 
ten days' supplies, and the country was too poor to support it. At first, as they 
subsequently testified, some of his higher officers favored an effort to give bat- 
tle at some more advanced point. But even Geo. H. Thomas soon acquiesced 
in the decision which the cautious commander had already reached ; * and the 
army that had been expected to capture Chattanoga and libei*ate East Tennes- 
see was presently marching back in all haste to concentrate at Murfreesboro', a 
little south of Nashville. 

The field was thus left open. Kiifby Smith was already in Kentucky : 
Bragg now made a bold march to join him ; and nothing less than the capture 
of Louisville and the permanent occupation of the State were the objects to 
which the Eebel commander directed his aim. 

So now, while Buell was at Murfreesboro' and at Nashville, Bragg, passing to 
the eastward, was marching for the exposed post of Munfordsville, in Ken- 
tucky. The army saw the enemy it had proposed to drive southward from Chat- 
question of removing General Buell. The General's response to an intimation of this nature 
was manly and patriotic. The dispatches (on file in the War Department) are as follows: 

"Washington, August 18, 1S62. 
" Ma joe-General Buell, Huntsoille : So great is the dissatisfaction here at the apparent want of energy and action 
in your district, that I was this morning notified to have you removed. I got the matter delayed till we could hear 
further of your movements. H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief." 

" Head-Quarters, Huutsvillo August 18, 1862. 
"General Halleck, Washington, D. O. : My movements have been such as the circumstances seemed to me to 
require. I beg that you will not interpose in my behalf ; on the contrary, if the dissatisfaction can not cease on 
grounds which, I think might be supposed, if not apparent, 1 respectfully request that I may be relieved; my posi- 
tion is far too important to be occupied by any ofBcer on sufferance. I have no desire to stand in the way of what may 
be deemed necessary for the public good. In any event, what I would earnestly recommend is, that a cavalry force be 
sent here sufficient to cope with the enemy's cavalry, and keep open the four hundred miles of railroad, on which this 
army is dependent for subsistence. Lacking the cavalry, I have endeavored to diminish tlie heavy drain on the boily 
of the army to protect its communications by building stockades which would make small guards secure. This, and the 
work of rebuilding roads, has had to be done under the protection of heavy detachments, and has been tedious. I ap- 
prehend that those heavy detachments will have to be repeated. We are occupying lines of great depth. They are 
swarming with the enemy's cavalry, and can only be protected by cavalry. It is impossible to overrate the impor- 
tance of this matter. Three months ago I represented to the department the necessity for eight more regiments of 
cavalry in Tennessee and Kentucky. D. C. BUELL." 

* General Thomas testified before the Military Commission that, in his judgment, Bragg 
might have been attacked at Sparta, and that he had urged a concentration there. General Bu- 
ell, however, shows satisfactorily, by the production of the dispatche.s, that at least as to the 
latter point, General Thomas had unwittingly made a mistake. 



Don Caelos Buell. 717 

tanooga passing by it as an object unworthy of notice, and roaming almost 
nnopposed through the country north of it. Dissatisfaction was general, and 
it was speedily heightened by the false reports that were assiduously circulated, 
to the effect that General Buell was on the point of abandoning Nashville 
itself, and that only the remonstrances of Provisional-Governor Andrew John- 
son pi*evented the sacrifice.* 

On the 15th of September the last of the army that had started south-east- 
ward against Chattanooga marched back out of Nashville toward the Ohio 
River. But by this time Bragg had thi'own himself upon the garrison at Mun- 
fordsville, had carried the position, paroled the garrison, and made read}- for 
his connection with Kirby Smith. 

There was now at last an opportunity for decisive battle. Before Bragg got 
away from Munfordsville, Buell was up. He was behind the invader and across 
his line of retreat. To Bragg, defeat would have been destruction. The soldiers 
perceived the opportunity, and the desire to attack would seem to have been 
general. But Buell, unmoved by the critical aspect of affairs, and as calm 
amid the hurry of his return as if laying out a campaign in the quiet of winter 
head-quarters, looked farther ahead. "An attack," he says, "would not have 
been judicious under the circumstances. ... I deemed it all-important to 
force him farther into the State, instead of allowing him to fall back upon 
Bowlino; Green and Nashville ; and I determined to attack then rather than 
allow him that course. I believed the condition of his supplies would compel 
him to abandon his position ; and I was very well content when that proved to 
be the case."f 

And so the rear-guard of Bragg drew out, and the advance-guard of Buell, 
skirmishing a little, marched in. The impatient soldiers grew more and more 
indignant as they saw the Rebel army moving off to its concentration with 
Kirby Smith ; and the denunciations of their commander, which the severe dis- 
cipline in Northern Alabama had at first stimulated, now became open, bitter, 

* These reports were long kept up, and were supposed to originate with Mr. Johnson him- 
self. General Buell finally thought it worth while, in closing his review of the evidence before 
the Military Commission, to give them this emphatic contradiction : 

" Some months ago a statement appeared in the newspapers, on the reported authority of Governor Andrew john- 
Bon. that I had only been prevented, by his resolute expostulations, from abandoning Nashville when I moved north 
■with my army in September last. He has since made the same assertion in a deposition. Whenever I have spoken on 
this subject I have denounced this statement as false, and I now repeat that denunciation. I am very willing to bear 
the responsibility of my own acts or intentions ; and it gives me sincere pleasure at all times to acknowledge any 
assistance I may receive from others, either in council or action. If I had determined to abandon Nashville it would 
have bteu upon my best judgment, and I should cheerfully have submitted to a verdict on the wisdom of my course. 
I assert that I never intimated to Governor Johnson an intention or wish to leave Nashville without a ganison ; that 
there was no discussion between us, pro and con, on the subject, and that the determination to hold the place was my 
own, uninfluenced by him in any manner. I had not that confidence in his judgment or that distrust of my own which 
would have induced me to seek his counsel. On account of hia official position I called on him first to inform him 
what I meant to do, and last to tell him what garrison I had concluded to leave. On both occasions, as far as my 
plans were concerned, I was the speaker and he the listener. My officers were far more likely to know my views than 
he, and they have stated that I said always that the political importance of the occupation far outweighed any purely 
military bearing of the question, and that I should hold the city. D. C. BUELL, Major-General." 

t Statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission in his case, p. 35. Buell 
also says, in the same connection, that no ofiicers of high rank in the army were desirous to 
attack there, and that the advantage of location, which was with the enemy, as well as the 
exhausted condition of the supplie-s, and the danger of fighting a decisive bat le while in such a 
a position with reference to his base, formed conclusive reasons for not seeking battle. 



[Received Washington September 29, 1862.] 

"Louisville, Kentucky, September 29, 1S62— 2.30 P. M. 
" MajoR-General Halleck, Oeneral-in- Chief : I have received your orders of the 24th instant requiring me to 
turn over my command to Major-General G. H. Thomas. I have accordingly turned over the command to him, and, 
in further obedience to your instructions, I shall repair to Indianapolis and await further orders. 

"D. C. BUELL, Major-General." 

" Washington, September 29, 1862. 
" Major-Gbneral Buell, Louisville: General orders changing the command of the Department of Tennessee and 
the troops at Louisville, and my instructions based on those orders, are, by authority of the President, suspended, 
and General Buell will act on my telegram of a later date. H. W. IIALLECK, General-in-Chief." 

[Eeceived Washington September SO.] 

"Louisville, September 30, 1S62— 1 P. M. 
"General Ualleck: I received last evening your dispatch suspending my remo-%1 from command. Out of a 
sense of public duty I shall continue to discharge the duties of my command to the best of my ability until otherwiss 
ordered "■'^- ^- ^^^^^' Major-General." 



718 Ohio in the War. 

and almost universal. The faces of the army were once more turned north 
■ward — G-eneral Buell holding it of the first importance to reach Loui.sville, and |ii 
incorporate the heavy re-enforcements of raw troops there assembled into his 
veteran army. On the 29th of September the last of his divisions entered 
Louisville; on the 30th the consolidation and reorganization had been com- 
pleted, and the army was marching out against the Eebel force that now had 
undisputed possession of three-fourths of Kentucky. But before this Genei-al 
Buell had been ordered by the indignant Administi'a.tion to turn over his com- 
mand to General Geo. H. Thomas, and, at the special request of that oflScer, had 
been reinstated.* 

It has been common to speak of the army that thus ended its march against 
Chattanooga at Louisville as being in a demoralized condition. Undoubtedly it 
was much dissatisfied, full of unsoldierly clamor, noisy in denunciation of its 
commander. Yet General Buell said he never doubted his ability to direct and 
control it as he would; and those who remember its exhausted and disorganized 
condition when it reached the Ohio, and the magic transformation which it 
underwent, when, within a day after the arrival of its rear-guard, the advance 
moved out with compact ranks, and hopes as high as ever, against the foe it had, 
over three States, been vainly hoping to encounter, will not fail to award the 
General, who wrought this change, the high praise he rightfully deserves for an 
achievement almost as wonderful as that which led the defeated army from the 
field of the second Bull Eun to the heights of Antietam. 

Spreading out his reorganized army into five columns, General Buell swept 
the country from Louisville and Frankfort in converging lines upon Bardstown, 
where he knew Bragg to be rapidl}^ concentrating. JSTear this point there was 
some skirmishing, but Bragg's rear.-guard moved away eight hours before the 
advance of Buell entered. A stand next seemed probable at Danville, and 
thither the three corps were directed once more on converging roads, the cen- 
tral one leading through Perryville. Then, as news came that Bragg was con- 
centrating at Perryville itself, the directions of the wings were changed to 
correspond with the new movement thus required. 

Thus it happened that on the afternoon of the 7th of October the central 
corps was driving the enemy's pickets three miles north-west of Perryville, and 

* The following are some of the dispatches: 



* 



Don Carlos Buell. 719 

skirmishing sharply for the possession of some pools of water in the dry bed of 
I tributary to Chaplin Eiver. Meanwhile orders were sent in all haste to Me- 
L'.'Ok's and Crittenden's corps to hasten up and take positions on the right and 
liti respectively of the central corps. Their commanders were then to report 
ill person, and dispositions were made for a combined attack on the enemy, 
(ioneral McCook did not receive the order till half-past two in the morning, and 
\\v marched at five instead of three, as had been directed. General Crittenden 
did not receive it till some hours later, owing to his having been compelled to 
mr,ve off the route assigned him to secure Avater.* To the General command- 
ing, whose habitual movements were deliberate, and with whom thorough prep- 
-aration was held an absolute essential preliminary, these delays seemed sufficient 
oause for postponing the decisive attack until the next day. Meantime he had 
been apprehensive of being attacked himself, while having only one corps up; 
but when the morning passed in light skirmishing, and McCook's corps began 
to come in, he considered the danger passed, and devoted himself to his arrange- 
ments for the battle he intended to deliver on the morroAV. 

Xot until four o'clock did the General know of any change in the circum- 
stances on which this action was based. Artillery firing he heard, and sounds 
as of skirmishing, but these had been going on all morning; and he rested on 
his order to the corps commanders to report in person on their arrival. f Then, 
however, came the startling message, borne by an aid of McCook's, that a 
severe battle had been going on for several hours, that the flanks were giving 
way, and that, unless speedily re-enforced, he would not be able to maintain his 

» There had been a long drought, and a great scarcity of water embarrassed t^j^ie movements 
and brought much suffering on the troops. 

The order sent to McCook was intended to get his corps into position by seven or eight 
o'clock. The delays above spoken of were such that the head of the column did not begin 
arriving till between ten and eleven o'clock. The following is the text of the order: 

" October 7, 1862—8 P. M. 
" Genekal : The Third Corps (Gilbert's) is witliin three and a half miles of Perrjville— the cavalry being nearer— 
probably within two and a half miles. From all the information gained to-day, it seems probable that the enemy will 
resist our advance into the town. They are said to have a strong force in and near the place. There is no water here, 
and we will get but little, if any, until we get it at Perryville. We expect to attack and carry the place to-morrow. 
March al three o'' clock precisely to-morrow morning, without fail, and move up till the head of your column gets to within 
about three or three and a half miles of Perryville : that is to say, until you are abreast of the Third Corps. The left 
of this corps rests near Bottom's place. Perliaps Captain Williams, Jackson's cavalry, will know where it is. From the 
point of the road Gilbert is now on, across direct to your road, is about two and a half or three miles. When the head of 
your column gets to the vicinity designated (three or three and a half miles from town), halt and form in order of 
battle, and let the rear close well up ; then let the men rest in position and be made as comfortable as possible, but do 
not permit them to scatter. Have the country on your front examined, a reconnoissance made, and collect all the in- 
formation possible in regard to the enemy, and the country and roads in your vicinity, and then report w person, as 
quickly as practicable, to these head-guarters. If your men have an opportunity to get water of any kind, they must 
fill their canteens, and the officers must caution them particularly to use it in the most sparing manner. Send to the 
rear every wagon and animal which is not required with your column. All the usual precautions must be taken, and 
preparations made for action. Keep all teams back except ammunition and ambulances. Nothing has been heard 
from you to-day. Send orderlies by bearer to learn the locality of these head-quarters. The General desires to see 
Captain Williams, Jackson's cavalry, by seven o'clock in the morning at these head-quarters. 
'■ "RespuctfuUy, etc., JAMES B. FRY, Colonel and Chief of Statt." 

tit was also sworn by large numbers of witnesses before the Military Commission, that, 
owing to the direction of the wind and the conformation of the ground, there were no sounds 
heard at the head-quarters, to indicate more than sharp skirmi.shing. General Grant was once 
subjected to the same misfortune at the battle of luka. See account of that action in Lives of 
Rosecrans and Grant. 



720 Ohio ix the Wak. 

ground. The news seemed so incredible that Buell could scarcely believe it 
But he gave orders for rapid re-enforcements. Before they could arrive night : 
had ended the ill-judged and sanguinary struggle. The next morning Bragg 
was retreating, and so severe was the punishment he had inflicted, that he was 
left to retreat unobstructed. 

The effective force under Buell's control at Perryville, was fifty-four thou- 
sand men befoi-e, fifty thousand after the battle. Bragg had sixty thousand 
available at Harrodsburg, though he brought, like Buell, only a portion of his 
troops into the action. What the result of a battle between forces thus bal- 
anced ought to have been, may not be safely asserted in a business so uncertain 
as war. That Perryville might have been a victory, however, Genei-al Buell him- 
self seems to believe. It was a less decisive engagement than it should have been,! 
he says, "pai'tly because of unavoidable difficulties, which prevented the troops, ' 
marching upon different roads, from getting on the ground simultaneously, 
but chiefly because I was not apprised early enough of the condition of affairs 
on my left." He adds, "I can find no fault with the former, nor am I disposed 
at this time to censure the latter, though it must be admitted to have been a 
grave error. I ascribe it to the too great confidence of the General com- 
manding the left corps (Major- General McCook), which made him believe 
that he could manage the difficulty without the aid or control of his com- 
mander."* 

The story of the campaign, and of General Buell's career, may be briefly 
ended. 

The General believed that Bragg's strength was a full match for his own, 
and that all the Eebel troops were veterans. He believed that the invasion bad 
for its object the permanent occupation of Kentucky, He regarded, therefore, 
another and greater battle — probably in the vicinity of Harrodsburg — as almost 
certain. Somewhat stunned, perhaps, for the moment, by the rude blow at 
Perryville, he was certainly indisposed to bring on this new battle which he 
expected to be decisive, without perfect preparation and the complete concen- 
tration of his army. When Bragg moved to Camp Dick Eobinson he still 
believed him to be maneuvering only for favorable ground for battle. And 
he philosophically adds, in explanation of the deliberate course which he there- 
fore chose to pursue,t "My studies have taught me that battles are only to be 
fought for some important object ; that success must be rendered reasonably 
certain if possible — the more certain the better; that if the result is reasonably 
uncertain, battle is only to be sought when very serious disadvantage must 
result from a failure to fight, or when the advantages of a possible victor}^ far 
outweigh the consequences of a probable defeat. These rules suppose that war 
has a higher object than that of mere bloodshed; and military history points 
for study and commendation to campaigns which have been conducted over a 

* Statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission, Official Eeport, Periy- 
ville, p. 66. 

t Statement in Review of Evidence before Military Commission, p. 38. 



Don Carlos Buell. 721 

large field of operations with important results, and without a single general 
engagement. In my judgment the commander merits condemnation who, from 
ambition or ignoi*ance, or a weak submission to the dictation of popular clamor, 
and without necessity or profit, has squandered the lives of his soldiers." 

Thus reasoning, General Buell proceeded with his deliberate and strictly 
correct preparations for battle, till he discovered that Bragg was making off from 
the State Avith his plunder. Then he made vigorous but by no means vehe- 
ment jDursuit, till he had dogged the rear-guard into the mountains. 

Meantime the Administration, delighted with what was called, in the fool- 
ish language of those self-deceiving days, the victory of Perryville, was elate 
with the vision of the army rushing pell-mell after the fragments of the 
Eebel rout through the mountains, and relieving East Tennessee. Nothing less 
than the si^eedy occupation of Knoxville and Chattanooga was confidently 
expected. 

To the President and Cabinet, thus sanguine and jubilant, came a calm 
letter from the unmoved commander of the army in Kentucky. He regarded 
further pursuit, he said, as of little use; he proposed, therefore, speedily to 
turn the heads of his columns toward Nashville again ; and for the rest, he had 
to remind the Government that the present was, probably, as convenient a time 
as was likel}' to be found for making the change, which it had seemed to think 
needful, in the command of this army ! He then explained (and subsequent 
events were soon to vindicate his sagacity in this respect) that he had no doubt 
Bragg would soon be found near Nashville; so that, whether for the immediate 
protection of that city and the re-opening of the severed lines of communica- 
tion, or for offensive operations against Bragg, the movement on Nashville was 
the correct one fbr the arm}' to make.* 



I *The dispatches (not hitherto accessible in any published form) may be found on the tiles 
of the War Department. They are as follows : 

[Received at Washington October 17th.] 
[cypher.] 

" Head-Quaetf.rs Aemt of the Ohio, October 16, 1862. 

"Major-General Halleck, General-in-Chief: You are aware that between Crab Orchard and Cumberland Gap 
the country is almost a desert. 

" The limited supply of forage which the country affords is consumed by the enemy as he passes. In the day and a 
half that we have been in this sterile region our animals have suffered exceedingly. The enemy has been driven into 
the heart of this desert, and must go on, for he can not exist in it. For the same reason, we can not pursue in it with 
any liope of overtaking him ; for, while he is moving back on his supplies, and, as he goes, consuming what the coun- 
try affords, we must bring ours forward. There is but one road, and that a bad one. The route abounds in difficult 
defiles, in which a small force can retard the progress of a large one for a considerable time, and in that time the 
enemy could gain material advantage in a move upon other points. For these reasons, which I do not think it neces- 
sary to elaborate, I deem it useless and inexpedient to continue the pursuit, but propose to direct the main force 
under my command rapidly upon Nashville, which General Negley reported to me as already being invested by a con- 
siderable force, and toward which, I have no doubt, Bragg will move the main part of his army. The railroads are 
being rapidly repaired, and will soon be available for our supplies. In the meantime I shall throw myself on my 
wagon transportation, which, fortunately, is ample. While I shall proceed with these dispositions, deeming them to 
be proper for the public interest, it is but meet that I should say that the present time is, perhaps, as convenient as 
any for making any change that may be thought proper in the command of this army. 

'■ It has not accomplished all that I had hoped, or all that faction might demand ; yet, composed as it is— one-half 
of perfectly new troops— it has defeated a powerful and thoroughly-disciplined army in one battle, and has driven it 
away, baffled and dispirited at least, and as mncb demoralized as an army can be under such discipline as Bragg 
maintains over all troops that he commands. 

■'I will telegraph you more in detail in regard to the disposition of troops in Kentucky, and other matters, 
to-morrow. D. C. BUELL, Major-General." 

[CYPHER.] 

" HEAD-QrARTERS Akmt OF THE OHIO, Camp near Mount Vernon, Kentucky, October 17, 1S62. 
" SIajor-Genebal H. W. Halleck, General-in-Chie/ : My advance has continued to follow up the retreat of the 
enemy, but the progress has been slow, owing more to the obstruction placed in the road yesterday and to-day by fell- 

Vol. I.— 46. 



722 Ohio in the Wak. 

The astonished President remonstrated, and finally peremptorily forbade. ^T 
He seemed quite willing to overlook Buell's suggestion as to the propriety of 
relieving him ; b^t he wanted to know why the troops could not march as the 
enemy marched, live as the enemy lived, and fight as the enemj^ fought. And 
he added : "Your army must enter East Tennessee this fall." 

General Buell rej)lied courteously, diplomatically, but with an unan- 
swerable array of arguments in favor of his own plan. His letter was written 
on the 20th of October. On the 24th, under the direction of the President, an 
order was issued, relieving him from the command. On the 30th General 

ing trees, than to the opposition, though more or less skinnishins; has benn kept up. The absence of forage has com- 
pelled me to keep back the greater part of the cavalry and artillery, and depend mainly on infantry. It is possible 
that we may be able to strike the enemy's trains and rear-guard coming in on the Richmond road, but not much 
more ; and if he gets beyond London without that, it will be useless to continue the pursuit ; and, as I advised you 
last night, I shall direct my main force by the most direct route upon Nashville, where its presence will certainly be 
required, whether for offensive or defensive objects. I propose to take the old divisions which I brought out of Ten- 
nessee, to each brigade of which I have added a new regiment, and one other (Sheridan's), composed about two-thirds 
of new regiments. Kentucky should not be left with less than thirty thousand men to guard communications and 
repel raids. I propose, for the present, to place one brigade at Lebanon, one at Munfordsville, one division at Bowl- 
ing Green, besides the necessary bridge-guards at various points. General Wright has, I believe, moved one division 
to Lexington. That force should be kept there, or, better still, as long as the roads are in condition so that it can be 
supplied, should be thrown forward to London. There should be two regiments of cavalry at Lexington, two at 
Bowling Green, and two at Lebanon. They should be employed actively against guerrilla bands, and concentrate 
rapidly against more formidable cavalry raids. Thei-e can, however, be no perfect secui-ity for Kentucky until East 
Tennessee is occupied. There has been no time hitherto when that could be done with any prospect of permanency 
with the force that was available. We should have marched into the very heart of the enemy's resources and away 
from our own, just as Bragg did in invading Kentucky; and, with any means that we have hitherto had, the result 
must have been similar. The enemy will regard the invasion of East Tennessee as the most dangerous blow at the 
rebellion, and will, it seems to me, turn his greatest efforts against it, limiting his operations in Virginia, if neces- 
sary, to the defense of Kichmond. From this an estimate can be formed of the force with which it should be under- 
taken, or at least followed up. D. C. BUELL, Major-General." 

"Washington, October is, 1S62— 3.50 A. M. 
"General Buell, Crab Orchard: The rapid march of your army from Louisville, and your victory at Perryville, 
has given great satisfaction to the Government. The great object to be attained is to drive the enemy from Kentucky 
and East Tennessee. If we can not do it now we need never hope for it. If the country is such that you can not follow 
the enemy, is there not some other practicable road that will lead to the same result— that is, compel them to leave the 
country ? By keeping between him and Nashville can you not cover that place, and at the same time compel him to fall 
back into the Valley of Virginia, or into Georgia? If we can occupy Knoxville or Chattanooga we can keep the enemy 
out of Tennessee and Kentucky. To fall back on Nashville is to give up East Tennessee to be plundered, moreover you 
are now much nearer to Knoxville, and as near to Chattanooga as to Nashville. If you go to the latter place and bear 
to East Tennessee you move over two sides of an equilatorial triangle, while the enemy hold the third. Again, may he 
not in the meantime make another raid into Kentucky ? If Nashville is really in danger it must he re-enforced. Mur- 
gan's forces have been sent to Eastern Virginia, but we probably can very soon send some troops up the Cumberland. 
Those intended for that purpose have been drawn off by the urgent appeals of Grant and Curtis. Can not some of the 
forces at Louisville be sent to Nashville? H. W. HALLECK." 

" Washington, October 19, 1862—1.30 P. M. 
" General Buell, Mount Vernon: Tour telegram of the 17th received this morning, and has been laid before the 
President, who concurs in the views expressed in my telegram to you yesterday. The capture of East Tennessee should 
be the main object of your campaign. Tou say it is the heart of the enemy's resources, make it the heart of yours. 
Tour army can live there if the enemy can. You must in a great measure live upon the country, paying for your sup- 
plies when proper, and levying contributions when necessary. I am directed by the President to say to you that your 
army must enter East Tennessee this fall, and that it ought to move there while the roads are passable. Once between 
the enemy and Nashville there will be no serious difficulty in re-opening your communications with that place. He 
does not understand why we can not march as the enemy marches, live as he lives, and fight as he fights, unless we 
admit the inferiority of our troops and of our Generals. Once hold the valley of the Upper Tennessee, and the oper- 
ations of guerrillas in that State and in Kentucky will soon cease. H. W. HALLECK." 

[cypher.] 
" Head-Quaeters Army of the Ohio, Danville, Kentucky, October 29, 1862 -1 A. M. 

" Majoe-GeneralHaLLECK, General-in-Chief : I am very grateful for the approbation expressed in your dispatch of 
the 17th. I have also received your dispatch of yesterday, conveying orders for moving into East Tennessee. Undoubt- 
edly the present is in many respects a favorable opportunity for the movement. Far from making objections, the object 
of my dispatch was to call attention to its importance, but, at the same time, 1 suggested the difficulties so that the 
requisite means could be provided if possible. In speaking of East Tennessee as being near the heart of the enemy's 
resources, I meant that he could concentrate his troops there rapidly. I have no doubt you realize that the occupa- 
tion of East Tennessee with a suitable force is an undertaking of very considerable magnitude, and that if nnder- 
taken unadvisedly it will fail. I venture to give you my views. 

" If the enemy puts himself on the defensive in East Tennessee, it will require an available force of eighty thousand 
men to take and hold it. If our army can subsist on the country so much the better, but it will not do to rely solely 
on that source. If you can obtain forage and one-half of our breadstuffs, that for the present is probably as much as 
we can do. Everything else must be hauled. Nashville is essential as a depot, afterward McMinnville. Gainesboro' 



Don Caelos Buell. 723 

Eosecrans presented the order, and General Buell gracefully presented his suc- 
cessor aud took his leave of the army he had organized so well and led through 
such checkered scenes. 

General Buell's career here practically ends. It may be best considered in 
its three main epochs. 

The first was marked by the organization of the Army of the Ohio, which 
afterward came to be known as the Avmj of the Cumberland. Of that work 
it would be difficult to speak in terms of too high praise. The second was 
marked by the origination of the great Western campaign of 1862, and the 
rescue of the imperiled army at Pittsburg Landing. In that General Buell 
has his sure title — after some years be past — to the regard and gratitude of the 
country. The third was marked by the campaign which began with the object 
of liberating East Tennessee, and ended with the expulsion of an invader from 
Kentucky. Of that we may now say that it was fatally correct. General 
Buell followed, throughout it, the maxims of the science of war, but he fol- 
lowed them after his calm, deliberate fashion, with such lack of vigor and such 
excess of prudence as to lose the rich rewards which a more reckless com- 
mander might have won. Nevertheless, if his conduct here was not great, it 
was safe; and it must not be forgotten that he was pursued by the .same ma- 
lignity of official ignorance which harassed his successor through half the 

may be an important point for us as soon as the navigation of the Cumberland opens, which may not be for two 
months. We can procure aU of our forage and breadstuffs, aud some meat, from Middle Tennessee, but Nashville aud 
the vicinity must be rid of the enemy in any considerable force ; we can not otherwise collect supplies. The enemy has 
repaired and is now using the Chattanooga Kailroad to Murfreesboro', and is threatening Nashville somewhat seri- 
ously, as appears from a dispatch received to-day from General Negley, which I send you. This danger has no refer- 
ence to Bragg's movements. If the enemy should not be there in heavy force, it would not be necessary or desirable 
to go to Nashville in full force. We could cross the Cumberland at various points above, and go in by Jamestown, 
Montgomery, Clinton, or Kingston, and there is no shorter way; that by Cumberland Gap being out of the question. 

" The railroad to Nashville must be opened and rendered secure, because, until navigation opens, that is the only 
channel for supplies. A part of the route to East Tennessee is mountainous, and destitute of supplies of every sort. 
As we advance, depots of forage to be supplied from the productive region must be established to carry our trains 
across the sterile region— say at McMinnville and Cooksville— but that will not delay the advance of the army. 

" From these data I make this estimate : 

" Taking matters as they stand, twenty thousand men, distributed pretty mucli as indicated in my previous dis- 
ipatch, should be kept in Kentucky ; twenty thousand in Middle Tennessee and on the line of communication to taat 
Tennessee; and eighty thousand should be available in any tield in East Tennessee. Bragg's force in Kentucky l>as 
■not fallen much, if any, short of sixty thousand men. It will not be difficult for him tu increase it to eighty thousand 
nun on the line of the East Tennessee Kailroad. I could in an hour's conversation give you my views, and explain 
the routes and character of the country, better than I can in a dispatch, and perhaps satisfactorily ; and if you think 
it worth while, I can see you in M'ashington without deferring my movements, provided you concur in the expediency 
of moving first in the direction of Nashville. In fact we must of necessity move so as to turn Jamestown and Mont- 
gomery. It will also help to conceal our plans. I can give good reasons why we can not do all that the enemy has 
attempted to do, such as operating without a base, etc., without ascribing the difference to the inferiority of our Gen- 
eral^, though that may be true. The spirit of the rebellion enforces a subordination to privations and want which 
public sentiment renders absolutely impossible among our troops. To make matters worse on our side, the death 
penalty, for any offense whatever, is put beyond the power of the commanders of armies, where it is placed in every 
other army in the world. The sooner this is remedied the better for the country. It is absolutely certain that from 
these causes, and from these alone, the discipline of the Kebel army is superior to oars. Again, instead of imitating 
the enemy's plan of campaign, I should rather say that his failure had been in a measure due to his peculiar method. 
No army can operate effectively upon less than this has done in the last two months. A considerable part of the time, 
it has been on half rations. It is now moving without tents, with only such cooking utensils as the men can carry 
and with one baggage wagon to each regiment, but it can not continue to do this during the cold wet weather which 
must soon be expected, without being disabled by sickness. D. C. BUELJJ, Major-General." 

" Head -Quarters of the Army, Washington, D. C, October 24, 1S62. 
" Major-general D. C. Buell, Commanding, etc: 

"Genaral: The President directs that on the presentation of this order you will turn over your command to 
Major-General W. S. Rosecrans, and repair to Indianapolis, Indiana, reporting from that place to the Adjutant-Gen. 
«ral of the army for further orders. 

" Very respectfully, your obedient servant, H. W. HALLECK, General-in-Chief." 



724 Ohio in the Wae. 

ensuing season ; and that his objections to such an advance into East Tennnessoe, 
as was urged upon him, were more than vindicated by subsequent sad expe- 
rience. 

A military commission was appointed, after some time, by the War Depart- 
ment, to investigate G-eneral Buell's conduct with reference to the invasion of 
Kentucky. It sat in Cincinnati with closed doors, took volumes of testimony, 
and made a report which, years after the close of the war, the Government was 
still carefully keeping from the public. That its conclusions did not touch G-en- 
eral Buell's honor as a Soldier, or his fidelity to the cause of the Country, may 
be inferred from the fact that he was subsequently offered commands — once 
under General Sherman, his junior (and his professional if not personal 
enemy), and once under General Canby, also his junior. Both of these he de- 
clined. He was some time afterward mustered out of his rank in the volunteer 
service as Major-General, and he thereupon resigned the Colonel's commission, 
which he now held in the Adjutant-General's Corps of the regular arm3^ and 
retired to private life. He became connected with the late Eobert Alexander, 
of Kentucky, in mining operations at Airdrie, near Paradise, in the south-west- 
ern part of that State, and to these he devoted himself for some years. 

He long remained very unpopular with the great mass of the jjeople who 
supj^orted the war. He was accused Of undue lenitj- to the Eebels, of too much 
sympathy with them, and, indeed, of disloyalty to the cause. This last slander 
he himself did something to encourage, by the publication of a letter, obviously 
designed to aid the Democratic opposition to the war, in which he gave, as one 
of his reasons for leaving the army, his disapproval of the means whereb}' and 
the manner in which the war was conducted. 

Personally, General Buell retains the character described by his playmates 
as distinguishing him in his boyhood. He is cultivated, polished, and reticent; 
disposed to have but few warm friendships; exclusive and somewhat haughty 
in his bearing. No one can study his career without being impressed by his 
abilit}'". He is one of the most forcible and pungent writers among the officers 
who rose to distinction during the war. He has studiously avoided much de- 
fense of himself against the attacks with which, for a time, tlie press of the 
country was burdened : but he has on two occasions felt called to notice certain 
statements of General Sherman's, and once to address a public letter to General 
Grant. The result of these performances was to convince all that, wliatever 
might be said of the military advantages of those officers, they were no match 
for him with the pen. 

Politically, General Buell is a strong Conservative — having, perhaps, his 
nearest affiliations with what was once known as the Kentucky Unionist party. 



ROBEET C. SCHENCK. 725 



MAJOR-GENERAL ROBERT C. SCHENCK. 



ROBEET GUMMING SCHENCK, Congressman and Foreign Minis- 
ter before the war, Chairman of one of the Congressional Committees 
on Military Affairs since the war, Major-General of volunteers, a soldier 
of great zeal and gallantry, and one of the ablest and most successful of our 
Department Commanders, was born in the town of Franklin, Warren County, 
Ohio, on the 4th of October, 1809. 

His father. General AVilliam C. Schenck, an early settler in the Miami 
Yalley, was an efficient officer in the North-western Army under General Har- 
rison, and afterward was a member of the General Assembly of the State. He 
died at Columbus in January, 1821, while attending a session of the Assembl}'. 

After his father's death Robert was placed under the guardianship of Gen- 
eral James Findley, of Cincinnati, but he continued to reside with his mother, 
at Franklin, until his fifteenth 3"ear, when he entered the Sophomore Class at 
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in November, 1824. He graduated in SejDtem- 
ber, 1827, but remained at Oxford reviewing and extending his studies, and 
employing part of his time as tutor of French and Latin, until 1830, when he 
received his Master's Degree. 

In November of that year he entered Thomas Corwin's law-office at Leba- 
non, and in the following January was admitted to the bar as Attorney and 
Counsellor at Law, and Solicitor in Chancery. Removing to Dayton he com- 
menced the practice of his profession with Joseph H. Crane, and three years 
later he formed a partnership with Peter Odlin, which continued until the com- 
mencement of his active political and public life. He was very successful in hia 
practice ; his legal acquirements, tact, and ability as an advocate being in ready 
demand. 

In 1838, young Schenck, now twenty-eight years of age, was induced to 
become a candidate for Representative in the State Legislature for Montgomery 
County, on the Whig ticket. ■ The Democrats, however, were in the ascendancy, 
and his competitor led him by a small majority. Thi-ee years later, not having 
been a candidate for any office in the mean time, he was elected to the lower 
branch of the Legislature. Having acquired considerable reputation as a pub- 
lic speaker in the celebrated political campaign of 1840, in which but one man 
in Ohio, the great orator who had been his teacher in the law, was jjoijularly 
held his superior, he was at once acknowledged as a leader in opposing the 
schemes of the Democratic majority in that bod}-, and at an extra session in 



726 Ohio in the Wak. 

the ensuing summer, he, by his energy and ability, defeated an attempt (which 
by the aid of the Democratic Speaker seemed almost sure of success) to force 
through without consideration an obnoxious apportionment bill, by which, in 
the slang phrase of the day, the Congressional Districts were to be " G-erry- 
mandered " in the Democratic interest. His action drew upon him the bitter 
denunciation of the Democratic leaders, among whom was the late Governor 
Brough. Twenty years afterward, Mr. Schenck, Governor Brough, and Eufus 
P. Spalding (the presiding officer whom Schenck arrested in an attempt to put 
the motion) acted in harmony for the weal of the nation, independent of any 
party except that of the Union. 

Mr. Schenck was re-elected by an increased majority, and he rendered val- 
uable services to his constituents by advocating measures for internal improve- 
ments in the State, and for economy in its finances. 

In 1843 he had risen so rapidly in the estimation of his party as to be ac- 
cepted almost by common consent as the candidate for Congress. He carried 
the usually close district by more than the full majority of his party, and was 
re-elected for each succeeding term until 1850, when he declined a nomination, 
and at the close of his term in 1851 was appointed, by President Fillmore, 
Minister to Brazil. 

During his Congressional career, Mr. Schenck ranked among the first as an 
efficient and practical statesman. It was evident that he understood every sub- 
ject upon which he spoke, and when occasion required, he was quick at repar- 
. tee, keen, pungent, and satirical. He was soon recognized as one of the Whig 
leaders in the House, and his reputation became National. He came to be 
known as an anti-slavery Whig — in fact, almost a free-soil Whig. But he was 
nevertheless — as judged by the standard of these times — a Conservative. He 
agreed mainly with his great teacher and friend. Governor Corwin. The in- 
tensity of his nature and the profoundlj^ earnest character of his convictions, 
led to a peculiar bitterness in his attacks upon his opponents, which continued 
to characterize him through life, and the results of which were long to be traced 
in the temper of both friends and foes in his district. His popularity depended 
solely upon his abilities. He was too proud to solicit votes, to yield to preju- 
dices, or to adopt the ordinary arts of the politician. 

While Minister to Brazil he received, without solicitation on his part, 
special instructions from the Secretary of State to proceed on a diplomatic mis- 
sion to Buenos Ayres and to Montevideo in the Eepublic of Uraguay. At the 
same time he was empowered to negotiate with any one who might be author- 
ized to represent the Eepublic of Paraguay. Several treaties were effected with 
these governments, by which the United States would have gained advantages 
never accorded to any European nation, but from neglect or inadvertence they 
failed to be ratified by the Senate. 

Mr. Schenck returned from Brazil in 1854, and for some years took no act- 
ive part in politics. He was understood to sympathize with what might be called 
the conservative wing of the Eepublican party. But he personally disliked and 
distrusted General Fremont-a feeling, doubtless, aggravated by his sympathy 



Robert C. Schenck. 727 

with the views of his brother, Commodore Schenck, who, having been on duty 
on the Pacific Coast at the time, regarded (reneral Fremont's claim to be con- 
sidered the conqueror of California as a dishonest pretense, defrauding himself 
and his friends of their just fame. Political feeling and personal distrust thus 
combined to keep Mr. Schenck out of the Eepublican contest for Fremont and 
Dayton in 1856; and he held aloof from politics through almost the whole of 
Mr. Buchanan's term of ofiice. He was engaged occasionally in important law 
cases, principally in managing, as President, a line of railroad from Fort "Wayne, 
Indiana, to the Mississippi Eiver. 

In September, 1859, he addi'essed a meeting of his fellow-citizens in Dayton 
on the political issues of that period. This was on the evening of the da}^ on 
which Abraham Lincoln had made a speech at the same place. Allusion being 
made to the subject of the next Presidency, Mr. Schenck suggested that if an 
honest, sensible man was wanted, it would be well to nominate the distin- 
guished gentleman from Illinois who had addressed them that day. Mr. Lin- 
coln alwaj^s spoke of this as the first suggestion of his name for that oflfice be- 
fore any large assembly, or on any public occasion. Subsequently, when his 
name did come up at the Chicago Convention, Mr. Schenck was among his 
warmest supporters. 

When the attack was made on Fort Sumter, Mr. Schenck at once tendered 
his services to Px-esident Lincoln, and was commissioned Brigadier-G-eneral of 
volunteers. The appointment was vigorously denounced as a political one by 
those who held that the volunteer arm}- should be officered mainly b}^ regulars. 
It was claimed that young Lieutenants who had spent their time in Indian 
fights on the frontier were better fitted to command armies, bj- reason of their 
knowledge of the manual of arms and the ordinary- regimental drill, than were 
men of vastly superior intellectual force, who had never studied tactics as 
Bchool-boys at West Point. One leading newspaper denounced Schenck's ap- 
pointment as an outrage upon the soldiers, and demanded that he should be 
turned over to some Orderly Sergeant of the regular army and "made to drill 
like the devil for a month." The same coarse abuse long continued to follow 
every act of the new Brigadier-General of volunteers, whose great misfortune 
now seemed to be that before the war he had been distinguished. 

On the 17th of June, 1861, General Schenck was ordered to take possession 
of the Loudon and Hampshire Eailroad, as far as Vienna. Under instructions 
from General Scott this road had been reconnoitered the day before by General 
Daniel Tyler, who, with four hundred men upon cars, ran beyond Vienna some 
distance, and, returning, reported no enemy. The General commanding wish- 
ing to secure the road, ordered General Schenck to send the same cars used by 
General Tyler with a regiment of his brigade, and to establish guards at certain 
points designated along the road. These instructions were in writing, and were 
obeyed implicitly, General Schenck himself accompanying the expedition. 
When approaching Vienna with two remaining companies, the train was fired 
upon by what was known in the alarmist phraseology of those days as a masked 



728 Ohio in the War 

battery. Three cars were disabled, ten men were killed and two wounded. The 
locomotive being in the rear, the engineer, in a cowardly and treacherous man- 
ner, uncoupled and returned to Alexandria, leaving the General with his little 
band in the presence of a largely superior force, supported bj'- artillery and 
cavalry. General Schenck with great coolness rallied his few men, and behaved 
with so much courage that the Kebeis were impressed with the belief that a 
heavy force must be in reserve, and accordingly they withdrew. The Eebels 
numbered about eight hundred, mainly South Carolinians, and were commanded 
by Colonel — since General — Gregg. Distorted representations of this aflfair were 
given to the greedy press b}^ partie3 who found it their interest to maintain that 
none but West Pointers were fit to hold office in the army. Some of General 
Schenek's own subordinates were among the readiest in this defamation, and 
for a long time they succeeded in convincing the public that there had been 
very gross "volunteer" mismanagement at Yienna. The General's political 
opponents then took it up; and to the end of his natural life it is quite probablo 
that he will continue to see himself sneered at in the newspapers of the oppo- 
site part}- as the "hero of Yienna." His conduct, however, was gallant and 
every way commendable; he acted strictly in obedience to General Scott's 
orders, and the veteran Lieutenant-General subsequently stated that he was not 
to be blamed, but rather to be praised for his conduct. 

At the battle of Bull Eun, July 21, 1861, General Schenck commanded a 
brigade in General Tyler's division, embracing the First and Second Ohio, the 
Second New York, and a battery of six-pounders. He was stationed upon the 
Warrenton Eoad near the Stone Bridge. About four o'clock P. M., being left 
in command by General Tyler, he determined to clear the abattis from the 
bridge and to march to the relief of some of the National forces that were 
severely pressed. For this purpose he moved forward two twelve-pounders and 
a company of pioneers, and the obstructions were soon removed. At this mo- 
ment the order came to retreat, and General Schenck, forming his brigade, 
brought off" the only portion of that great army that was not "resolved into its 
original elements of mob." General Beauregard in his official report gives as 
one of the reasons why pursuit was not made, that he was satisfied large re-en- 
forcements held the Warrenton Eoad. He had no evidence of this other than 
General Schenek's gallant demonstration and orderly retreat; but for which, it 
may be claimed, the disaster would have been far greater. 

General Schenek's orders from General McDowell contemplated a halt near 
Centerville. He accordingly halted his brigade and began to make his dispo- 
sitions for holding the point. There now occurred one of the most extraor- 
dinary features of the retreat. The commanding oificers of the several organi- 
zations in the brigade, headed by a consequential young Lieutenant of infimtry 
in the regular army, who subsequently rose to enlarged oi^portunities for mis- . 
conduct through a Major-General's commission, waited upon General Schenck. *;■ 
and protested against the halt. So panic-stricken was this professed soldier who 
headed them, that he declared it certain destruction to remain there another 
hour. General Schenck replied that he did not believe the danger so great as 



ROBEKT C. SCHENCK. 729 

ihoir lively imaginations painted it ; but that, at any rate, he was acting under pos 
itive orders. The mass of the army was in confusion. Between it and the euem/ 
he was ordered to stand ; and, no matter what the danger, it was his duty to obey. 
The Colonels renewed their protests. General Schenck remained inflexible. 
Finally, under the lead of one of these uneasy Colonels, in the fullness of their 
contempt for the volunteer General, and their alarm lest the fearful "Black- 
Horse Cavalry " should swoop down upon them, they declared their intention 
to retreat in spite of their commander's orders. General Schenck expostulated ; 
pointed out the danger to which they might be exposing the disorganized mass 
behind them ; dwelt upon the solemn duty of a soldier to obey his orders. Finally, 
h(P warned them that ho should bring them before a court-martial to answer foj 
this gross insubordination. Wliethfer it was that their terror overcame their 
judgment, or that they knew so little of military matters as to suppose insub- 
ordination a thing of little moment, or that they conceived the danger to be so 
instant and appalling as to warrant any breach of military discipline — in any 
event, this is what they did: Placing themselves at the heads of their com- 
mands, they turned their backs upon the enemy, deserted their outraged Gen- 
eral, and started straight for Washington ! General Schenck was absolutely left 
upon the spot he was ordered to hold with only a single orderty and his staft'. 

We now know that this point might have been held ; that its abandonment 
was the fatal mistake which, drawing in its train an expanding series of evils, 
entailed upon the country the gloom, and upon the army the delay, that make 
Bull Run so fatal a name in our annals. General Schenck fully intended to 
bring the guilty parties before a court-martial, and, had he done so, at least three 
grave disasters in the West that subsequently befell our armies might have had 
a difl'erent history. But, shortly after his eloping regiments began their retreat, 
an order came to the solitary General from McDowell to continue the movement 
toward Washington. As the insubordinate officers had only anticipated this 
command, he unwisely spared them. It soon came about that at least one of 
them made this very battle, which should have disgraced hini, the occasion for 
fresh promotion. 

General Schenck was next assigned to the command of a brigade in West 
Virginia, under General Rosecrans, and was actively engaged in the several 
campaigns on the Kanawha and New Rivers. In the operations for the cap- 
ture of Floyd at the mouth of the Gauley, he was efficient and prompt. Had 
General Rosecrans been as well served by all his other subordinates, the combina- 
tion would not have ended in failure. He was ordered to Cumberland, Mary- 
land, on the death of General Lander, and, upon arriving, found everythino- in 
a distressing state of confusion. The town was crowded with sick and wounded 
soldiers, and the troops in the neighboi-hood were very much disorganized. 
The administrative abilities of the General soon restored order, and his zeal and 
justice will long be remembered both by citizens and soldiers. 

From Cumberland General Schenck, with a little army, was ordered to 
move up the South Branch of the Potomac, and he successfully occupied and 



/ 



730 Ohio in the Wak. 

held Moorefield, Petersburg, Franklin, and other important points on that 
line of operations. He was then ordered to push on to the relief of General 
Milroy, who was at McDowell with about four thousand men. To make this 
connection it was necessary to cross the South Branch of the Potomac. The 
only available ford was three feet deep at the shallowest place; the current was 
rapid, and the bed rocky and uneven ; but after almost a day's persevering 
labor, the river was forded with little loss. When beyond Franklin, and about 
twenty-two miles from McDowell, a dispatch was received from General Milroy, 
stating that the enemy was at least fourteen thousand strong, and would un- 
doubtedly attack the next morning. General Schenck pushed onward with 
about fifteen hundred infantry, one battalion of cavalry, and De Beck's Ohio 
Battery. The march was continued all night, and daylight found the column 
within ten miles of McDowell. On entering the town, a consultation was held 
with General Milroy, and General Schenck was satisfied that with their small 
force and lack of stores they could not occupy the place, but instead of await- 
ing an attack, or commencing a retreat, a feint of strength was made, and hard 
fighting continued until dark. Meantime baggage was sent off in wagon trains, 
and General Milroy 's army was brought back to Franklin with slight loss, con- 
sidering the odds against which it contended. The commander of the depart- 
ment pronounced the march to the relief of Milroy, the battle that ensued, and 
the subsequent retreat, one of the most brilliant achievements that had thus far 
marked the campaigns in that region. 

At the battle of Cross Keys General Schenck was assigned to the right of 
the line, and the Eebels in heavy force immediately attempted to flank his posi- 
tion. The attempt was met jDromptly, and was repulsed, the enemy falling back 
in confusion under a well-directed artillery fire. Until about three o'clock P. 
M. the right continued to press the enemy, in no instance giving back or losing 
any part of the field assigned it. After the left gave way. General Fremont 
ordered Generals Schenck, Milroy, and Cluseret to fall back to the strong posi- 
tion first occupied in the morning. This was done slowly and in good order. 
General Fremont, upon being relieved of his command, turned it over to Gen- 
eral Schenck, and during the necessary absence of General Sigel, he had com- 
mand of the First Corps of the Army of Yirginia. 

From that time until the second battle of Bull Run, the General was act- 
ively engaged in all the fatiguing marches along the Rappahannock, and upon 
his division fell much of the labor of watching, marching, and fighting upon 
the most exposed flank of the position. General Poj)e abandoned the RajDpa- 
hannock, and on the 28th of August, 1862, General Schenck's division arrived 
at Gainesville, and was at once ordered toward Manassas Junction. General 
Schenck represented to General Sigel that at Bull Run good water could be 
found for the suffering troops, and that they would be in better position to meet 
the enemy than at Manassas, and upon this suggestion General Pope directed the 
army to Bull Run instead of Manassas. 

In the two days' fight which ensued, Schenck's division took an active part. 
His orders were given with great promptness and judgment, and he himself was 



Robert C. Schenck. 731 

active in seeing them executed. General Pope, in his report, speaks of his con- 
duct in terms highly complimentary. On the second day of the battle, in the 
thickest of the fight, urging his men forward, he was severely wounded, and 
was carried from the field. Soldiers of the army still enjoy telling of the Gen- 
eral's rage and fearful imprecations at the loss of his sword. It had been in his 
hand at the moment the ball struck his wrist, and it was thrown some distance 
from him. The position was very exposed, and the staff wanted to carry him 
instantly oflP. He refused to go till his sword should be found. Those about 
him insisted, but he was peremptory, and the missing sword was brought to 
him before he would suffer himself to be taken to the hospital. 

He was conveyed to Washington, and the day following his arrival the 
President and other distinguished persons in civil and military life gathered 
around him with cordial expressions of sympathy and praise. Shortly after- 
ward he received his appointment as Major-General of volunteers, and accom- 
panying it a letter from Secretary Stanton, in which he stated that no official 
act of his was ever performed with more pleasure than the forwarding of the 
enclosed appointment. For some time his condition was critical, and he recov- 
ered very slowly. The right arm proved to be permanently injured, and he has 
never been able to write with it since. 

General Schenck's services in the field closed with the second battle of Bull 
Piun. Over six months elapsed before he was again fit for field duty. Mean- 
time his great reputation and experience in civil affairs had suggested him as 
the fit commander for the troublesome Middle Department, embracing the tur- 
bulent Eebels of Maryland. It had once tasked the energies of Butler. It was 
now to prove the signal capacity of Schenck. He was assigned by the Presi- 
dent to the command of the Middle Department, Eighth Army Corps, with 
head-quarters at Baltimore, before his recovery from his wound, on the 11th of 
December, 1862. He assumed command on the 22d of the month, and on that 
day, in a general order, announced, briefly, the rule by which he would regulate 
his official conduct toward the citizens. After stating that in the contest aris- 
ing out of the rebellion there could be but two sides, with no middle ground, ho 
proceeded to show the difference between the loyal and the disloyal, including in 
the latter class all aiders of, and sympathizers with, the rebellion; and he de- 
clared plainly that " any public or open demonstrations, or declarations of sym- 
pathy with treason would provoke a strict and needful observation of the con- 
duct of the party offending, and lead even to punishment or restraint, if accom- 
panied by acts of complicity, or anything tending to danger or disorder." The 
rule was clear; its enforcement was relentless. 

General Schenck's administration in the Middle Department was what 
might have been expected from one of his known executive ability, firmness, and 
determination. In some instances persons were arrested whose " expressions of 
sympathy" and "accompanying acts of complicity " brought them under the 
rule so plainly laid down in the General Order above quoted. One case, that 
of a newspaper publisher in Philadelphia, caused some excitement, and efforts 



732 Ohio in the Wae. 

were made, apparently for political effect, to bring about a conflict between the 
judicial authorities of the State of Pennsylvania and the General Government; 
but the disavowal by the arrested party of all knowledge of the article which 
led to his arrest, his utter condemnation of its character, and his pledge that 
nothing of a similar nature should again appear in his paper, procured his re- 
lease, and the excitement subsided. Another case was that of a Baltimore 
clergyman, who tore down and trampled upon the American Flag in a public 
hall, where his congregation was in the habit of worsliiping. In this instance, 
also, the ai*rested party, having made proper acknowledgments, and having 
given pledges for his future conduct, was promptly set at liberty.* 

During the march of Lee into the southern border of Pennsylvania, in 
July, 1863, General Schenck rendered valuable aid to the Union cause. The 
armed force in his department was numerically small, and was stationed in 
detachments at various points away from his immediate command. It was 
feai-ed, too, that Baltimore itself would be subjected to an attack in case the 
Eebel army had an}^ success north of the Potomac. After sending against Lee 
every man that could be spared, the General at once set about the defense off 
Baltimore, by calling out the citizens, by barricading the approaches, and by 
throAving, with great rapidity, a defensive line of works around the city. 

The autumn elections in Maryland for members of Congress excited much 
interest. It was apprehended, upon good grounds, that violence would be . 
offered in some districts to Union men if they attempted to vote; and that men, 
notorious for their disloyalty, would not only vote, but would seek to take pos- 
session of the polls, and to control the elections. 

"General Order Fifty-Three," so obnoxious to all secession sympathizers, 
was thereupon issued. This order provided that Provost Marshals and other 
military officers should prevent violence at the polls, should support the judges 
of election in requiring an oath of allegiance from any one whose vote might be 
challenged on the ground of disloyalty, and that they should report to head- 
quarters any judge of election who refused to require the oath from a voter so 

®A volume might be filled with instances of General Schenck's treatment of treasonable 
practices, and of the sagacity and adroitness with which he enforced his rule. 

A single example may be given, showing how he encountered what commanders in disloyal 
districts came to designate as "the woman difl&culty." Men dared not insult the soldiers; 
women could and did with impunity, relying on their sex to protect them. In Baltimore they 
were particularly virulent. Finally they came to wearing the Eebel colors, flauntingly displayed, 
taking care to promenade the streets in great numbers on any occasion when such a display 
might be particularly annoying. For another phase of this difficulty General Butler brought 
down upon himself unmeasured odium by his mal-adroit "Woman of the Town " order. Gen- 
eral Schenck made a more skillful use of the same means. A number of the most noted women 
of the town were selected. Each was instructed to array herself as elegantly as possible, to wear 
the Kebel colors conspicuously displayed upon her bosom, and to spend her time promenading 
the most fashionable streets of the city. Whenever she met any one of the ladies of Baltimore 
wearing the same badges, she was to salute her affectionately as a "Sister in the Holy Cause;" 
and for these services she was to be liberally paid. The effect was marvelous. In less than a 
week not a respectable woman in Baltimore dared to show herself in public ornamented by any 
badge of the rebellion. From that time to the end of Schenck's administration the "woman 
difficultv " was settled. 



Robert C. Schenck, 733 

challenged. A letter from the Governor of Maryland to President Lincoln was 
thus elicited. The Governor complained that this militarj^ proclamation inter- 
fered with his functions as Chief Magistrate of the State. In I'epl}' the Presi- 
i dent changed the first section of the order, not, as he said, because it was wrong 
in princijjle, but because it was liable to abuse, and then sustained the remainder, 
remarking characteristically that General Schenck permitted a Eebel to vote if 
be recanted upon oath, and that was ^^ cheap enough." A similar course was 
pursued in the election subsequently held in Delaware, with the hearty co-opera- 
tion of the Governor of that State. 

On the 5th of December, 1863, General Schenck resigned his cominission 
to take a seat in the lower house of Congress, to which he had been elected 
from the Third Ohio Congressional District in 1862, defeating Clement L. Val- 
landigham by a handsome majority, while suffering from the wound he received 
at the Second Battle of Bull Pun. His administration of affairs in Maryland 
and Delaware received the unqualified approval of Union men within the De- 
partment, and he had been presented with highly-flattering testimonials from 
City Councils, County Conventions, and Union Leagues. He had also been 
warmly praised and indorsed by the War Department and the President. 

Upon resuming his seat in Congress, a dozen years after he had vacated it, 
General Schenck was aj^pointed by the Speaker Chairman of the Committee on 
Military Affairs. This was a position of much responsibility, and involved con- 
tinuous and exhausting labor. Nevertheless the General participated freely in 
matters of legislation, and was one of the most active debaters in the House. 

A history- of his course in the Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, and Fortieth 
Congresses (for he was renominated by his party without opposition at each 
election), would be a complete history of the military legislation of the country 
through the most eventful years of the war and after its close, and a compre- 
hensive account of the whole course of public affairs in Congress during that 
period 

Into that we can not enter. It is enough to say that in militar}' matters 
he Avas laborious and vigilant ; the firm friend of the volunteer as against what 
he thought the encroachments and assumptions of the regulars ; the remorse- 
less enemy of deserters; a vigorous advocate of the draft, and the author of 
the disfranchisement of those who ran awaj' from it; the champion of the pri- 
vate soldiers and subordinate officers. He opposed for a time the Lieutenant- 
General Bill, on the ground that the high reward it offered should be reserved 
till the end of the war, to be then bestowed upon him whom the events of the 
war should show to have deserved most of the Eepublic. 

He not unfrequently opposed the wishes of the War Department and of the 
Senate Committee, believing them to be sometimes too much influenced by the 
schemes of the West Point circle. He proved himself utterly fearless as to loss 
of personal popularity, and championed measures which were generally felt to 
be needful, but from which most of his colleagues shrank back through fear of 
the prejudices of their constituents. He was often in a minority at the outset 



734 Ohio in the War. 

on favorite measures, but he adhered to them with bull-dog tenacity; fought for 
them at every stage, against the House, against the Senate, in committees of con- 
ference, and was never finally defeated on any leading feature of his military 
propositions. 

In general politics he resumed his old place as one of the leaders of his 
party. We have seen that as a Whig he was antislavery. The war made him 
more radical. No man in Congress seemed so much actuated, not merely by 
the general ideas of Eadical Eepublicans, but especially and conspicuously by a 
vehement, fervid hatred of Eebels and the. rebellion. He soon learned to dis- 
trust President Johnson, and throughout the contest with the Executive he was 
a leader in the claims for the power and policy of Congress. 

He carried much of his old political bitterness into the House. This and 
the recollection of his rule in Maryland made him -especially odious to the oppo- 
sition. No man on the Eepublican side was so much hated by the Democratic 
members. 

Many of his characteristics, as displayed in his speeches and general con- 
duct in the House, are happily exemplified in the fiiirly ferocious onslaught 
which he made upon Mr. Fernando Wood, in the spring of 1864, in the course of 
the debate upon the resolution for the expulsion of Mr. Alexander Long. Mr. 
Wood had just closed a defense of Mr. Long, which, on several accounts, had 
been peculiarly obnoxious to the Eepublicans. General Schenck rose to reply, 
speaking, as always, without notes : 

" A student in natural history would have much to learn on this floor. Some specimens of 
the snake family are so slippery that it seems impossible to classify them, or to hold them to any 
position. 

"I find myself at a great loss to understand what ground is occupied by the member from 
New York, who has just taken his seat. He avows that he disagrees with the position taken by 
the member from Maryland (Mr. Harris), who was on Saturday visited with the censure of the 
House ; he dissents from the arguments and propositions of my colleague (Mr. Long), whose case 
we are now considering ; and yet he says to his fellow-copperheads — those, if any there are, who 
crawl with him — that there is no such thing as a War Democrat, for a creation of that kind is 
anomalous ! I may be pardoned, therefore, if I have difficulty in comprehending his own nature. 

" But, at the close of his remarks, the member from New York seemed in some small degree 
to develop his peculiar views and purposes. . . . Being neither against the war nor for the war, 
he would send commissioners to Richmond to treat with those arrayed in arms against the coun- 
try, to offer them terms of peace. . . . How many others on his side of the House may agree 
wuth him I know not. 

"But I do know this: Whenever any such propositions of Northern Democrats have ap- 
peared in print, their offers or suggestions of peace have invariably been received by the Rebels 
at Richmond with scoffing, and repelled with scorn. . . . 

"The member and his friends, then, are willing and propose to crawl on their bellies to the 
feet of Rebels and insurgents in arms, and, looking up piteously, to say, ' O, our Masters, not- 
withstanding all your scoffing and scorn, though you may spurn us from your presence, we im- 
plore you to say whether you will not graciously agree to make some terms with us.' I can not 
comprehend this abasement in any other way. 

" Thank God ! I belong to no such party as that 1 For the sake of manhood and humanity, 
I would not trust too far those who do. I never will make peace with armed Rebels. T am for 
concluding no treaties, holding no conferences with insurgent States claiming to be an independ- 
ent and separate nationality. I believe that the only safety for this country consists in fighting 



M-. 



ROBEET C. SCHENOK. 735 

this war to the end : in suppressing this rebellion so effectually that its hydra licad will never again 
be raised in the land. 

. . . "Upon this middle ground, upuii which we have agreed no patriot or true man can 
stand, the member from New York selects his uncertain footing. It is the dark, oozy, unwhole- 
some soil between the solid earth on either hand, over which unclassified copperheads do creep 
«,ud mark their slimy and doubtful track. 

•• When our difficulties with the Soutli were ripening into war, wlien hostilities were actually 
<?ommenced, when it was not known how far disaffection might extend throughout the several 
States of the Union, there was a Mayor of Kew York who proposed that the city should secede 
from the Government, and set up for itself as a free city.'' 

Mr. Fernando Wood : "Mr. Speaker" — 

Mr. Schenck : " I can not be interrupted, sir, but will continue, as the member insisted upon 
■donig just now, when others sought to interrupt him. 

•'Not that alone, sir; the same Mayor of New York, after rebellion was rampant, when 
boxes filled with arms were stopped by the loyal city authorities on the wharves of New York, 
and not permitted to go South that weapons might be put into the hands of those who were seek- 
ing to overthrow the Government of the country, that same Mayor regretted that he had no 
power over the matter, or he would gladly prevent any interference with such transmission of 
these munitions of war." 

Mr. Fernando Wood : " Mr. Speaker " — 

Mr. Schenck: "Yes, I know that this has been denied here, recently, by that member, on 
this floor, and without hearing him now, I give him the benefit of that denial ; but he shall also 
have the benefit of the positive proof, produced and published widely in the papers of New 
York, a few days afterward, nailing upon him the falsity of the denial which he presented to 
this House." 

Mr. Fernando Wood: "Mr. Speaker" — 
L Mr. Schenck : " I am not to be interrupted by that member." 
" Mr. Fernando Wood : " The gentleman states " — 

Mr. Schenck : " 0, I have met Rebels before, when they had something more than tongues 
with which to contend ; and I am not to be interrupted and put down by the member from New 
York." 

General Schenck then went on to cite the proofs of nis charges. He next 
recalled Mr. Wood's appearance as a War Democrat at the great Union meet- 
ing at Cooper Institute, after the fall of Sumter, and continued : 

"I say, therefore, that I do not know what kind of a War Democrat he may be hereafter; 
whetlier he will be against his own people and the Government of the United States, as he is 
uow, or against the insurgents, as he was then. His present profession is to be neither, but to 
crawl along the border between the two. . . . 

"He would propose terms of peace, and that peace he would offer to those who scorn him. 
But still he will press upon them his good offices. He sings the siren song of peace, for the 
€fl'ect it ma)' have at home. For that he is willing to crawl prostrate to the feet of insurgents in 
arms and say to them : 'Do with us as you will; tear from the flag of our glorious Union half 
its gleaming stripes; blot out as many of those stars as you can reach and extinguish; only join 
us again, that you may help us to save the Democratic party, so that we may hereafter, as here- 
tofore, enjoy power and the offices together. For these we will so humble ourselves as none of 
Ood's creatures ever humbled themselves before.' . . . 

" I can understand how in the Revolution, when these States, then colonies, broke away from 
the mother country, many a man who was attaclied to monarchical institutions, fearful of rushing 
upon the untried experiment of a new form of government, to be reached through the horrors of 
war, might have shrunk back and been a tory of that day. But how, after the better part of a 
century has gone by, and this great Government, under the constitution adopted at the close of 
that Revolution, has gone on prospering and to prosper, when it has made its mark high on the 
roll of nations, and the hopes of a world have clustered around it, how any one with this history 
of this triumph, can to-day doubt, or distrust, or bargain away his country's nationality, is more 



736 Ohio in the Wae. 

than I can comprehend. Sir, I declare that in my opinion the worst tory of the Revolution was 
a patriot and gentleman compared with the copperheads of 1864. 

" Mr. Speaker, we are in the presence of the enemy. Every man in this Union is, in a legal 
sense, a citizen-soldier. Our people are either in the lines of the Union army in front facing and 
fighting the foe , or they are in the rear, striving by every means possible to strengthen and ad- 
vance the common cause. Now, if a soldier marching with the army toward the enemy, or 
holding his place in the line of battle, ... . should turn to his comrades about him, saying 
to one, ' We can not beat the enemy ; ' to another, ' We had better lay down our arms ; ' to 
another. ' Our cause is wrong and we can never conquer ; ' to another, ' Let us demand of our 
commanding officers to stop shedding blood and have a truce between the two armies " — if a 
soldier at "such a time should talk thus in the ranks, what would you do with him ? You 
would shoot him on the spot. 

■ " And is a citizen-soldier, who undertakes to breed distraction in the country, who claims 
that we can not put down the rebellion, who insists that the rebellion is altogether right and jus- 
tifiable, who would temporize, who would compromise, who would have his Government debased 
to the condition of begging from the insurgents— is he. less deserving execration and punishment? 
We may not execute such a man, perliaps, on his appropriate gallows, erected for criminals, yet, 
thank God ! there is a gibbet of public opinion, on which we can hang him as high as Haman, 
and hold him there, to the scorn of all the nations of the world." 

An eye-witness of the remarkable scenes attending the delivery of this im- 
passioned invective, writes in one of the newspapers of the daj^ : "Standing 
there, square, compact, and muscular, his shattered right hand hanging idle at 
his side, or thrust nervously into the breast of his closely-buttoned coat, after a 
forgetful attempt to use it in gesticulation, the sharply-cut sentences rattling like 
quick, well-delivered volleys, one can not help thinking of him as one of those 
old knights, fresh from honorable fields, who were used, with all their armor 
on, to enter the old councils, and bring something of the sharp clang of war tx) 
the stern debate." 

The speech, however, was not all invective. Toward the close, the orator 
came to consider the charges of violating the Constitution, which were con- 
stantly urged by the enemies of the Union, against those who were waging war 
to save it: 

" Sir, I desire to say in conclusion, in relation to this whole matter of the war and our 
country's trials, that — believing in strong remedies for desperate diseases, and considering that 
constitutional power may sometimes have been strained, but that it has not been exceeded — I 
fail to see anything so terrible in the figure which gentlemen use when they speak with such 
horror of the possibility of overleaping the Constitution in order to save tlie country. 

"What is the Constitution? It is the form and frame-work of our system, under and tlirough 
which the people may carry on their government. It is, after all, the form only and not the 
life itself. 

"Mark this difference. The builders of this, our frame-work, have provided in itself the 
mode of its own amendment and renewal. But no such change was ever contemplated for the 
Nation. The Constitution may undergo alteration ; but the nationality for which it was made, 
must be one and eternal! To those, then, who talk idly of permitting this Nation to be destroyed 
rather than see any provision in the Constitution in the least exceeded, I say that, under tlie pre- 
tense of saving the Constitution, they are making war or encouraging those who do make wai 
upon the very existence of the Nation, while we, who stand by the Government, would try all 
the powers of that Constitution, and strain them to the utmost, that the Nation itself might live!" 

In the winter preceding the outbreak of the war, General Schenck became 



ROEERT C. SCHENCK. 737 

a candidate for the office of United States Senator, to succeed Mr. Chase, who 
had just resigned to enter Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. His opponents were Mr. 
I John Sherman, then Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee in the House, 
and Mr. Dennison, then Governor of the State. The facts that he had been 
out of jolitics for years, and that he had not been cordial in co-operating with 
the Eepublican party in its first JSTational canvass, operated against Mr. Schenck. 
Had the Western Eeserve members known how radical he really was, they 
would have elected him, almost on the first ballot. As it was, the contest 
dragged on for weeks. Finally, by a curious illustration of the blindness that 
often shrouds the vision of the keenest-sighted in political affairs, Garfield, Cox, 
and Monroe, the Eadical triumvirate of the State Senate, threw their influence 
in favor of the Conservative John Sherman as against the Eadical Schenck, and 
decided the contest. 

Mr. Schenck has been kept in Congress by the people of his district since 
his return in 1863, without solicitation or effort on his part. He seems sure of 
a life representation of the district, if he should want it. 

When Mr. Sherman's first term in the United States Senate was about to 
expire, Mr. Schenck became again a candidate against him. The influence of 
the Senator actually in power was, however, too great to be overcome; and in 
the course of the heated contest Mr. Schenck's own management of his interests 
was probably unwise. The two causes insured his defeat. Another may have 
increased the vote for Sherman. There was a general feeling that Sherman was 
in his place in the Finance Committee of the Senate, and Schenck in his as 
Chairman of the Military Committee of the House; and that neither could well 
be spared from the position he occupied. 

Our brief narrative of the events in General Schenck's career seems suffi- 
ciently to portray his character. In military and in civil life he has been the 
same bold, bitter, fearless fighter. He practices no concealments, displays little 
strategy, never shrinks from a course because it will increase the number of his 
enemies, strikes with a broadsword rather than thrust with a rapier, hews his 
way through difficulties, rather than take the trouble to turn into an equally 
good path that may cai'ry him around them. He has all the combative energy 
of his American birth, and all the tenacity of his Dutch ancestry. When he 
has friends, they are warm friends ; when he has enemies, they never forgive . 
him. 

As an effective, forcible, hard-hitting orator he has few superiors in the 
nation. He is very careless, however, as to his productions, never revises the 
reports even of his most important speeches, and takes his satisfaction in cursing 
the reporters for apprehending his meaning so imperfectly! As a political 
leader his judgment is excellent, and his counsels are always sagacious ; but 
his conduct is sometimes imprudent, and is always sure to lash his antagonists 
into the display of their utmost energy. His enemies, and even those who bear 
him no personal hostility, generally speak of him as selfish ; his friends call 
him "whole-souled," "generous," "big-hearted," "hospitable." His general 
Vol T.— 47. 



738 Ohio in the Wae. 

habits are exclusive; people sometimes complain of him as being "aristocratical," 
and he utterly scorns the ordinary practices of demagogues, or even of many 
reputable politicians in conducting their campaigns. He is a man of wide cul- 
ture and varied accomplishments — a good lawyer, thoroughly well read in polit- 
ical history, an admirable French and Spanish scholar, familiar with the whole 
range of modern literature. 

In military matters he approved himself a good Corps Commander. On a 
larger scale he was never tried. But there are no blots on his military record. 
History will confirm the verdict of General Scott, that he deserved praise rather 
than blame for his conduct at Yienna. It will award him credit for aiding to 
protect the routed army at Bull Eun and to prevent that great defeat from be- 
coming also a fatal disaster. It will record his unvaried gallantry on every 
field, and regret the wound which, at the Second Battle of Bull Eun, too soon 
removed him from active service. 

Of his administration of the mixed civil and military affairs of the Middle 
Department, there will be diversity of views. But those who believe in the 
triumph of loyalty and the punishment of treason, will never fail to hold his 
services in Baltimore in grateful remembrance. Winter Davis and the other 
Union leaders of Maryland were accustomed to speak of him as the savior of 
the State. 

General Schenck is of about the middle height, square, compact, and broad- 
chested. His rugged features fairly indicate his strong passions and inflexible 
will. He has been for many years a widower, and of late has not kept up an 
establishment in Dayton, residing for the greater part of the year with his three 
daughters in Washington. In his railroad and other operations he had once 
accumulated a handsome fortune. Too great willingness to oblige his friends, 
and particularly his old teacher, Governor Thomas Corwin, led to the loss of a 
large part of it, though he still possesses a competence^. He has several times 
refused to be the candidate of his party for Governor of Ohio, and seems now to 
have no other ambition than to continue in the service of his native State in 
Washington. 



James A. Q-aefield 739 



MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



JAMES A. G-AEFIELD, Major-General of volunteers, Eepresentative 
in Congress, and the most able and prominent of the young politicians 
who entered the army at the outbreak of the war, and after an honor- 
able career returned to higher stations in the civil service of the Government, 
was born in the village of Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio (twelve or fifteen 
miles from Cleveland), on the 19th of November, 1831, the youngest of four 
children, who were orphaned by the death of their father within two years after 
the birth of this last of them. 

Both his parents were of New England extraction. The father, Abraham 
Garfield, though born in Otsego County, New York, was of a family thac had 
resided in Massachusetts for several generations. The mother, Eliza Ballou 
(niece of Eev. Hosea Ballou, the noted Universalist clergyman), was born in 
Cheshire County, New Hampshire. 

The death of Abraham Garfield, in 1833, left the widow and her four young 
children, without fortune, in the backwoods. But there was a little farm, and 
on this they worked, the youngest by and by coming to be able to bear a share 
of the burden. In the winters there was a village school, with such small store 
of books as the neighborhood afforded for private reading. So the winters and 
the summers passed till the family had grown up, and the youngest, now sixteen 
years of age, had learned a little of the carpenter's trade. 

But this did not prove very remunerative. So, in his seventeenth year, 
young Garfield secured employment on the Ohio Canal, and from driver on the 
tow-path rose, after a time, to be boatman. The irregular life disagreed with him, 
and the fall of 1848 found him back under his mother's roof, slowly recovering 
from a three months' siege of the fever and ague. 

Up to this time he would seem to have cherished little ambition for any- 
thing beyond the prosi^ects oftered by the laborious life he had entered. But it 
happened that this winter the district school was taught by a promising young 
man named Samuel D. Bates.* He had attended a high school in an adjacent 
township, known as the " Geauga Seminary," and with the proselyting spirit 
common among j'^oung men in the backwoods, who were beginning to taste the 
pleasures of education, he was very anxious to take back several new students 
with him. Garfield listened and was tempted. He had intended to become a 
a sailor on the lakes, but he was yet too ill to carry out this plan ; and so he 
finally resolved to attend the high school one term, and postpone sailing till 

* Since an esteemed minister of the Gospel at Marion, Ohio. 



740 Ohio in the Wae. 

the next fall. That resolution made a scholai-. a Major-General, and a Congress- 
man out of him, instead of a sailor before the mast on a Lake Erie schooner. 

Early in March, 1849, young Garfield reached Chester (the site of the " Ge- 
auga Academy "), in company with a cousin and another young man from his 
native village. They carried with them frying-j^ans and dishes, as well as their 
few school books. Being too poor to pay for boarding, they were to " board 
themselves." They rented a room in an old, unpainted frame house near the 
academy, and went to work. Garfield bought the second Algebra he had ever 
seen, and began it. English Grammar, Natural Philosophy, and Arithmetic 
made up the list of his studies. His mother had scraped together a little sum 
of money to aid him at the start, which she gave him with her blessing when 
he left her. After that he never had a dollar in his life that he did not earn. 
As soon as he began to feel at home in his classes, he sought among the carpen- 
ters of the village for employment at his trade. He worked mornings, evenings, 
and Saturdays, and thus earned enough to pay his way. When the summer 
vacation came he had a longer interval for work ; and so, when the fall term 
opened he had money enough laid up to pay his tuition and give him a start 
again. 

By the end of this fall term young Garfield had made such progress that 
the lad of eighteen thought he was able to teach a district school. Then his 
future seemed easy to him. The fruits of the winter's teaching were enough, 
with his economical management, to pay his expenses for the sj^ring and fall 
terms at the academy. Whatever he could make in addition, by his mornings' 
and evenings' work at the carpenter's trade, would go to swell another fund, the 
need of which he had begun to feel. 

For the backwoods lad, village carpenter, tow-path canal hand, would-be 
sailor, had now resolved to enter college. •' It is a great point gained," he wrote 
years afterward, when, in our hurrying times, " a young man makes wp his 
mind to devote several years to the accomplishment of a definite work." It 
was so now in his own case. With a definite purpose before him, he began to 
save all his money and to shape all his exertions to the one end. Through the 
summer vacation of 1850 he worked at his trade, helj)ing to roof and weather- 
board houses within a stone's throw of the academy benches on which he had re- 
cently been construing Latin. At the opening of the next session he was able to 
rise a little in the world ; he could now abandon boarding himself. But he was 
thereby indulging in no extravagance. He found boarding, lodging, and wash- 
ing, at some miraculously cheap house, for one dollar and six cents per week. 

The next winter he taught again ; then, in the spring, removed to Hiram, 
and attended the "Institute," over which he was afterward to jDreside. So he 
continued, teaching a term each winter, attending school through spring and 
fall, and keeping up with his classes by private study during the time he was ' 
absent. Before he left the Hiram Institute he was the finest Latin and Greek 
scholar that school had ever seen. 

At last, by the summer of 1854, our carpenter and tow-path boy had gone 
as far as the high schools and academies of his native region could carry him. 



James A. G-arfield. 741 

lie was now nearly twenty-three years old. The struggling, hard-working boy 
had developed into a self-reliant nia-n. He was the neighborhood wonder for 
scholarship, and a general favorite for the hearty, genial ways that have never 
deserted him. He had been brought up in the Church of the Disciples, as it 
loved to call itself, of which Alexander Campbell was the great light. At an 
«arly age he had followed the example of his parents in connecting himself with 
this church. His life corresponded with his profession. Everybody believed in 
and trusted him. 

He had saved from his school-teaching and carpenter work about half 
enough money to carry him through the two years in which he thought he 
could finish the ordinary college course. He was growing old, and he deter- 
mined that he must go that fall. How to procure the rest of the needed money 
was a mystery ; but at last his good character and the good will this brought 
him solved the question. He was in vigorous, lusty health, and a life insm-ance 
policy was easily obtained. This he assigned to a gentleman who thereuj)on 
loaned him what money was needed, knowing that if he lived he would pay it, 
and that if he died the polic}^ would secure it. 

Pecuniary difficulties thus disposed of, he was ready to start. But where? 
He had originally intended to attend Bethany College, the institution sustained 
by the church of which he Avas a member, and presided over by Alexander Camp- 
bell, the man above all others whom he had been taught to admire and revere. 
But as study and experience had enlarged his vision, he had come to see that there 
were better institutions outside the limits of his peculiar sect. A familiar let- 
ter of his, written about that time, from which a fortunate accident enables us 
to quote, shall tell us how he reasoned and acted : 

"There are three reasons why I have decided not to go to Bethany: 1st. The course of 
study is not so extensive or thorough as in Eastern colleges. 2d. Bethany leans too heavily 
toward slavery. 3d. I am the son of Disciple parents, am one myself, and have had but little 
acquaintance with people of other views ; and, having always lived in the West, I think it will 
make me more liberal, both in my religious and general views and sentiments, to go into a new 
circle, where I shall be under new influences. These considerations led me to conclude to go to 
some New England college. I therefore wrote to the Presidents of Brown University, Yale, and 
Williams, setting forth the amount of study I had done, and asking how long it would take me 
to finish their course. 

"These answers are now before me. All tell me I can graduate in two years. They are all 
brief, business notes, but President Hopkins concludes with this sentence: 'If you come here 
we shall be glad to do what we can for you.' Other things being so nearly equal, this sentence, 
which seems to be a kind of friendly grasp of the hand, has settled the question for me. I shall 
fitart for Williams next week.' 

Some points in this letter of a young man about to stai't away from home 
to college will strike the reader as remarkable. Nothing could show more ma- 
ture judgment about the matter in hand than the wise anxiety to get out from 
the Disciples' influence, and see something of other men and other opinions. 
It was notable that one trained to look upon Alexander Campbell as the master 
intellect of the chui-ches of the day should revolt against studying in his college 
because it leaned too strongly to slavery. And in the final turning of the decis- 



742 Ohio in the War. 

ion upon the little friendly commonplace that closed one of the letters, we 
catch a glimpse of the warm, sympathetic nature of the man, which much and 
wide experience of the world in after years has never hardened. 

So, in the fall of 1854 the pupil of the Geauga Seminai-y and of the Hiram 
Institute applied for admission at the venerable doors of "Williams College. He 
knew no graduate of the college, and no student attending it; and of the Pres- 
ident he only knew that he had published a volume of lectures which he liked,* 
and that he had said a kindly word to him when he spoke of coming. • 

The Western carpenter and village school-teacher received many a shock 
in the new sphere he had now entered. On every hand he was made to feel the 
social superiority of his fellow-students. Their ways were free from the little 
awkward habits of the untrained laboring youth. Their speech was free from 
the uncouth phrases of the provincial circles in which he had moved. Their 
toilets made the handiwork of his village tailor look sadly shabby. Their free- 
handed expenditures contrasted strikingly with his enforced parsimony. To 
some tough-fibered hearts these would have been only petty annoyances. To 
the warm, social, generous mind of young Garfield they seem, from more than 
one indication of his college life that we can gather, to have been a source of 
positive anguish. But he bore bravely up, maintained the advance standing in 
the Junior Class to which he had been admitted on his ai-rival; and at the end 
of his two years' course (in 1854) bore off the Metaphysical honor of his class — 
reckoned at Williams among the highest within the gift of the institution to 
her graduating members. 

He was four hundred and fifty dollars in debt, and he had only his clothes, 
his books, and his diploma. 

But now on his return to his home, the young man who had gone so far 
East as to old Williams, and had come back decorated with her honors, was^ 
thought good enough for anything. He was straightway made teacher of Latin 
and Greek in the Hiram Eclectic Institute, in which only two years before he 
had been a pupil ; and so he began to work for money to pay his debts. So 
high a position did he take, and so popular did he become, that the next year 
he was made President of the Institute — a position which he continued to hold 
until his entrance into political life, but a little before the outbreak of the war. 

Two years of teaching (during which time he married) left him even with 
the world. Through the school year of 1858-59 he even began to save a little 
money. At the same time he commenced the study of law. 

Meantime he had begun to attract attention through wider circles than a 
mere Academy teacher would have been expected to reach. He had the tem- 
perament of an orator — the warm feelings, the fervid imagination, the intensity 
of purpose. He was gifted with a copious flow of language, to which his 
thorough study of the Greek and Latin classics had given strength and purity. 
He was still a student, but he was already a comprehensive scholar, versed in 

*It was the reading of ttis volume of lectures that made young Garfield think of writing to 
Williams, when he was applying to the Yale and Brown, both of which were far better known in 
the West than Williams. 



James A. Gakfield. 743 

an unusually wide range of subjects. His capacities and his acquirements thus 
combined to make a public speaker of him. As the President of the Institute 
it was natural that he should appear on the platform on every public occasion. 
The Church of the Disciples, like the Society of Friends, is accustomed to ac- 
cord large privileges of speaking to its laity ; and so it came to be expected 
that President Garfield should address his pupils on Sundays — briefl}' even 
when ministers of the Gospel were to preach — more at length when no one else 
was present to conduct the services. The remarks of the young President were 
always forcible, sometimes even eloquent; and the community presently began 
to regard him as its foremost public speaker, to be put forward on every occa- 
sion, to be heard with attention on every subject.* His pupils also helped to 
swell his reputation and the admiration for his talents. 

It was thus quite natural that in 1859 he should be thought of by the 
strong anti-slavery people of Portage and Summit counties as a suitable cham- 
pion to represent them in the State Senate. He was elected by a large major- 
ity; and the speeches which he had made throughout the district during the 
canvass — warm, fresh, and impassioned — had greatly added to his popularity. 

Senator Garfield at once took high rank in the Legislature as a man well-in- 
formed on the subjects of legislation, and effective and powerful in debate. He 
seemed always prepared to speak; he always spoke fluently and to the point; and 
his genial, warm-hearted nature served to increase the kindness with which both 
political friends and opponents regarded him. Three Western Eeserve Senators 
formed the Eadical triumvirate in that able and patriotic Legislature, which was 
to place Ohio in line for the war. One was a highly-rated Professor of Oberlin 
College; another, a lawyer already noted for force and learning, the son-in-law 
of the President of Oberlin; the third was our village carpenter and village 
teacher from Hiram. He was the youngest of the three, but he speedily be- 
came the first. The trials of the next six years were to confirm the verdict of 
the little group about the State Capitol that soon placed Garfield before both 
Cox and Monroe. The College Professor was abundantly satisfied with the suc- 
cess in life which made him a Consul at a South American port. The adroit, 
polished, able lawyer became a painstaking General, who, perhaps, oftener de- 
served success than won it, and who at last, profiting by the gratitude of the 
people to their soldiers, rose to be Governor of the State, but there (for the time 
at least) ended. The village carpenter started lower in the race of the war and 
ro.se higher, became one of the leaders in our National Councils, and confessedly 
one of the ablest among the younger of our statesmen. 

"WTien the secession of the Southern States began, ITational considerations 
came to occupy a large share of the attention of the Senate. Mr. Garfield's 

■•■■The frequency of Mr. Garfield's appearance in the pulpit of the Institute in the absence of 
the regular minister, and in accordance with the liberal usages of the Disciples, finally led the 
outside public to think of him as actually a minister of the Gospel, a position which his unblem- 
ished character seemed to befit, as much as his unusual abilities did to adorn. But he had 
never entertained any idea of becoming a minister, and, as we have seen, was already at work — 
just as soon as he got relief from the debts with which his stay at college had burdened him — 
preparing for the practice of the law, to which profession he had long been looking forward. 



744 Ohio in the Wae. \ 

course was manlj" and outspoken. He was foremost in the very small number 
(only six voting with him) who thought the spring of 1861 a bad time for 
adopting the Corwin Constitutional Amendment, forbidding Congress from ever 
legislating on the subject of slavery in the States. He was among the foremost 
in maintaining the right of the National Government to coerce seceded States. 
" Would you give up the forts and other government property in those States, 
or would you fight to maintain your right to them?" was his adroit way of put- 
ting the question to a Conservative Eepublican who deplored his incendiary 
views. He took the lead in revising the old statute about treason, with a view 
of adapting it to the instant exigencies. When the "Million War Bill," as it 
was popularly known at the time, came up, he was the most conspicuous of its 
defenders. Judge Key, of Hamilton County (subsequently a noted member of 
McClellan's staff), preluded his vote for it with a protest against the policy of 
the Administration in entering upon the war. It was left to Garfield to make 
the reply. The newspapers of that day all make mention of his effort in terms 
of the highest admiration. ' He regretted that Senator Key should have turned 
from honoring his country to pay his highest tribute of praise, at a time like 
this, to party. The Senator approved a defense of national property; but de- 
nounced any effort to retake it if only it were once captured. Did he mean 
that if Washington were taken bj- the Eebels he would oppose attempts to re- 
gain possession of the National Capital? Where was this doctrine of non-resist- 
ance to stop? He had hoped that the Senator would not, in this hour of the 
Nation's jjeril, open the books of party to re-read records that ought, now at 
least, to be forgotten. But since the Senator had thought, this a fitting time to 
declare his distrust of the President and of the Cabinet, and particularly of 
Ohio's honored representative in that Cabinet, he had only this to say in reply: 
that it would be well for that Senator, amid his partisan recollections, to remem- 
ber whose Cabinet it was that embraced traitors among its most distinguished 
members, and sent them forth from its most seci-et sessions to betray their 
knowledge to their country's ruin ! ' 

When the time came for appointing the officers for the Ohio troops, the 
Legislature was still in session. Garfield at once avowed his intention of enter- 
ing the service. But he displaj^ed at the outset his signal want of tact and of 
skill in advancing his own interests. Of the three leading Radical Senators 
Garfield had the most pei'sonal popularity. Cox was at that time, perhaps, a 
more compact and pointed speaker — he had matured earlier, as (to change the 
figure) he was to culminate sooner. But he had never aroused the warm regard 
which Garfield's whole-hearted, generous disposition alwaj^s excited. Yet Cox 
had the sagacity to see how his interests were to be advanced. He abandoned 
the Senate-chamber ; installed himself as an assistant in the Governor's office, 
made his skill felt in the rush of business, and soon convinced the appointing 
power of his special aptitude for militaiy affairs. In natural sequence he was 
presently appointed a Brigadier-General. Garfield was sent off on a mission to 
some Western States to see about arms for the Ohio volunteers, and on his re- 



James A. Gaefield. 745 

turo he was offered the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of one of the Reserve regiments. 
But his making haste slowly was not to injure his future career. 

On the 14th of August, 1861, some months after the adjournment of the 
Legislature, and after the successful close of McClellan's West Yirginia cam- 
paign, the ex-Senator was finally appointed by Governor Dennison Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the Forty-Second Ohio— a regiment not yet organized, a company 
for which had been recruited among the pupils of the "Hiram Eclectic Insti- 
stitute." It was understood that, if he had cared to push the matter, Garfield 
might have been Colonel; but with a modesty quite unusual in those early days 
of the war, he preferred to start low, and rise as he learned. Five weeks were 
spent in diligently drilling the regiment, and finally, about the time its organi- 
zation Avas complete, the Lieutenant-Colonel was, without his own solicitation, 
promoted to the Colonelcy. 

It was not until the 14th of December that orders for the field were i-e- 
ceived. The regiment was then sent to Catlettsburg, Kentucky; and the Colonel 
was directed to report in person to General Buell. That astute officer, though 
as opposite as the poles to Garfield in his political convictions, soon perceived 
the military worth of the young Colonel. On the 17th of December he assigned 
Colonel Garfield to the command of the Seventeenth Brigade, and ordered him 
to drive the Eebel forces under Humphrey Marshall out of the Sandy Valley, in 
Eastern Kentucky. 

Up to this date no active operations had been attempted in the great De- 
partment that lay south of the Ohio Eiver. The spell of Bull Run still hung 
over our armies. Save the campaigns in Western Yirginia, and the unfortunate 
attack b}' General Grant at Belmont, not a single engagement had occurred 
over all the region between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. General Buell 
was preparing to advance upon the Eebel position at Bowling Green, when he 
suddenly found himself hampered by two co-opei-ating forces skillfully planted 
within striking distance of his flank. General Zollicoffer was advancing from 
Cumberland Gap toward Mill Spring; and Humphrey Marshall, moving down 
the Sandy Yalley, was threatening to overrun Eastern Kentucky. Till these 
could be driven back, an advance upon Bowling Green would be perilous, if 
not actuall}^ impossible. To General George H. Thomas, then just raised from 
his Colonelcy of regulars to a Brigadier-Generalship of volunteers, was com- 
mitted the task of repulsing Zollicoffer; to the untried Colonel of the raw 
Forty-Second Ohio, the task of repulsing Humphrey Marshall. And on their 
success the whole army of the Department waited. 

Colonel Garfield thus found himself, before he had ever seen a gun fired in 
action, in command of four regiments of infantry, and some eight companies of 
cavalry,* charged with the work of driving out of his native State the officer 
reputed the ablest of those, not educated to war, whom Kentucky had given to 
the rebellion. Marshall had under his command nearly five thousand men, 

* The brigade was composed of the Fortieth and Forty-Second Ohio, the Fourteenth and 
Twenty-Second Kentucky Infantry, six companies of the First Kentucky Cavalry, and two com- 
panies of McLaughlin's (Ohio) Cavalry. 



746 Ohio in the War. 

stationed at the village of Paintville, sixt}^ miles up the Sandy Valley. He was 
expected by the Eebel authorities to advance toward Lexington, unite with 
Zollicoffer, and establish the authority of the Provisional Government at the 
State Capital. These hopes were fed by the recollection of his great intellectual 
abilities, and the soldierly reputation he had borne ever since he led the famous 
charge of the Kentucky volunteers at Buena Yista. 

Colonel G-arfield joined the bulk of his brigade at the mouth of the Big 
Sandy, and moved with it directly up the valley. Meantime he ordered the 
small force at Paris to march overland and effect a junction with him a little 
below Paintville. The force with which he was able to move numbered about 
twenty-two hundred. 

Marshall heard of the advance, through the sympathizing citizens, and fell 
back to Prestonburg, leaving a small force of cavalry near his old position, to 
act as an outj^ost and to protect his trains. As Garfield approached* he ascer- 
tained the position of this cavalry, and sent some of his own mounted forces to 
attack it, while, with the rest of his column, he passed around to the westward^ 
to make a reconnoissance in force of the positions which he still supposed Mar- 
shall's main body to occupy. He speedily discovered Marshall's retreat; then 
hastily sent word back to his cavalry not to attack the enemy's cavalry until 
he had time to plant his force on its line of retreat. Unfortunately the circuit- 
ous route delayed the courier, and before Garfield's orders could be delivered 
the attack had been made, and Marshall's cavalry had been driven back in con- 
siderable confusion. "When, pushing on with the main column, he reached the 
road on which he had hoped to intercept their retreat, he found it strewn with 
overcoats, blankets, and cavalry equipments — proofs that they had already 
passed in their rout. Colonel Garfield pushed the pursuit with his cavalry till 
the infantry outposts were reached ; then, drawing back, encamped with hi& 
whole force at Paintville. Here, next morning, he was joined by the troops 
that had marched from Paris, so that his effective force was now raised to about 
thirty-four hundred men. 

After waiting a day for rations, which were taken through with the utmost . 
difficulty, on the 9th of January Garfield advanced upon Marshall's new posi- 
tion near Prestonburg, Before nightfall he had driven in the enemj^'s pickets, 
and had sent orders back to Paintville to forward the few troops — less than one 
thousand in all — who had not been supplied with rations in time to move with 
the rest of the column. The men slept on their arms, under a soaking rain. 
By four o'clock in the morning f they were in motion. 

Marshall was believed to be stationed on Abbott's Creek. Garfield's plan, 
therefore, was to get over upon Middle Creek, and so plant himself on the 
enemy's rear. But in fact Marshall's force was upon the height's of Middle 
Creek itself, only two miles west of Prestonburg. So, when Garfield, advancing 
cautiously westward up the creek, had consumed some hours in these move- 
ments, he came upon a semi-circular hill, scarcely one thousand yards in front 
of which was Marshall's position, between the forks of the creek. The expected 

■'•January 7, 1862. t January 10, 1862. 



James A. G-aefield. 747 

re-enforcements from Paintville had not yet arrived ; and, conscious of his com- 
parative weakness, Colonel Garfield determined first to develop the enemy's 
position more carefully. A small body of picked men, sent dashing i;p the 
road, drew a fire both from the head of the gorge through which the road led 
and from the heights on its left. Two columns were then moved forward, one 
on either side of the creek, and the Eebels speedily opened upon them with 
musketry and artillery. The fight became somewhat severe at times, but was, 
on the whole, desultory. Garfield re-enforced both his columns, but the action 
soon developed itself mainly on the left, where Marshall speedily concentrated 
his whole force. Meantime Garfield's reserve was now also under fire from the 
commanding position held by the enemy's artillery. He was entirely without 
artillery to reply ; but the men stationed themselves behind trees and rocks, 
and kept up a brisk though irregular fusilade. 

At last, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the re-enforcements from 
Paintville arrived. As we now know, these still left Marshall's strength supe- 
rior to that of his young assailant; but the troops looked upon their opportune 
arrival as settling the contest. Unbounded enthusiasm was aroused, and the 
approaching column was received with prolonged cheering. Garfield now 
promptly formed his whole reserve for attacking the enemy's right and carry- 
ing his guns. The troops were moving rapidly up in the fast-gathering dark- 
ness, when Marshall hastily abandoned his position, fired his camp equipage 
and stores, and began a retreat which was not ended till he had reached Abing- 
don, Yirginia. Night checked the pursuit. Next day it was continued for 
some distance, and some prisoners were taken ; but a further advance in that 
direction was quite impossible without more transportation, and indeed would 
have been foreign to the purpose for which General Buell had ordered the 
expedition.* 

A fresh peril, however, now beset the little force. An unusually violent 
rain-storm broke out, the mountain gorges were all flooded, and the Sandy rose 
to such a height that steamboatmen pronounced it impossible to ascend the 
stream with supplies. The troops were almost out of rations, and the rough, 
mountainous country was incapable of supporting them. Colonel Garfield had 
gone down the river to its mouth. He ordered the " Sandy Yalley," a small 
steamer, which had been in the quartermasters' service, to take on a load of 
supplies and start up. The Captain declared it was impossible. EflForts were 
made to get other vessels, but without success. 

Finally Colonel Garfield ordered the Captain and crew on board, stationed 
a competent army officer on deck to see that the Captain did his duty, and him- 
self took the wheel. The Captain still protested that no boat could possibly 
stem the raging current, but Garfield turned her head up the stream and began 
the perilous trip. The water in the usually shallow river was sixty feet deep, 

* Speaking of these movements on the Sandy, after he had gained more experience of war, 
Garfield said : '* It was a very rash and imprudent affair on my part. If I had been an officer 
of more experience I probably should not have made the attack. As it was, having gone into 
the army with the notion' that fighting was our business, I did n't know any better." 



748 Ohio in the War. 

and the tree-tops along the banks were almost submerged. The little vessel 
trembled from stem to stern at ever}^ motion of the engines; the waters whirled 
her about as if she wei-e a skiff; and the utmost speed that steam could give her 
was three miles an hour. When night fell the Captain of the boat begged per- 
mission to tie up. To attempt ascending that flood in the dark he declared 
was madness. But Colonel Garfield kept his place at the wheel. Finally, in 
one of the sudden bends of the river, they drove, with a full head of steam, 
into the quicksand of the bank. Every effort to back off was in vain. Mat- 
tocks were procured and excavations were made around the imbedded bow. 
Still she stuck. Garfield at last ordered a boat to be lowered to take a line 
across to the opposite bank. The crew protested against venturing out in the 
flood. The Colonel leaped into the boat himself and steered it over. The force 
of the current carried them far below the point they sought to reach ; but they 
finally succeeeded in making ftist to a tree and rigging a windlass with rails 
snfficiently powerful to draw the vessel off and get her once more afloat. 

It was on Saturdaj^ that the boat left the mouth of the Sandy. All night, 
all day Sunday, and all through Sunday night they kept up their struggle with 
the cnn-ent, Garfield leaving the wheel only eight hours out of the whole time, 
and that during the day. By nine o'clock Monday morning they reached the 
camp, and were received with tumultuous cheering. Garfield himself could 
scarcely escape being borne to head-quarters on the shoulders of the de- 
lighted men. • 

Through the months of January, February, and March, several small en- 
counters with guerrillas in the mountains occurred, generally favorable to the 
Union arms, and finally resulting in the expulsion of the bands of marauders 
from the State. Just on the border, however, at the rough pass across the 
mountains, known as Pound Gap, eighty miles north of Cumberland Gap, Hum- 
phrey Marshall still kept up a post of observation, held by a force of about five 
hundred men. On the 14th of March Garfield started with five hundred infantry 
and a couple of hundred cavalry against this detachment. The distance was 
forty miles, and the roads were at their worst, but by the evening of the next 
day he had reached the foot of the mountain, two miles north of the Gap. 
Next morning he sent the cavahy directly up the Gap Eoad, to attract the 
enemy's attention, while he led the infantry along an unfrequented foot-path up 
the side of the mountain. A heavy snow-storm helped to conceal the move- 
ments. While the enemy watched the cavalry, Garfield had led the infantry, 
undiscovered, to within a quarter of a mile of their camp. Then he ordered an 
attack. The enemy were taken by surprise, and a few volleys dispersed them. 
They retreated in confusion down the eastern slope of the mountain, followed 
for several miles into Virginia b}" the cavalry. Considerable quantities of stores 
were captured. The troops rested for the night in the sixty comfortable log 
huts which the enemy had built, and the next morning burnt them down, to- 
gether with everything else left by the enemy which they could not carry away. 
Six days afterward an order was received to leave a small garrison at Pike- 
ton, and to transfer the rest of the command rapidly to Louisville. 



James A. Garfield. 749 

These operations in the Sandy Yalley had been conducted with such energy 
and skill as to receive the special commendation of the commanding General 
and of the Government, General Buell had been moved to words of unwonted 
praise.* The War Department had conferred the grade of Brigadier-General, 
the commission bearing the date of the battle on Middle Creek. And the 
country, without understanding very Avell the details of the campaign (of which, 
indeed, no satisfectory account was published at the timef), fully appreciated 
the tangible result. The discomfiture of Humphrey Marshall was a source of 
special chagrin to the Eebel sympathizers of Kentucky, and of amusement and 
admiration throughout the loyal West, and Garfield took rank in the public 
estimation among the most promising of the younger volunteer Generals. 

Later criticism will confirm the general verdict then passed upon the Sandy 
Yalley campaign. It was the first of the brilliant series of successes that made 
the spring of 1862 so memorable. Mill Springs, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, 
Nashville, Island No. 10, Memphis, followed in quick succession; but it was 
Garfield's honor that he opened this season of victories. His plans, as we have 
seen, were based on sound military principles; the energy which he threw into 
their execution was thoroughly admirable, and his management of the raw volun- 
teers was such that they acquired the fullest confidence in their commander, and 
endured the hardships of the campaign with a fortitude not often shown in the 
first field service of new troops. But the operations were on a small scale, and 
their chief significance lay in the capacity they developed, rather than in their 
intrinsic importance. 

On his arrival from the Sandy Valley at Louisville, General Garfield found 
that the Army of the Ohio Avas already beyond Nashville, on its march to 
Grant's aid at Pittsburg Landing. He hastened after it, reported to General Buell 
about thirty miles south of Columbia, and, under his orders, at once assumed 
command of the Twentieth Brigade, then a part of the division under General 
Thomas J. Wood. He reached the field of Pittsburg Landing about one o'clock 
on the second day of the battle, and participated in its closing scenes. 

The next day he moved with Sherman's advance, and had a sharp encoun- 

*The following is the text of General Buell's congratulatory order: 

"Head-Quarters Department of the Ohio,") 

" Louisville, Kentucky, January 20, 1862. ) 
"General Orders No. 40. 

" The General commanding takes occasion to thank General Garfield and his troops for their 
successful campaign against the Eebel force under General Marshall on the Big Sandy, and 
their gallant conduct in battle. They have overcome formidable diflSculties in the character of 
country, the condition of the roads, and the inclemency of the season ; and, without artillery, 
have, in several engagements, terminating in the battle on Middle Creek on the 10th inst., driven 
the enemy from his intrenched positions, and forced him back into the mountains with the loss 
of a large amount of baggage and stores, and many of his men killed or captured. 

" These services have called into action the highest qualities of a soldier — fortitude, perse- 
verance, courage." 

t Aside from the official reports, the most comple account of the Middle Creek battle that 1 
have seen is in Harper's Pictorial History of the Kebellion, Vol. I, pp. 221-22-23. 



750 Ohio in the Wae. 

ter with the enemy's rear-guard, a few miles beyond tlie battle-field. His brig- 
ade bore its full share in the tedious siege operations before Corinth, and was 
among the earliest in entering the abandoned town after General Beauregard's 
evacuation. 

Then when General Buell, turning eastward, sought to prepare for a new 
aggressive campaign with his inadequate forces. General Garfield was assigned 
to the task of rebuilding the bridges and re-opening the MemjDhis and Charles- 
ton Eailroad eastward from Corinth to Decatur. Crossing the Tennessee here, 
he advanced to Huntsville, where he remained during the rest of his ser- 
vice in that campaign. He was presently put at the head of the court-martial 
for the trial of General Turchin, whose conduct at Athens had been the occa- 
sion of a parting howl against General Mitchel, and had been one of the earliest 
subjects forced upon the attention of General Buell on his arrival.* His mani- 
fest capacity for such work led to his subsequent detail on several other courts- 
martial, j 

The old tendency to fever and ague, contracted in the days of his tow-path 
service on the Ohio Canal, was now aggravated in the malarious climate of the 
South, and General Garfield was finally sent home on sick-leave about the first 
of August. Xear the same time the Secretary of War, who seems at this early 
day to have formed the high estimate of Garfield which he continued to enter- 
tain throughout the war, sent orders to him to proceed to Cumberland Gap and 
relieve General George W. Morgan of his command. But when the}' were re- 
ceived he was too ill to leave his bed. A month later the Secretary ordered 
him to report in person at Washington, as soon as his health would permit. 

On his arrival it was found that the estimate placed upon his knowledge 
of law, his judgment, and his loyalty, had led to his selection as one of the first 
members of the court-martial for the noted trial of Fitz John Porter. In the 
duties connected with this detail most of the autumn was consumed. General 
Garfield was understood to be one of the clearest and firmest in the conviction 
that General Porter had wilfully permitted Pope's defeat at the second Bull 
Bun, and that no less punishment than dismissal from the service would be at 
all adequate to his offense. 

The intimacy that sprang up during this trial between General Garfield 
and General Hunter, the President of the court-martial, led to an application 
for him for service in South Carolina, whither Hunter was about to start. Gar- 
field's strong antislavery views had been greatly strengthened by his experience 
thus far during the war, and the South Carolina appointment, under a com- 

* This case attracted great attention at the time, and General T urchin was vehemently cham- 
pioned by the newspapers, particularly those of Chicago. The charges against him were neglect 
of duty, to the prejudice of good order and discipline, in permitting the wanton and disgraceful 
pillage of the town of Athens, Alabama; conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, in 
failing to pay a hotel bill in the town ; and in.subordination in disobeying the orders against the 
molestation of peaceful citizens in pei'sons and property. Some of the specifications particular- 
ized very shameful conduct. The court found him guilty (except as to the hotel-bill story), and 
sentenced him to dismissal from the army. Six of its members recommended him to clem- 
ency on account of mitigating circumstances, but the sentence was executed. 



James A. Gaefield. 751 

mander so radical as Hunter, was on this account peculiarly gratifying. But 
in ihe midst of his plans and preparations, the old army in which he had served 
plunged into the battle of Stone Eiver. A part of the bitter cost of the victory 
that followed was the loss of Garesche, the lamented chief of staff to the com- 
manding General. Garfield was at once selected to take his place; the appoint- 
ment to South Carolina was revoked ; and early in January he was ordered out 
to General Eosecrans. 

The Chief of Staff should bear the same relation to his General that a Min- 
ister of State does to his sovereign. What this last relation is the most bril- 
liant of recent historians shall tell us : '• The difference between a servant and a 
Minister of State lies in this: that the servant obeys the orders given him, 
without troubling himself concerning the question whether his master is right 
or wrong; while a Minister of State declines to be the instrument for giving 
-effect to measures which he deems to be hurtful to his country. The Chancellor 
of the Eussian Empire was sagacious and politic. . . . That the Czar was 
wrong in these transactions against Turkey no man knew better. . . . But 
unhappily for the Czar and for his Empire, the Minister did not enjoy so com- 
manding a station as to be able to put restraint upon his sovereign, nor even 
perhaps, to offer him counsel in his angry mood." * We are now to see that in 
■some respects our Chief of Staff came to a similar experience. 

From the day of his appointment, General Garfield became the intimate 
associate and confidential adviser of his chief But he did not occupy so com- 
manding a station as to be able to put restraint upon him. 

The time of General Garfield's arrival marks the beginning of that period 
of quarrels with the War Department, in which General Eosecrans frittered 
away his influence and paved the road for his removal. We have seen, in 
tracing the career of that great strategist and gallant soldier, how unwise he 
always was in caring for his own interests, and how imprudent was the most of 
his intercourse with his superiors. Yet he was nearly always right in his de- 
mands. General Garfield earnestly sympathized with his appeals for more cav- 
alryt and for revolving arms. But he did all that lay in his power to soften 
the tone of asperity which his chief adopted in his dispatches to Washington. I 
Sometimes he took the responsibility of totally suppressing an angry message. 
Oftener he ventured to soften the phraseology. But. in all this there was a 
limit bej-ond which he could not go; and when Eosecrans had pronounced cer- 
tain statements of the Department "a profound, grievous, cruel, and ungener- 
ous official and personal wrong," the good offices of the Chief of Staff were no 
longer efficacious— the breach was irreparable. Thenceforward he could only 
strive to make victories in the field atone for errors in council. 

He regarded the organization of the army as vitally defective. We have 

* Kinglake's Crim. War, Vol. I, Chap. XVI. 

t A demand which General Buell had made, quite as emphatically as his successor, and with 
-an accurate prediction of the evils that would flow from its absence. 

t For a full illustration of the nature of this correspondence, see ant^, Life of Eosecrans. 



752 Ohio in the Wak. 

already pointed out, in tracing the actions of its chief, the great mistake of ' 
retaining as commanders of the wings such incapables as A. M. McCook and 
T. L. Crittenden. Almost the first recommendation made by General Garfield i 
was for their displacement. It is gratifying now to know that he was so little 
moved by popular prejudice, and so well able to perceive real abilitj^ beneath 
concealing misfortunes, that he urged ujDon Rosecrans to replace them by Irvin 
McDowell and Don Carlos Buell. "With George H. Thomas already in com- 
mand, with men like these as his associates, and with the energy and genius of 
Eosecrans to lead them, the Army of the Cumberland would have been the best 
ofiicered army in the service of the Nation. But Eosecrans was unwilling toi 
adopt the suggestion — for a reason creditable to his kindness of heart, but not: 
to his military character. Crittenden and McCook ought to be removed — ofl 
that he had no doubt, but — " he hated to injure two such good fellows." And 
so the " two good felloAvs " went on until Chickamauga.* 

From 4th January to 24th June General Eosecrans lay at Murfreesboro'. 
Through five months of this delay General Garfield was with him. The War-' 
Department demanded an advance, and, when the spring opened, ui-ged it 
with unusual vehemence. General Eosecrans delayed, waiting for cavalry, for- 
re-enforcements, for Grant's movements before Yicksburg, for the movements of 
the enemy, for the opinions of his Generals. The Chief of Staif at first ap- 
proved the delays, till the army should be strengthened and massed ; but long 
before the delaying ofiicers were ready he was urging movement with all his i 
power. He had established a secret-service system, then perhaps the most per 
feet in any of the Union armies. From the intelligence it furnished he felt sure| 
that Bragg's force had been considerably reduced, and was now greatly infe- 
rior to that of Eosecrans; As he subsequently said, he refused to believe that 
this army, which defeated a superior foe at Stone Eiver, could not now move j 
upon an inferior one with reasonable prospects of success. 

Finally General Eosecrans formally asked his corps, division, and cavalry 
Generals as to the propriety of a movement. With singular unanimity, though 
for diverse reasons, the}^ opposed it. Out of seventeen Generals, not one was 
in favor of an immediate advance, and not one was even willing to put himself 
upon the record as in favor of an early advance. 

General Garfield collated the seventeen letters sent in from the Generals in 
reply to the questions of their commander, and fairly reported their sub,stance, 
coupled with a cogent argument against them and in favor of an immediate 
movement. This report we venture to pronounce the ablest military document 
known to have been submitted by a Chief of Staff to his superior during the 

*To the above statement it should be added that General Garfield made the recommenda- 
tion for the removal of Crittenden and McCook in the course of a discussion of the battle of 
Stone River, in which Eosecrans explicitly said that these officers had shown themselves incom- 
petent in that engagement. Garfield did not take the ground that Buell and McDowell had 
approved themselves equal to the high commands they had formerly held ; but, without dis- 
cussing this, he argued at length their masterly qualifications for important subordinate positions, 
as well as the fact that this offer of an opportunity to come out from the cloud under which theyl 
rested would insure their gratitude and incite them to their very best eSbrts. 



James A. Gtakfield. 753 

■war. General Garfield stood absolutely alone, every General commanding 
troops having, as we have seen, either openly opposed or failed to approve an 
advance. But his statements were so clear and his arguments so forcible that 
he carried conviction. As an interesting feature in the history of a notable 
campaign, we give this remarkable paper in full : 

Head-Quarteks, Department of the CtJMBERiiANr>,\ 
Murfreesboro' , June 12, 1863. J 
General: In your confidential letter of the 8th inst. to the corps and division commanders 
and Generals of cavalry of this army, there were substantially five questions propounded for 
their consideration and answer, viz.: 

1. Has the enemy in our front been materially weakened by detachments to Johnston, or 
elsewhere ? 

2. Can this army advance on him at this time with strong reasonable chances of fighting & 
great and successful battle? 

3. Do you think an advance of our army at present likely to prevent additional re-enforce- 
ments being sent against General Grant by the enemy in our front? 

4. Do you think an immediate advance of this army advisable ? 

5. Do you think an early advance advisable ? 

Many of the answers to these questions are not categorical, and can not be clearly set down 
either as aflBrmative or negative. Especially in answer to the first question there is much indefi- 
niteness, resulting from the difference of judgment as to how great a detachment could be con- 
sidered a "material reduction" of Bragg's strength. For example: One officer thinks it has been 
reduced ten thousand, but not " materially weakened." 

The answers to the second question are modified in some instances by the opinion that the 
Kebels will fall back behind the Tennessee River, and thus no battle can be fought either success- 
ful or unsuccessful. 

So far as these opinions can be stated in tabular form, they will stand thus : 

Yes. No. 

Answer to first question 6 11 

Answer to second question 2 11 

Answer to third question 4 10 

Answer to fourth question 15 

Answer to fifth question 2 

On the fifth question three gave it as their opinion that this army ought to advance as soon 
as Vicksburg falls, should that event happen. 

The following is a summary of the reasons assigned why we should not, at this time, advance 
upon the enemy : 

1. With Hooker's army defeated, and Grant's bending all its energies in a yet undecided strug- 
gle, it is bad policy to risk our only reserve army to the chances of a general engagement. A 
failure here would have most disastrous effects on our lines of communication, and on politics in 
the loyal States. 

2. We should be compelled to fight the enemy on his own ground, or follow him in a fruit 
less stern chase; or if we attempted to outflank him and turn his position, we should expose our 
line of communication and run the risk of being pushed back into a rough country well-known 
to the enemy and little to ourselves. 

3. In case the enemy should fall back without accepting battle he could make our advance 
very slow, and with a comparatively small force posted in the gaps of the mountains could hold 
us back while he crossed the Tennessee River, where he would be measurely secure and free to 
send re-enforcements to Johnston. His forces in East Tennessee could seriously harass our left 
flank, and constantly disturb our communications. 

4. The withdrawal of Burnside's Ninth Army Corps deprives us of an important reserve and 
fiank protection, thus increasing the difficulty of an advance. 

YOL. I.— 48. 



754 Ohio in the Wak. 

5. General Hurlbut has sent the most of his forces away to General Grant, thus leaving 
West Tennessee uncovered, and laying our right flank and rear open to raids of the enemy. 
The following incidental opinions are expressed : 

1. One officer thinks it probable that the enemy has been strengthened rather than weakened, 
and that he (the enemy) would have a reasonable prospect of victory in a general battle. 

2. One officer believes the result of a general battle would be doubtful, a victory barren, and 
a defeat most disastrous. 

3. Three officers believe that an advance would bring on a general engagement. Three 
others believe it would not. 

4. Two officers express the opinion that the chances of success in a general battle are nearly 
equal. 

5. One officer expresses the belief that our army has reached its maximum strength and 
efficiency, and that inactivity will seriously impair its effectiveness. 

6. Two officers say that an increase of our cavalry by about six thousand men would mate- 
rially change the aspect of our affairs and give us a decided advantage. 

In addition to the above summary, I have the honor to submit an estimate of the strength 
of Bragg's army, gathered from all the data I have been able to obtain, including the estimate j 
of the General commanding in his official report of the battle of Stone Kiver and facts gathered \ 
from prisoners, deserters, and refugees, and from Eebel newspapers. After the battle Bragg con- 
solidated many of his decimated regiments and irregular organizations, and at the time of his 
sending re-enforcements to Johnston his army had reached its greatest effective strength. It con- 
sisted of five divisions of infantry, composed of ninety-four regiments and two independent bat- 
talions of sharp-shooters ; say ninety-five regiments. By a law of the Confederate Congress, 
regiments are consolidated when their effective strength falls below two hundred and fifty men. 
Even the regiments formed by such consolidation (which may reasonably be regarded as the 
fullest) must fall below five hundred. I am satisfied that four hundred is a large estimate of the i 
average strength. 

The force then would be : 

Infantry, 95 Regiments, 400 each 38,000 

Cavalry, 35 " say 500 " 17,500 

Artillery, 26 Batteries, say 100 " 2,600, 

Total 58,600 

This force has been reduced by detachments to Johnston. It is as well known as we can ever 
expect to ascertain such facts, that three brigades have gone from McCown's division, and two or 
three from Breckinridge's; say two. It is clear that there are now but four infantry divisions Id 
Bragg's army, the fourth being composed of fragments of McCown's and Breckinridges's divis- 
ions, and must be much smaller than the average. Deducting the five brigades, and supposing 
them composed of only four regiments each, which is below the general average, it gives an in- 
fantry reduction of twenty regiments, four hundred each : eight thousand, leaving a remainder of 
thirty thousand. 

It is clearly ascertained that at least two brigades of cavalry have been sent from Van Dorn's 
command to Mississippi, and it is asserted in the Chattanooga Eebel of June 11th, that General 
Morgan's command has been permanently detached and sent to Eastern Kentucky. It is not 
certainly known how large his division is, but it is known to contain at least two brigades. 
Taking this minimum as the fact, we have a cavalry reduction of four brigades. 

Taking the lowest estimate, four regiments to the brigade, we have a reduction by detach- 
ment of sixteen regiments, five hundred each, leaving his present effective cavalry force nine 
thousand five hundred. 

With the nine brigades of the two arms thus detached it will be safe to say there have gone 

6 Batteries, 80 men each 480 

Leaving him 20 Batteries 2,120 

Making a total reduction of. 16,480 

Leaving of the three arms 41,680 



James A. Gakfield. 755 

In this estimate of Bragg's present strength I have placed all doubts in his favor, and I 
have no question that my estimate is considerably beyond the truth. General Sheridan, who has 
taken great pains to collect evidence on this point, places it considerably below these figures. 
But assuming these to be correct, and granting what is still more improbable, that Bragg would 
abandon all his rear posts, and entirely neglect his communications and could bring his last man 
into battle, I next ask. What have we with which to oppose him? 

The last official report of effective strength, now on file in the office of the Assistant Adju- 
tant-General, is dated June 11th, and shows that we have in this Department, omitting all officers 
and enlisted men attached to Department, Corps, Division, and Brigade head-quarters : 

1. Infantry— One hundred and seventy-three regiments ; ten battalions sharp-shooters ; four 
battalions pioneers, and one regiment engineers and mechanics, with a total effective strength 
of seventy thousand nine hundred and eighteen. 

2. Cavalry— Twenty-seven regiments and one unattached company, eleven thousand eight 
hundred and thirteen. 

3. Artillery— Forty-seven and a half batteries field artillery, consisting of two hundred 
and ninety-two guns and five hundred and sixty -nine men, making a general total of eighty- 
seven thousand eight hundred. 

Leaving out all commissioned officers, this army represents eighty-two thousand seven hun- 
dred and sixty-seven bayonets and sabers. 

This report does not include the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, six hundred strong, lately armed ; nor 
the First Wisconsin Cavalry; nor Coburn's brigade of infantry, now arriving; nor the two 
thousand three hundred and ninety-four convalescents now on light duty in "Fortress Eosecrans." 

There are detached from this force as follows : 

At Gallatin pgg 

At Carthage i 3^49 

At Fort Donelson 1 435 

At Clarksville 1 138 

At Nashville 7 292 

At Franklin 900 

AtLavergne 2 117 

Total 15^130 

With these posts as they are, and leaving two thousand five hundred efficient men in addi- 
tion to the two thousand three hundred and ninety-four convalescents to hold the works at this 
place, there will be left sixty-five thousand one hundred and thirty-seven bayonets and sabers to 
throw against Bragg's forty-one thousand six hundred and eighty. 

I beg leave, also, to submit the following considerations : 

1. Bragg's army is now weaker than it has been since the battle of Stone Kiver, or is likely 
to be again for the present, while our army has reached its maximum strength, and we have no 
right to expect re-enforcements for several months, if at all. 

2. Whatever be the result at Vicksburg, the determination of its fate will give large re-en- 
forcements to Bragg. If Grant is successful, his army will require many weeks to recover from 
the shock and strain of his late campaign, while Johnston will send back to Bragg a force suffi- 
cient to insure the safety of Tennessee. If Grant fails, the same result will inevitably follow, so 
far as Bragg's army is concerned. 

3. No man can predict with certainty the result of any battle, however great the disparity in 
numbers. Such results are in the hand of God. But, viewing the question in the light of human 
calculation, I refuse to entertain a doubt that this army, which in January last defeated Bragg's 
superior numbers, can not overwhelm his present greatly inferior forces. 

4. The most unfavorable course for us that Bragg could take would be to fall back without 
giving us battle, but this would be very disastrous to him. Besides the loss of imteriel of war, 
and the abandonment of the rich and abundant harvest now nearly ripe in Central Tennessee 
he would lose heavily by desertion. It is well known that a wide-spread dissatisfaction exists 
among his Kentucky and Tennessee troops. They are already deserting in large numbers. A 
retreat would greatly increase both the desire and the opportunity for desertion, and would very 



756 Ohio in the Wak. 

materially reduce his physical and moral strength. While it would lengthen our communica- 
tions, it would give us possession of McMinnville, and enable us to threaten Chattanooga and 
East Tennessee; and it would not be unreasonable to expect an early occupation of the for- 
mer place. 

5. But the chances are more than even that a sudden and rapid movement would compel a 
general engagement, and the defeat of Bragg would be in the highest degree disastrous to the 
rebellion. 

6. The turbulent aspect of politics in the loyal States renders a decisive blow against the enemy 
at this time of the highest importance to the success of the Government at the polls, and in the 
enforcement of the Conscription Act. 

7. The Government and the War Department believe that this army ought to move upon 
the enemy. The army desires it, and the country is anxiously hoping for it. 

8. Our true objective point is the Rebel army, whose last reserves are substantially in the 
field, and an effective blow will crush the shell, and soon be followed by the collapse of the 
Rebel government. 

9. You have, in my judgment, wisely delayed a general movement hitherto, till your army 
could be massed, and your cavalry could be mounted. Your mobile force can now be concen- 
trated in twenty-four hours, and your cavalry, if not equal in numerical strength to that of the 
enemy, is greatly superior in efficiency and morale. 

For these reasons I believe an immediate advance of all our available forces is advisable, 
and, under the providence of God, will be successful. 
Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
[Signed] J. A. GARFIELD, 

Brigadier-General, Chief of Staff. 
Major-General RosECRANS, Commanding Department Cumberland. 

Twelve days after the reception of this report the army moved — to the 
great dissatisfaction of its leading Generals. One of the three corps command- 
ers, Major-General Thomas L. Crittenden, approached the Chief of Staif at the 
head-quarters on the morning of the advance: "It is understood, sir," he said, 
"by the general officers of the army, that this movement is your work. I wish 
you to understand that it is a rash and fatal move, for which you will be held 
responsible." 

This rash and fatal move was the Tullahoma campaign — a campaign perfect 
in its conception, excellent in its general execution, and only hindered from 
resulting in the complete destruction of the opposing army by the delays which 
had too long postponed its commencement. It might even yet have destroj-ed 
Bragg but for the terrible season of rains which set in on the morning of the 
advance, and continued uninterruptedly for the greater part of a month. "With 
a week's earlier start it would have ended the career of Bragg's army in the war. 

There now sprang up renewed differences between General Eosecrans and 
tbe War Department. In the general polic}' that controlled the movements of 
the army Garfield heartily sympathized ; he had, in fact, aided to give shape to 
that policy. But he deplored his chief's testy manner of conducting his defense 
to the complaints of the War Department, and did his best to soften the asperi- 
ties of the correspondence. 

At last came the battle of Chickamausia. Such had by this time come to be 
Garfield's influence, that he was nearly always consulted and often followed. 
He wrote every order issued that day — one only excepted. This he did rarely 
as an amanuensis, but rather on the suggestions of his own judgment, afterward 
submitting what he had prepared to Eosecrans for approval or change. The 

'i 



James A. Garfield. 757 

DUO order which he did not write was the fatal order to Wood which lost the 
buttle. The meaning was correct; the words, however, did not clearly repre- 
sent what Eosecrans meant, and the division commander in question so inter- 
preted them as to destroj^ the right wing. 

The General commanding and his Chief of Staff were caught in the tide of 
the disaster and borne back toward Chattanooga. The Chief of Staff was sent 
to communicate with Thomas, while the General proceeded to prepare for the 
reception of the routed army. 

Such at least were the statements of the reports, and, in a technical sense, 
they were true. It should never be forgotten, however, in Garfield's praise, that 
it was on his own earnest representations that he was sent — that, in fact, he 
rather procured permission to go to Thomas, and so back into the battle, than 
received orders to do so. He refused to believe that Thomas was routed or the 
battle lost. He found the road environed with dangers; some of his escort were 
killed, and they all narroAvly escaped death or capture. But he bore to Thomas 
the first news that officer had received of the disaster on the right, and gave the 
information on which he was able to extricate his command. At seven o'clock 
that evening, under the personal supervision of General Gordon Granger and 
himself, a shotted salute from a battery of six Napoleon guns was fired into the 
woods after the lust of the retreating assailants. They were the last shots of 
the battle of Chicamauga, and what was left of the Union army was master of 
the field. For the time the enemy evidently regarded himself as repulsed; and 
Garfield said that night, and has always since maintained, that there was no 
necessity for the immediate retreat on Eossville. 

Practically this was the close of General Garfield's military career. A year 
before, while he was absent in the army, and without any solicitation on his 
part, he had been elected to Congress from the old Giddings district, in which he 
resided. He was now, after a few weeks further service with Eosecrans at Chat- 
tanooga, sent on to Washington as the bearer of dispatches. He there learned 
of his promotion to a Major-Generalship of volunteers, "for gallant and meri- 
torious conduct at the battle of Chickumauga." He might have retained tliis 
position in the army; and the military capacity he had displayed, the high flivor 
in which he was held by the Government, and the certainty of his assignment 
to important commands, seemed to augur a brilliant future. He was a poor 
man, too, and the Major- General's salary was more than double that of the Con- 
gressman. But on mature reflection he decided that the circumstances under 
which the people had elected him to Congress bound him up to an effort to obey 
their wishes. He was furthermore urged to enter Congress hy the oflScers of 
the army, who looked to him for aid in procuring such military legislation as 
the country and the army required. Under the belief that the path of useful- 
ness to the country lay in the direction in which his constituents pointed, he 
sacrificed what seemed to be his personal interests, and on the 5th of December, 
1863, resigned his commission, after nearly three years' service. 

In Congress General Garfield at once took high rank. He was made a 



758 Ohio in the War. 

member of the Committee on Military Affairs, where, by his activity, industry, 
and enfire familiarity with the wants of the army, he did as signal service as 
in the field. He also acted as chairman of the select committee of seven ap- 
pointed to investigate alleged frauds in the money -printing bureau of the Treas- 
ury Department. He soon became known as a powerful speaker, remarkably 
ready, and always effective in debate. One of his early performances gave him 
high rank from the outset. Mr. Alexander Long delivered an exceedingly 
ultra Peace-Democratic speech, proposing the recognition of the Southern Con- 
federacy, which attracted to an unusual degree the attention of the House. By 
common consent it was left to the young member who had so recentl}" left the 
army to reply. The moment Long took his seat G-arfield rose. His fii-st sen- 
tences struck the thrilling fibers of the House. In a moment he was surrounded! 
by a crowd of members from the remoter seats; and, in the midst of great ex- 
citement and the general applause of his side, he poui-ed out an invective rarely 
surpassed in that body for power or elegance : 

" Mb. Chairman : I am reminded by the occurrences of this afternoon of two characters in : 
the war of the Revolution, as compared with two others in the war of to-day. 

" The fir.st was Lord Fairfax, who dwelt near the Potomac, a few miles from us. When the 
great contest was opened between the mother country and the colonies. Lord Fairfax, after a pro- 
tracted struggle with his own heart, decided that he must go with the mother country. He gath- 
ered his mantle about him and went over grandly and solemnly. 

" There was another man who cast in his lot with the struggling colonists, and continued 
with them till the war was well-nigh ended. In an hour of darkness that just preceded the 
glory of the morning, he hatched the treason to surrender forever all that had been gained to 
the enemies of his country. Benedict Arnold was that man ! 

" Fairfax and Arnold find their parallel in the struggle of to-day. 

" When this war began many good men stood hesitating and doubting what they ought to 
do. Robert E. Lee sat in his house across the river here, doubting and delaying, and going off 
at last almost tearfully to join the army of his State. He reminds one in some respects ot' Lord 
Fairfax, the stately royalist of the Revolution. 

" But now, when tens of thousands of brave souls have gone up to God under the shadow 
of the flag; when thousands more, maimed and shattered in the contest, are sadly awaiting the 
deliverance of death ; now, when three years of terrific warfare have raged over us ; when our 
armies have pushed the rebellion back over mountains and rivers, and crowded it into narrow 
limits, until a wall of fire girds it ; now, when the uplifted hand of a majestic people is about 
to hurl the bolts of its conquering power upon the rebellion; now, in the quiet of this hall, 
hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark treason, there rises a Benedict Arnold and proposes 
to surrender all up, body and spirit, the Nation and the Flag, its genius and its honor, now and 
forever, to the accursed traitors to our country ! And that proposition comes — God forgive and 
pity my beloved State — it comes from a citizen of the time-honored and loyal Commonwealth 
of Ohio ! 

" I implore you, brethren, in this House, to believe that not many births ever gave pangs 
to my mother State such as she suffered when that traitor was born I I beg you not to believe 
that on the soil of that State another such growth has ever deformed the face of nature and 
darkened the light of God's day." 

The speech continued in the same sustained strain of polished and power- 
ful invective. Its delivery on the spur of the moment, in immediate reply ta 
an elaborate effort, which had taken him as well as the rest of the House by 
surprise, stamped Garfield at once as one of the readiest and most forcible 



James A. Garfield 759 

speakers in Congress. This standing he never lost. It was, however, to prove 
in some respects injurious to his rising fame. He spolve so readily that mem- 
bers were constantly asking his services in behalf of favorite measures; and in 
the impulsive eagerness of a young man and a young member, he often con- 
sented. He thus came to be too frequent a speaker; and by and by the House 
wearied a little of his polished periods, and began to think him too fond of 
talking. After a time this little reaction in the geneinil feeling of the House 
toward him wore off. 

Meantime in the committees he had proved himself an invaluable worker. 
He was renominated by acclamaiion by the convention of the party in his dis- 
trict for the Thirty-Ninth Congress, and re-elected by a majority of over 
twelve thousand. So highly was he now ranked in the House that he was 
given a leading place on its leading committee, that on " Ways and Means."* 
Here he soon rose to great influence. He studied the whole range of financial 
questions with the assiduity of his old college days, and was spoken of b}^ the 
Secretary of the Treasury (who had particularly requested his appointment) 
as one of the best-informed men on such topics then in public life. 

Meantime he continued to be a frequent debater, and maintained his old 
standard. This account of his Congressional career may fitly close with some 
further extracts from some of his most notable speeches. 

Beginning a brief speech in favor of the Constitutional Amendment, pro- 
hibiting slavery anywhere within the limits of the United States, he said: 

"Mr. Speaker: We shall never know why slavery dies so hard in this Republic and in this 
hall till we know why sin is long-lived and Satan is immortal. With marvelous tenacity of ex- 
istence, it has outlived the expectations of its friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has been 
declared here and elsewhere to be in all the several stages of mortality, wounded, moribund, 
dead. The question was raised by my colleague (Mr. Cox) yesterday whether it was indeed dead, 
or only in a troubled sleep. I know of no better illustration of its condition than is found in 
Sallust's admirable history of the great conspirator, Cataline, who, when his final battle was 
fought and lost, his army broken and scattered, was found far in advance of his own troops, lying 
among the dead enemies of Rome, yet breathing a little, but exhibiting in his countenance all 
that ferocity of spirit which had characterized his life. So, sir, this body of slavery lies before 
us among the dead enemies of the Republic, mortally wounded, impotent in its fiendish wicked- 
ness, but with its old ferocity of look, bearing the unmistakable marks of its infernal origin. 

"Who does not remember that thirty years ago — a short period in the life of a nation — but 
little could be said with impunity in these halls on the subject of slavery? How well do gen- 
tlemen here remember the history of that distinguished predecessor of mine, Joshua R. Giddings, 
lately gone to his rest, who, with his forlorn hope of faithful men, took his life in his hand, and 
in the name of justice protested against the great crime, and who stood bravely in his place 
until his white locks, like the plume of Henry of Navarre, marked where the battle for freedom 
raged fiercest ! , 

"We can hardly realize that this is the same people, and these the same halls, where now 
scarcely a man can be found who will venture to do more than falter out an apology for slavery, 
protesting in the same breath that he has no love for the dying tyrant. None, I believe, but that 
man of more than supernal boldness, from the city of New York (Mr. Fernando Wood), has 
ventured, this session, to raise his voice in favor of slavery for its own sake. He still sees in its 
'eatures the reflection of beauty and divinity, and only he. ' How art thou fallen from heaven, 

* The committee which matures the financial legislation of Congress and provides the 
aeans of raising the revenue. 



760 Ohio in the War. 

O, Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the 
nations!' Many mighty men have been slain by thee; many proud ones have humbled them- 
selves at thy feet! All along the coast of our political sea these victims of slavery lie like 
stranded wrecks, broken on the headlands of freedom. How lately did its advocates, with impious 
boldness, maintain it as God's own, to be venerated and cherished as divine. It was another and I 
higher form of civilization. It was the holy evangel of America dispensing its mercies to a be- 
nighted race, and destined to bear countless blessings to the wilderness of the West. In its mad 
arrogance it lifted its hand to strike down the fabric of the Union, and since that fatal day it has 
been a 'fugitive and a vagabond upon the earth.' Like the spirit that Jesus cast out, it has, since 
then, 'been seeking rest and finding none.' 

"It has sought in all the corners of the Republic to find some hiding place in which to 
shelter itself from the death it so richly deserves. 

" It sought an asylum in the untrodden ten-itories of the West, but, with a whip of scorpions, 
indignant freeman drove it thence. I do not believe that a loyal man can now be found who would 
consent that it should again enter them. It has no hopes of harbor there. It found no protec- 
tion or favor in the hearts or consciences of the freemen of the Republic, and has fled for its last 
hope of safety behind the shield of the Constitution. We propose to follow it there, and drive 
it thence as Satan was exiled from heaven." 

On the question of reconstruction and the proper treatment of the negi'oes, 
he said, in one of his speeches: 

" We should do nothing inconsistent with the spirit and genius of our institutions. We 
should do nothing for revenge, but everything for security ; nothing for the past, everything for 
the present and the future. Indemnity for the past we can never obtain. The four hundred 
thousand graves in which sleep our fathers and brothers, murdered by rebellion, will keep their 
sacred trust till the angel of the resurrection bids the dead come forth. The tears, the sorrow, 
the unutterable anguish of broken hearts can never be atoned for. We turn from that sad but 
glorious past, and demand such securities for the future as can never be destroyed. 

"We must recognize in all our action the stupendous facts of the war. In the very crisis of 
our fate, God brought us face to face with the alarming truth that we must lose our own freedom 
or grant it to the slave. In the extremity of our distress we called upon the black man to help 
us save the Republic, and amid the very thunder of battle we made a covenant with him, sealed 
both with his blood and ours, and witnessed by Jehovah, that when the nation was redeemed he 
should be free and share with us the glories and blessing of freedom. In the solemn words of 
the great Proclamation of Emancipation, we not only declared the slaves forever free, but we 
pledged the faith of the nation 'to maintain their freedom' — mark the words, 'to maintain their 
freedom.' The Omniscient witness will appear in judgment against us if we do not fulfill that 
covenant. Have we done it? Have we given freedom to the black man? What is freedom? 
Is it a mere negation ; the bare privilege of not being chained, bought and sold, branded* and 
scourged? If this be all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion, and it may vreW be 
questioned whether slavery were not better. 

" But liberty is no negation. It is a substantive, tangible reality. It is the realization of 
those imperishable truths of the Declaration 'that all men are created equal,' that the sanction of 
all just government is 'the consent of the governed.' Can these truths be realized until each 
man has a right to be heard on all matters relating to himself? . . . We have passed the 
Eed Sea of slaughter ; our garments are yet wet with its crimson spray. We have crossed the 
fearful wilderness of war, and have left our four hundred thousand heroes to sleep beside the 
dead enemies of the Republic. We have heard the voice of God, amid the thunders of battle, 
commanding us to wash our hands of iniquity, to 'proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto 
all the inhabitants thereof.' When we spurned His counsels we were defeated, and the gulfs of 
of ruin yawned before us. When we obeyed His voice, He gave us victory. And now, at last, 
we have reached the confines of the wilderness. Before us is the land of promise, the land of 
hope, the land of peace, filled with possibilities of greatness and glory too vast for the grasp of 
the imagination. Are we worthy to enter it? On what condition may it be ours to enjoy and 
transmit to our children's children? Let us pause and make deliberate and solemn preparation. 



James A. G-arfield. 761 

Let us, as Representatives of the people, whose servants we are, bear in advance the sacred ark 
of republican liberty, with its tables of the law inscribed with the ' irreversible guarantees ' of 
liberty. Let us here build a monument on which shall be written not only the curses of the law 
against treason, disloyalty, and oppression, but also an everlasting covenant of peace and bless- 
ing with loyalty, liberty, and obedience; and all the people will say, Amen." 

In the course of a speech on confiscation, he gave this leaf from his army 
experience: 

'■ I would have no man there, like one from my own State, who came to the army before the 
great struggle in Georgia, and gave us his views of peace. He came as the friend of Vallandig- 
ham, the man for whom the gentleman on the other side of the House from my State worked and 
voted. We were on the eve of the great battle. I said to him, 'You wish to make Mr. Vallandig- 
ham Governor of Ohio. Why ?' ' Because, in the first place,' using the language of the gentle- 
man from New York (Mr. Fernando Wood), 'you can not subjugate the South, and we propose 
to withdraw without trying it longer. In the next place, we will have nothing to do with this 
abolition war, nor will we give another man or another dollar for its support.' (Remember, gen- 
tlemen, what occurred in regard to the conscription bill this morning.) 'To-morrow,' I contin- 
ued, ' we may be engaged in a death-struggle with the Rebel army that confronts us, and is daily 
increasing. Where is the sympathy of your party ? Do you want us beaten, or Bragg beaten?' 
He answered that they had no interest in fighting, that they did not believe in fighting. 
" Mr. Noble : A question right here. 

" Mr. Garfield: I can not yield; I have no time. You can hear his name, if you wish. He 
was the agent sent by the copperhead Secretary of State to distribute election blanks to the army 
of the Cumberland. His name was Griffiths. 
"Mr. Noble: A single question. 
"Mr. Garfield: I have no time to spare. 

" Mr. Noble : I want to ask the gentleman if he knows that Mr. Griffiths has made a ques- 
tion of veracity with him by a positive denial of the alleged conversation, published in the Cin- 
cinnati Enquirer. 

"Mr. Garfield: No virtuous denials in the Cincinnati Enquirer can alter the facts of this 
conversation, which was heard by a dozen officers. 

"I asked him further, 'How would it affect your party if we should crush the Rebels in this 
battle, and utterly destroy them?' ' We would probably lose votes by it,' 'How would it affect 
your party if we should be beaten?' ' It would probably help us in votes.' 

" That, gentlemen, is the kind of support the army is receiving in what should be the house 
of its friends. That, gentlemen, is the kind of support these men are inclined to give this coun- 
try and its army in this terrible struggle. I hasten to make honorable exceptions. I know there 
are honorable gentlemen on the other side who do not belong to that category, and I am proud to 
acknowledge them as my friends. I am sure they do not sympathize with these efforts, whose 
tendency is to pull down the fabric of our Government, by aiding their friends over the border to 
do it. Their friends, I say, for Avhen the Ohio election was about coming off' in the army at Chat- 
tanooga, there was more anxiety in the Rebel camp than in our own. The pickets had talked 
face to face, and made daily inquiries how the election in Ohio was going. And at midnight of 
the 13th of October, when the telegraphic news was flashed down to us, and it was announced to the 
army that the Union had sixty thousand majority in Ohio, there arose a shout from every tent 
along the line on that rainy midnight, which rent the skies with jubilees, and sent despair to the 
hearts of those who were 'waiting and watching across the border.' It told them that their col- 
leagues, their sympathizers, their friends, I had almost said their emissaries at the North, had 
failed to sustain themselves in turning the tide against the Union and its army. And from that 
hour, but not till that hour, the army felt safe from the enemy behind it. 

" Thanks to the 13th of October. It told thirteen of my colleagues that they had no con- 
Btituencies 1 " 

Beginning with another bit of personal experience, he traced the slow 
progress of legislation and practice regarding the negro : 



I 



762 Ohio in the Wae. 

" I can not forget that less than five years ago I received an order from my superior officer 
in the army, commanding me to search my camp for a fugitive slave, and, if found, to deliver 
him up to a Kentucky Captain, who claimed him as his property ; and I had the honor to be^ 
perhaps, the first officer in the army who peremptorily refused to obey such an order. We were- 
then trying to save the Union without hurting slavery. I remember, sir, that when we under- 
took to agitate in the array the question of putting arms into the hands of the slaves, it was said, 
' Such a step will be fatal ; it will alienate half our army, and lose us Kentucky.' By and by, 
when our necessities were imperious, we ventured to let the negroes dig in the trenches, but it 
would not do to put muskets into their hands. We ventured to let a negro drive a mule team, 
but it would not do to have a white man or a mulatto just in front of him or behind him; all must 
be negroes in that train ; you must not disgrace a white soldier by putting him in such company. 
'By and by,' some one said, 'Eebel guerrillas may capture the mules; so, for the sake of the 
mules, let us put a few muskets in the wagons and let the negroes shoot the guerrillas if they 
come.' So for the sake of the mules we enlarged the limits of liberty a little. [Laughter.] By 
and by we allowed the negroes to build fortifications, and armed them to save the earthworks 
they had made — not to do justice to the negro, but to protect the earth he had thrown up. By 
and by we said in this hall that we would arm the negroes, but they must not be called soldiers^ 
nor wear the national uniform, for that would degrade white soldiers. By and by we said, ' Let 
them wear the uniform, but they must not receive the pay of soldiers.' For six months we did 
not pay them enough to feed and clothe them ; and their shattered regiments came home from 
South Carolina in debt to the Government for the clothes they wore. It took us two years to 
reach a point where we were willing to do the most meager justice to the black man, and to 

recognize the truth that, 

' A man 's a man for a' that.' " 

On another occasion he arrested the passage of a resolution of thanks to 
General Thomas for the battle of Chickamauga; and in a few pregnant words 
protested against the unjust slur thereby sought to be cast upon G-eneral Eose- 
crans, and eulogized his old chief. 

In the course of the debate on the proposition to override the New Jersey 
grant of a railroad monopoly between New York and Philadelphia to the Cam- 
den and Amboy Company, by giving United States sanction to another road, 
he disposed of the " State Sovereignty " pretense with arguments which have 
since become so familiar that few know to whom to assign their credit: 

" Mr. Coleridge somewhere says that abstract definitions have done more harm in the world 
than plague and famine and war. I' believe it. I believe that no man will ever be able to 
chronicle all the evils that have resulted to this nation from the abuse of the words 'sovereign' 
and 'sovereignty.' What is this thing called 'State sovereignty?' Nothing more false was ever 
uttered in the halls of legislation than that any State of this Union is sovereign. Consult the 
elementary text-books of law, and refresh your recollection of the definition of 'sovereignty.' 
Speaking of the sovereignty of nations, Blackstone says : 

"'However they began, by what right soever they subsist, there is and must be in all of them,^ 
a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority in which the jura summi imperii or rights 
of sovereignty reside.' 

"Do these elements belong to any State of this Eepublic? Sovereignty has the right to de- 
clare war. Can New Jersey declare war? It has the right to conclude peace. Can New Jersey 
conclude peace? Sovereignty has the right to coin money. If the Legislature of New Jersey 
should authorize and command one of its citizens to coin a half-dollar, that man, if he made it,, 
though it should be of solid silver, would be locked up in a felon's cell for the crime of counter- 
feiting the coin of the real sovereign. A sovereign has the right to make treaties with foreign 
nations. Has New Jersey the right to make treaties? Sovereignty is clothed with the right to 
regulate commerce with foreign states. New Jersey has no such right. Sovereignty has the 
right to put ships in commission upon the high seas. Should a ship set sail under the authority 
of New Jersey it would be seized as a smuggler, forfeited and sold. Sovereignty has a flap. 



James A. G-arfield. 763 

But, thank God, New Jersey has no flag; Ohio has no flag. No loyal State fights under the 'lone 
star,' the 'rattlesnake,' or the 'palmetto tree.' No loyal State of this Union has any flag but 
' the banner of beauty and of glory,' the flag of the Union. These are the indispensable elementa 
of sovereignty. New Jersey has not one of them. The term can not be applied to the separate 
States, save in a very limited and restricted sense, referring mainly to municipal and police reg- 
ulations. The rights of the States should be jealously guarded and defended. But to claim that 
sovereignty in its full sense and meaning belongs to the States is nothing better than rankest 
treason. Look again at this document of the Governor of New Jersey. He tells you that the 
States entered into the ' national compact ! ' National compact I I had supposed that no Gover- 
nor of a loyal State would parade this dogma of nullification and secession which was killed and 
buried by Webster on the 16th of February, 1833. 

" There was no such thing as a sovereign State making a compact called a Constitution. 
The very language of the Constitution is decisive: 'We, the people of the United States, do or- 
dain and establish this Constitution.' The States did not make a compact to be broken when 
any one pleased, but the people ordained and established the Constitution of a sovereign Republic ; 
and woe be to any corporation or State that raises its hand against the majesty and power of this 
great nation," 

We might prolong such extracts indefinitely ; but we have given enough to 
show what fruitage the life of the village carpenter and rural school-teacher is 
bearing. In August, 1866, he was renominated by acclamation, and his major- 
ity at the fall election again ranged above ten. thousand. Through the contests 
of the Fortieth Congress with the President, he was firmly on the Eadical side. 
His health had become seriously impaired by his laborious discharge of public 
duties, and about the close of the summer session of 1867, he accepted his phy- 
sician's advice and sailed for Europe. 

General Garfield's military career was not of a nature to subject him to 
trials on a large scale. He approved himself a good independent commander 
in the small operations in the Sandy Yalley, His campaign there opened our 
series of successes in the West; and, though fought against superior forces, 
began with us the habit of victory. After that he was only a subordinate. But 
he always enjoyed the confidence of his immediate superiors, and of the Depart- 
ment. As a Chief of Stafi" he was unrivalled. There, as elsewhere, he was ready 
to accept the gravest responsibilities in following his convictions. The bent of 
his mind was aggressive ; his judgment of purely military matters was good ; 
his papers on the Tullahoma campaign will stand a monument of his courage 
and his far-reaching, soldierly sagacity; and his conduct at Chickamauga will 
never be forgotten by a nation of brave men. 

In political life he is bold, manly, and outspoken. He seems to care far 
more for the abstract justice of propositions, than for any prejudices his con- 
stituents may happen to entertain regarding them; and he has on several occa- 
sions been willing to espouse very unpopular measures, and act with very small 
minorities. He once recorded his vote, solitary and alone, against that of every 
other voting member of the House, on a call of the yeas and nays. But he is 
not factious ; and, without ever surrendering his independence of judgment, he 
is still reckoned among the most trusty of the Eadical majority. 

Personally he is generous, warm-hearted, and genial. No man keeps up 
more cordial relations with his political antagonists — a trait of character in 



764 Ohio in the War. 

which he is the exact opposite of his intimate friend, G-eneral Scheuck— and no 
man has warmer or more numerous personal attachments. He retains the stu- 
dious habits of his early life ; and probably makes more exhaustive examina- 
tion of subjects before the House than almost any other of its leading members. 
In comprehensive and critical scholarship no man of his age now in public life 
in the country can be compared with him; and, beyond Senator Sumner, he is 
probably without superiors. While in the army he used to carry the pocket 
editions of the Greek and Latin classics, for leisure reading, as other men would 
the latest novels. He is still poor ; though he has probably been able to lay up 
a little out of his salary, and has made a little by some fortunate oil specula- 
tions, suggested by what he saw while in the army on the West Virginia bor- 
der. He married in Hiram where he had taught school, and he still maintains 
his residence there. 

In person Garfield is nearly or quite six feet high, with a broad chest, and 
somewhat heavily-moulded figure. His head is unusually large ; and his round, 
German-looking face, seems the very mirror of good nature. 



Note. — At the first regular session of the Fortieth Congress General Garfield was transferred 
from the Ways and Means Committee back to that on Military Affairs, being made its Chairman 
in place of General Schenck, who was made Chairman of Ways and Means. 



William B. Hazen. 765 



MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM B. HAZEN. 



WILLIAM BABCOCK HAZEN was born at West Hartford, Wind- 
sor County, Vermont, on the 27th day of September, 1830. His 
father, Stillman Hazen, and his mother, Perone Fenno, were of 
steady New England stock. Their ancestors resided at Litchfield, Connecticut, 
were present at Lexington and Bunker Hill, and served throughout the Eevo- 
lution, Joseph Hazen attaining the rank of Colonel, and Moses Hazen that of 
Brigadier-General. 

In 1833 Stillman Hazen removed to Huron, Portage County, Ohio, and set- 
tled upon the farm he now occupies, where he reared a family of six children, 
three sons and three daughters, the General being next to the youngest. All the 
children received a good common-school education. When nearly twenty-one 
years of age, William sought and obtained the appointment of Cadet at the Mili- 
tary Academy of West Point. He graduated in June, 1855, and was appointed 
Brevet Second-Lieutenant in the Fourth United States Infantry. In September 
of the same year he sailed for his regiment, then serving on the Pacific Coast. 

Joining his company at Fort Eeading, in the North Sacramento Valley, he 
moved in command of it one week afterward to the Eanger Eiver country, in 
Southern Oregon, where the Indian war of that year was being waged with 
considerable energy. He served through that war; and during the year 1856 
built Fort Yamhill. Having been appointed a Second-Lieutenant in the Eighth 
Infantry in the spring of 1856, he came East, and in the fall proceeded to Texas, 
finding his company at Fort Davis. During the two following years Lieutenant 
Hazen was engaged almost constantly on the plains of Western Texas and New 
Mexico, in punishing the marauding Indians, and was four times complimented 
in general orders, from the head-quarters of the army, for bravery and good 
conduct. On the 3d of November, 1859, while in a hand-to-hand combat with 
a Camanche Indian, during an engagement with a party of these warriors, he 
received a severe wound through the left hand and right side, the bullet still 
remaining in the muscles of the back. This occurred about eighty miles north 
west of Fort Inge, and it was eight days before he reached that post, or received 
any medical attention. On the 1st of February, 1860, having so far recovered 
from his wounds as to be able to travel, he left Texas, and, on his departure, 
was presented with a sword by the people of that State, accompanied with the 
most sincere expressions of gratitude for the services he had rendered on the 
frontier. In July, 1860, Lieutenant Hazen was brevetted a First-Lieutenant 
for gallant conduct in Texas, and on the 1st of April, 1861, was promoted to a 



766 Ohio in the Wae. 

faJl First-Lieutenancy in his regiment. On the 14tli of May following he 
received the appointment of Captain in the Seventeenth Infantry, which he 
declined, in consequence of receiving a promotion to the same grade in his old 

regiment. 

In February, 1861, which was as soon as he was able to perform any duty, 
he was assigned as Assistant-Professor of Infantry Tactics at West Point. 
After the first call for volunteer troops for suppressing the rebellion. Captain 
Hazen made constant efforts to enter upon active service. He was requested to 
assume command of several volunteer regiments, but could not obtain permis- 
sion from the Adjutant-General of the Army to accept. In September Captain 
Hazen received "leave of absence," with authority to take con^mand of the 
Forty-First Eegiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry. During the early part of 
November Colonel Hazen was posted at G-allipolis, Ohio, to observe the move- 
ments of Jenkins, who was then threatening to cross the Ohio Eiver. He here 
organized a plan to defeat and clear the country of these marauding bands, but 
authority to execute it was not granted. 

On the 20th of ISTovember he reported to General Buell at Louisville, Ken- 
tucky, was assigned to General Nelson's division, and, on the 6th of January, 
1862, was appointed to command the Nineteenth Brigade of the Army of the 
Ohio. In February he marched with his division to West Point, and, embark- 
ing, proceeded to Nashville. He moved with General Buell's army to Pitts- 
burg Landing, crossed the river, and confronted the enemy on the 6th of April, j 
and opened the fight on the succeeding morning. He was hotly engaged, and 
about eleven o'clock A. M. led his brigade in a charge, capturing two batteries, 
a large number of prisoners, and driving the enemy in his front far to the rear. 
He moved with the army to the siege of Corinth, and afterward served in 
Northern Alabama until ordered to assume command of the post of Murfrees- 
boro'. When that section of the country was abandoned, in September, he 
marched to Louisville, and from there to Perryville, where only his skirmish- 
line was engaged. He led the pursuit of the retreating Eebels, constantly 
skirmishing with and six times sharply engaging the rear of Bragg's army, 
until, reaching London, the column was deflected to Nashville. 

On the 26th of December, 1862, General Eosecrans's army moved toward 
Murfreesboro', and on the 31st engaged the enemy at Stone Eiver. Colonel- 
Hazen's brigade was posted across the pike and railroad, forming the extreme 
left of the army. Here it received and repulsed four well-conducted assaults, 
and held the position, behind which the entire army re-formed, refusing the 
right wing. No ground was yielded here, and the brigade never withdrew 
from the front of the fight. During the entire day this portion of the line 
was exclusively controlled by Colonel Hazen, and the value of the service 
which he rendered can not be fully estimated. Both General Polk, in his 
official report, and General Bragg, in his official dispatches, acknowledged 
their inability to dislodge the left of the National lines. On the 2d of Janu- 
ary, when Breckinridge assailed and routed the division posted on the north 
of Stone Eiver, Colonel Hazen was sent across the stream, where he drove 



William B. Hazen. 767 

the enemj' from the field. In Maj^, 1862, Colonel Hazen had been aj)pointed 
•Brigadier-General, but the appointment had not been confirmed by the Senate. 
After this battle he was re-ajjpointed, and was confirmed, to rank from Novem- 
ber 29, 1862. 

On the 8th of January, 1863, General Hazen was posted at Eeadyville, 
where he skirmished almost daily with the enemy until the army moved on 
Tullahoma. After participating in that campaign he moved with his command, 
in August, to the Tennessee Valley, above Chattanooga, where three more bri- 
gades were added to his command; and, demonstrating on that part of the river, 
he led the enemy to believe that the entire army was concentrating there, while 
in realitj^ the main portion crossed the river thirty miles below the city. Mov- 
ing across to Grayton, on the 9th of September, he there rejoined his division, 
and participated in the operation which resulted in the battle of Chickamauga. 

On the first day of that battle his brigade formed the advance of Palmer's 
division, and attacked the forces of the enemy while crossing Chickamauga 
Creek, and threw them into disorder. At five o'clock P. M. of that day, when 
Van Cleve's division had been forced across the Lafaj^ette Eoad, the enemy 
gaining possession of it, he placed four field batteries in position, enfilading the 
Eebel lines, and, firing canister, drove them back and regained the road to Gor- 
don's Mills. On the second day General Hazen occupied a position on the left 
center, whei« the assaults were the fiercest, but were always repulsed. At 
three o'clock P. M. he moved across to the right, where General Thomas in per- 
son directed the battle, and was engaged sharply there until the combat closed. 
Hazen's brigade was the last organized command to leave the field. It arrived 
at Eossville at eleven o'clock P. M. 

At two o'clock A. M. on the 27th of October thirteen hundred picked men, 
under General Hazen, embarked, noiselessly, at Chattanooga in fifty-two boats, 
floated past Lookout Mountain, along seven miles of the Eebel picket-line, 
landed at Brown's Ferry at about five o'clock A. M.; surprised a Eebel picket- 
post, and seized a ridge of hills about one thousand yards long. Slight defenses 
were thrown up and an abattis cut before the Eebel brigade, posted just under 
the hill, could prepare to contest its occupation; and after a slight skirmish, in 
which the Eehels lost about one hundred men, they withdrew, and the siege of 
Chattanooga was vii-tually raised. Two days after General Hooker, moving up 
the valle}^ with his columns, completed the work, and the army in Chattanooga 
had. not onty the river, but a short line of railroad, to its supplies at Bridgeport. 
The Eichmond Press, referring to this affair, said: "By the admirably executed 
■coup on the morning of the 27th of October, at Brown's Ferry, the Confederacy 
loses the fruits of the battle of Chickamauga. The occupation of Chattanooga 
by the Federal army is no longer problematical." 

General Hazen moved out on the right of the division on the 23d of 
March, and made a demonstration on Orchard Knob. This position was car- 
ried at the point of the bayonet, and the Twenty -Eighth Alabama Infantry, 
with its colors, was captured. The brigade was among the first to reach the 
crest of Mission Eidge, and captured eighteen pieces of artillery, with their 



768 Ohio in the Wae. 

appendages, and several hundred prisoners. On reaching the summit of the. 
ridge General Hazen, in person, gathered four or five hundred men from the» 
fragments of several regiments, and moving to the right, cleared the crest of the 
masses of the enemy gathered about Bragg's head-quarters. 

On the 28th of November the Fourth Corps moved to the relief of Knox- 
ville, arriTing there December 7th. Hazen's brigade at once joined in the pur- 
suit of Longstreet, and until the 15th of March, 1864, was engaged in marching; 
and counter-marching and skirmishing in Eastern Tennessee. 

Hazen's brigade moved on the Atlanta campaign May Ist, and was warmly 
engaged at Eocky Face Eidge, and again at the battle of Eesaca, where it held! 
a line so near the enemy as to be able to silence three batteries. At Pickett's! 
Mills, on the 27th of May, the brigade formed the advance of a column of six: 
brigades and moved against what was thought to be the right flank of the ) 
enemy. It was resisted by a Eebel division and a severe battle ensued, in 
which the brigade lost five hundred men. General Hazen was daily engaged 
until the 17th of August, when he was transferred to the Army of the Ten- 
nessee, and placed in command of the Second Division of the Fifteenth Army 
Corps. On the 30th of the same month the division formed the advance in a 
movement from Fairborne to Jonesboro'. It seized and fortified a commanding 
position, which proved to be the key of the battle-field, and upon which Har- 
dee's corps charged and was repulsed with considerable loss. 

The division marched in pursuit of Hood, and when near Gadsen, Alabama, 
eno-ao-ed Wheeler's cavalry. It afterward returned to Atlanta, moved on the 
Georgia campaign, and was engaged Avith the enemy at Statsboro', on the 
Oconee Eiver, and again at the Cannouchee Biver. General Sherman's army 
arrived before Savannah on the 10th of December, with its supplies exhausted. 
An abundance of provision had been shipped to meet the army at the coast, and 
to obtain this was all that was necessary to enable General Sherman to com- 
plete the campaign successfully. All the inlets of the sea about Savannah were 
commanded by forts, well armed and manned ; one of these. Fort McAllister, 
situated on the right bank of the Ogeeche, at the junction of the sea-marsh and 
high ground, completely commanded the river, which was the inlet so much 
needed for the supply of the army. On the morning of the 13th of December 
General Hazen, with his division, was sent to capture this fort. Nine regi- 
ments were deployed in line five hundred yards from the fort, and at the sound 
of the bugle they advanced to the charge. In five minutes the fort was carried, 
and the entire garrison, twenty-four pieces of ordnance, and a complete arma- 
ment for the fort, were captured. 

General Hazen embarked his division at Thunderbolt Bay for Beaufort, 
South Carolina, on the 14th of January, 1865, and on the 30th crossed Port 
Eoyal Fex-ry on the South Carolina campaign. At the Salkahatchie, South and 
North Edisto, Congaree Creek, and Broad Eiver, his troops were sharply 
eno-aged. At Bentonville General Hazen's division was moved to the support 
of General Slocum, and afterward engaged the enemy on the left of \he Fif- 
teenth Corps. General Hazen moved through Goldsboro' to Ealeigh, then to 



William B. Hazen. 769 

Washington City, and afterward at Louisville, Kentucky. General Hazen was 
appointed and confirmed Major- General, to date from the capture of Fort Mc- 
Allister, and on the 19th of May, 1865, was appointed by the President to com- 
mand the Fifteenth Army Coi-ps. 

General Hazen is of medium height, and is Saxon in hair and complexion. 
He carries himself erect, with a dignified bearing, which is so well in keeping 
with his profession, and which so plainly stamps him a soldier. As a discipli- 
narian he was severe, but not harsh ; and though never familiar with his men ; 
yet, upon proper occasions and under proper circumstances, no man was more 
approachable. In the organization of his regiment he drew around him, as 
officers, mostly young men, and by instructing them thoroughlj^, as a necessary 
consequence, made soldiers of them. The regiment's efficiency, and the position 
and reputation of many of its officers are flattering evidences of the ability of 
its instructor. 

He entered into the war with enlarged ideas of his duties as a soldier. He 
expected a desperate struggle on the part of the South, but, in view of the prac- 
tically inexhaustible resources of the North, he foresaw what the end must be. 
But he saw more ; he saw that the difficulties in regard to slavery, which peace- 
ful measures had failed to settle, must now be settled by the sword. These 
views, as occasion oftered and circumstances demanded, the General did not 
hesitate to express. 

In the field his record is enviable. Others have risen more rapidly, but 
none more worthily. Others have achieved more brilliant successes, but none 
have made fewer mistakes. If he thought at times that his advancement was 
slow, he remembered that he was educated a soldier, endured his disappoint- 
ment without murmuring, and set to work again with greater determination, 
until, at last, the honors came for which he had so long fought, and for which 
he had so long waited ; and the measure of his cup of greatness was filled when 
he rode down Pennsylvania Avenue at the head of the Fifteenth Corps on the 
day of the great review. 

So long as Stone Eiver, Chickamauga, Brown's Ferry, Orchard Knob, Mis- 
sion Ridge, Atlanta, and Fort McAllister, are remembered — and can they ever 
be forgotten ? — the memory of General Hazen will be preserved and cherished. 
Vol. 1.^9 



770 Ohio in the Wak. 



MAJOR-GENERAL JACOB D. COX. 



JACOB DOLSON COX was born on the 27th of October, 1828. His 
parents were both natives of the United States, his mother being a 
lineal descendant of Elder William Brewster, of the Mayflower. His 
father was a master-builder in the city of New York, but being engaged in 
superintending the roof-framing and carpenter-work on the church of Notre 
Dame in Montreal, Lower Canada, he removed his family temporarily to that 
place, and it was during the sojourn there that General Cox was born. His 
father returned to New York in the following year, and his childhood and youth 
were spent in that city. He removed to Ohio in 1846, graduated at Oberlin 
College in 1851, and began the practice of law at Warren in 1852. He was 
elected to the Ohio Senate from the Trumbull and Mahoning District in 1859, 
by the Eepublican party, and he held that position at the outbreak of the war. 
He had for some time held a commission as General officer in the State militia, 
and during the latter part of the session of the Legislature he was active in 
endeavoring to prepare the State for the coming storm. Throughout that 
important and, at times, stormy Legislature he and James A. Garfield were 
universally recognized as the Eadical leaders in the Senate, and both took high 
rank, from the ability they displayed. Senator Cox was supposed to be pecu- 
liarly bound over to Eadicalism, not merely by his general record, and his 
coming from the Eeserve, but still more by his marriage with the daughter of 
the President of Oberlin College. 

Upon receiving the news of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, and the 
President's call for troops. Senator Cox abandoned all other duties to assist in 
organizing the Ohio contingent, and on the 23d of April, 1861, he was commis- 
sioned by Governor Dennison a Brigadier-General of Ohio Volunteers, in the 
three months' service. All the officers under that call. were appointed by the 
Governors of the several States. General McClellan was at the same timo 
appointed Major-General of Ohio Volunteers, and Generals Joshua Bates and 
Newton Schleich were appointed Brigadiers. The first military duty devolving 
upon General Cox was to assist General McClellan in an inspection of the State 
Arsenal, and in making estimates for arming and equipping ten thousand men. 
The arsenal was found to contain little that was serviceable — not even enough 
to put into the field a battalion of infantry or a battery of artillery. The First 
and Second Ohio Infantry were organized, and dispatched to the defense of 



Jacob D. Cox. 771 

Washington, unarmed and unequipped; their arms and equipments being 
drawn from the United States arsenals and issued to them at Harrisburg, Penn- 
sylvania. 

Camp Jackson was established for the reception of volunteers at Columbus, 
and General Cox was placed in command. However, a larger camp for the 
organization and instruction of recruits was evidently needed, and Camp Den- 
nison was selected. On the 30th of April General Cox, with the Eleventh and 
part of the Third Ohio Infantry, took train from Columbus and landed at the 
new camp. The color-line was formed on the west of the railroad, and General 
Eosecrans, at that time a civil engineer, laid out ihe camp and staked off the 
company streets. Lumber was soon on the ground, and before night barracks 
were nearly completed. An old barn, subsequently used for a hospital, became 
the Quartermaster's and Commissary's depot; camp-kettles and mess-pans were 
issued, and Ohio soldiers began their first experience in real camp-life — cooked 
rations having been issued in all previous places of rendezvous. The two regi- 
ments were quickly followed by the Fourth, Seventh, Eighth, Twelfth, and 
Thirteenth; and a few weeks later General Bates brought his brigade from 
Camp Harrison, consisting of the Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth regiments. 
These completed the contingent for Ohio, assembled at Camp Dennison under 
the first call; and until the latter part of June the time was employed indus- 
triously in fitting them for the field. 

The organization of troops for three years having begun, all of the original 
regiments re-enlisted, and General Cox was appointed by the President Briga- 
dier-General of Volunteers, to rank from the 15th of May, 1861. On the 6th 
of July he was ordered by General McClellan to take a brigade, consisting of the 
Eleventh and Twelfth Ohio, and the First and Second Kentucky, to the mouth 
of the Great Kanawha, in West Virginia, where he would be joined by the 
Twenty-First Ohio, Cotter's Ohio Battery, and Pfau's Cincinnati Troop of 
Horse. The Valley of the Great Kanawha was formed into the District of the 
Kanawha. General Cox was assigned to the command, and upon arriving at 
Point Pleasant, opposite Gallipolis, he received orders to advance toward 
Charleston and Gauley Bridge. The nature of the valley is such that opera- 
tions were necessarily confined to the immediate vicinity of the river, and the 
gorges through which the roads pass afforded great advantages to the enemy's 
force, which held the valley defensively, under General Henry A. Wise. On 
the 17th of July a brisk engagement took place at Scary Creek, between the 
Twelfth, with a detachment of the Twenty-First Ohio, and the Eebels. Having 
resulted in a repulse it was styled a reconnoissance. It established the fact that 
the Eebel position was too strong to attack in front, and as it commanded the 
river, wagon transportation would be needed before the principal column could 
advance, as was originally intended, along the north bank. Supplies had 
hitherto been carried on small steamers, which had accompanied the march of 
the trooj)8 along the stream. 

A week later, wagons and animals having arrived, the advance was 
resumed. General Cox crossed the Pocotaligo, and making a detour to the left, 



772 Ohio in the War. 

turned the position at Scary Creek, as well as another at Tj'ler Mountain, 
seven miles below Charleston, on the north bank of the Kanawha. The oneray, 
finding the latter position threatened in flank and rear, hastily abandoned it, 
and all positions below Charleston. On the following day General Cox advanced, 
and Wise evacuated Charleston, burning the suspension bridge over Elk Eiver. 
A bridge of boats was built by the engineer company of the Eleventh Ohio, 
under Captain P. P. Lane, of Cincinnati, and the chase was resumed. Upon 
reaching the Gauley General Cox was ordered by General McClellan to halt 
and fortify, the little column having advanced as far as was deemed prudent or 
necessary. In this pursuit of Wise General Cox captured one piece of artillery, 
about fifteen hundred stand of small arms, and a large number of prisoners. 
Floyd, having joined Wise, assumed command and ordered a new advance; 
and during the month of August General Cox's little command waged an unequal 
conflict with nearly four times its numbers. The various defiles leading out from 
the Gauley were the scenes of almost daily combats and skirmishes; but although 
the Rebels several times'penetrated to the Kanawha, below the post occupied by 
General Cox, they did not succeed in obtaining a permanent foothold, or in stop- 
ping communication with the Ohio. Immediately after the retreat of Floyd from 
Carnifex Ferry Genei-al Cox advanced against Wise, who retreated to Dogwood 
Gap, and then to Sewell Mountain. General Cox had been joined by Robert L. 
McCook's brigade, and with his whole force he followed the enemy to Sewell 
Mountain, where General Rosecrans directed a halt until the army could con- 
centrate, which it soon did under that ofiicer in person. General R. E. Lee 
arrived with re-enforcements for Floj^d, and assumed command of the Rebels. 
The weather, however, had become very unfavorable for active operations, and 
but little was done until the latter part of November, when a ])ortion of the 
troops were ordered to Kentucky, and the remainder were concentrated in 
winter-quarters, from Gauley Bridge to Charleston. General Rosecrans removed 
his head-quarters to Wheeling, leaving General Cox in command of the Ka- 
nawha District, as before. 

During the winter of 1861-2 General Fremont assumed command in West 
Virginia, and pi'ojected a plan for the spring campaign, in which one column, 
under his immediate command, was to advance from Beverly, and other j)oints 
in North-Western Vii'ginia, toward Lynchburg, simultaneously with an 
advance of General Cox's column up the Kanawha and New River Valleys 
toward Newbern. The troops in the Kanawha Disti-ict had been increased to 
four brigades; one, under Colonel Lightburn, held the lower valley; one, under 
Colonel Crook, advanced toward Lewisburg from Gauley Bridge; and the 
remaining two, commanded by Colonel Scammon and Colonel Moor, advanced, 
under the immediate command of General Cox, from Gauley Bridge by Fayette- 
ville and Raleigh toward Parisburg. The campaign opened early in May b}' a 
concerted movement of the columns. Colonel Crook routed a Rebel brigade 
under General Heth, and drove it from Lewisburg. The column on the south 
side of New River, commanded by General Cox in person, had also made rapid 
progress. The Rebels had been driven from Raleigh and Princeton, and the 



Jacob D. Cox. 773 

ailvance-guard of General Cox's force had entered Parisburg, when the move- 
ment was brought to a stand-still by the National reverses in the Shenandoah 
Valley. General Fremont was called off from his march on Lynchburg to 
attack Jackson, and General Cox received information that the concerted move- 
ment was abandoned, and that he must use his own discretion in protecting his 
command against the force in that part of Yii-ginia, which was now left free to 
concentrate upon him. At once the enemy assumed the aggressive; a superior 
Eebel force, under Generals Humphrey Marshall and Wheeler, passed through 
the East River Mountains, moved straight on Princeton, and drove out General 
Cox's rear-guard. General Cox at once removed back to Princeton, drove out 
the enemy, and re-established communications with the rear. It was deter- 
mined to retire to Flat Top, a strong mountain range between Princeton and 
Raleigh, and there intrench, and await the result of Fremont's movement in 
the Shenandoah Valley. Accordingly, on the 2l8t of May, General Cox went 
into jDOsition on Flat Top Mountain, and Crook's brigade took up a strong 
defensible position at Meadow's Bluff, a few miles west of Lewisburg. 

Near the middle of August General Cox received orders to send about one- 
half of his command to the Army of Virginia, then operating near CulpepjDer 
C. H. At his own request the order was modified so as to permit him to accom- 
pany the portion of the CQmmand thus detached. The division was known as 
the Kanawha Division, comprising Crook's and Scammon's brigades, consisting 
of the Eleventh, Twelfth, Twenty-Third, Twenty-Eighth, Thirtieth, and Thirty- 
Sixth Ohio, Mullins's and Simmonds's batteries, and Pfau's troop of horse. They 
marched to the head of navigation on the Kanawha, a distance of ninety miles, 
in three days and a half, and thence were transported by steamers to Parkers- 
burg, where they took the cars for Washington. Two regiments of Crook's 
brigade reaching Washington first were sent forward to General Pope, then at 
Warrenton Junction, and retreating. A break in the railroad at Long Bridge 
prevented the remainder of the command from following, and General Cox was 
ordered to rendezvous at Alexandria, and to report to General McClellan, who 
was then lanfling his troops from the Peninsula. General Cox was ordered by 
General McClellan to occupy Forts Ramsey and Buffalo, on Upton Hill, near 
Fall's Church, regarded as the key-point to the whole line of fortifications about 
Washington. He remained here until General Pope's army retired within the 
line of the defenses after the second battle of Bull Run, when he was rejoined 
by the two regiments from Crook's brigade, and the whole division was once 
more together. 

In September the Kanawha Division was assigned to the Ninth Corps, and 
held the advance in the movement of the right wing of the Army of the Poto- 
mac to South Mountain. It drove the Rebels from Monocacy Bridge, and out 
of Frederick City, and was the first of the National army to enter, amidst the 
most enthusiastic rejoicings of the citizens. On the 14th of September General 
Cox's division again had the advance in the attack upon South Mountain. It 
carried the ridge by storm in the morning, and the remainder of the battle con- 
sisted of ft'uitless attempts on the part of the Rebels to retake the jJosition 



774 Ohio in the Wak. 

carried by the Kanawha Division. General Eeno was killed soon after he came 
upon the field, and the command of the corps devolved upon G-eneral Cox, who 
was highly complimented for his successful efforts both by General Burnside and 
Genei'al McClellan. General Cox continued in command of the Ninth Corps 
through the battle of Antietam. His troops carried the enemy's position at the 
famous Stone Bridge, on the National left, and penetrated to the suburbs of 
Sharpsburg, when they wei'e drawn off to meet the attack of Jackson and Hill,' 
who advanced in rear of the National left. 

For services in this campaign, and on the earnest recommendation of Gen- 
erals Burnside and McClellan, General Cox was promoted to the rank of Major- 
General, to date from October 7th, 1862. He was soon after ordered back to 
West "Virginia, to take command of the whole new State, from which the Na- 
tional troops had recently been driven. In a brief but active campaign, the 
Rebels were forced back, the lines were re-established along the Alleghany and 
Flat Top Mountain ranges, and many of the troops were again withdrawn to be 
used in other departments. West Virginia remained quiet during the winter 
of 1862-3, and was never after seriously disturbed. The list of promotions sent 
in to the Senate at that session of Congress was held to be in excess of the num- 
ber allowed by law, and the whole list was returned to the President, with the 
request that he reduce it about one- half, to bring it .within the limit fixed by 
statute. General Cox, with many others, lost his grade at that time, by no 
demerit of his own, but solely owing to a misunderstanding between the Presi- 
dent and Senate as to the number the former was authorized to appoint. 

A new organization of departments was made in the spring of 1863, and 
General Cox was ordered to report to General Burnside, by whom he was 
assigned to the command of the District of Ohio, with head -quarters at Cincin- 
nati. In December, at his own request, he was ordered into the field in East 
Tennessee, arriving at Knoxville immediately after the siege of that place. He 
was assigned to the Twenty-Third Corps, and, being the senior officer present, 
was in command of the corps during the winter campaign. When General 
Schofield was assigned to the Department, General Cox acted fcff a few weeks 
as Chief of Staff, and then assumed command of the Third Division, Twenty- 
Third Corps. The winter and spring of 1864 was a period of constant activity, 
but no important engagement occurred. Early in May the Twenty-Third Corps -■ 
crossed the Georgia line, and, through the long series of engagements which 
made the Atlanta campaign an almost constant battle, at Rocky Face, Resaca, 
New Hope Church, Lost Mountain, Kenesaw, Chattahoochie, Atlanta, Jones- 
boro, and Lovejoy, General Cox led his division with uniform good fortune and 1 
success. 

After the fall of Atlanta, and during the active campaign in October, in 
chase of Hood's army through Northern Georgia and Alabama, General Cox 
was in command of the Twenty-Thii-d Corps, General Schofield being tempo- 
rarily absent. On Shei-man's advance from Atlanta to Savannah, the Twenty- 
Third Corps, under General Cox, was ordered into Tennessee. At Columbia he ] 
interposed by his advance between Hood's army and the National cavalry, and 



Jacob D. Cox. 775 

prevented the Eebel General from occupyiug that town and cutting off the 
retreat of the !N"ational forces from Pulaski. "When Columbia was evacuated, 
with one division General Cox held back Lee's corps, which was ordered to force 
a crossing of Duck Eiver and to unite with the rest of Hood's army, which was 
operating upon the rear of the National army at Spring Hill. After a warm 
engagement, lasting through most of the day of the 29th of ISTovember, General 
Cox marched at seven o'clock in the evening, passed the rest of the JSTational 
forces on the road, and entered Franklin before daybreak of the 30th, having 
marched twenty-five miles during the night.' Here the corps was ordered to 
intrench and to cover the retreat of the army across the Harpeth ; and here, 
too, it bore the brunt of Hood's attack in the desperate battle of the 30th of 
Kovember. On reaching Nashville General Thomas assumed command of the 
entire force ; General Schofield returned to the corps, and General Cox resumed 
command of his Third Division. In the battle of Nashville it bore its full part, 
carrying a Eebel position by a determined charge, and capturing eight pieces 
of artillery. 

After the fall of Atlanta, Generals Sherman and Schofield united in urging 
the promotion of General Cox, and he was a second time appointed Major-Gen- 
eral, to rank from December 7th, 1864. The Nashville campaign having 
resulted in the almost total destruction of the Eebel army in the Gulf States, 
the Twenty-Third Corps was ordered to the East in January, 1865, and arrived 
in "Washington toward the end of that month. On the 4th of February, Gen- 
eral Cox's division sailed from Alexandria, and on the 9th landed at Fort 
Fisher. In the advance upon "Wilmington, General Cox's troops constituted the 
land force, on the south side, which captured Fort Anderson, routed and cap- 
tured most of Haygood's Eebel brigade at Town Creek, and by a rapid advance 
opposite to Wilmington, compelled the evacuation of that place. 

On the 26th of February General Cox was ordered to Newbern to take 
command of a provisional corps of three divisions, for the purpose of advanc- 
ing on Kingston and rebuilding the railroad, with a view to furnishing means of 
supplying Sherman's army when it reached Goldsboro'. He arrived at New- 
bern on the 2d of March; the next day was given to the organization of the 
command, and on the 4th the movement began. The lack of wagon transpor- 
tation made it necessary to regulate the movement of the troops by the rebuild- 
ing of the railroad. On the 8th, near Kingston, General Cox was attacked by 
Bragg, and although the advance was driven back in some confusion and with 
considerable loss in prisoners, the principal line easily repulsed the enemy. On 
the 10th Bragg renewed the attack, his force consisting of the remains of 
Hood's army and Hoke's division, in all sixteen thousand men. The Eebels 
were, repulsed with great loss, and during the night they retreated precipitately 
beyond the Neuse Eiver. The next day General Cox was joined by the 
Twenty-Third Corps, and Kingston was occupied without further opposition. 
Goldsboro' was occupied on the 22d of March, and there the troops under Gen- 
eral Schofield joined Sherman's grand army. 

On the 27th, by order of the "War Department, General Cox was placed 



776 Ohio in the War. 

permanently in command of the Twenty-Third Corps, and was with the corpa 
in the movement to Ealeigh. Upon the surrender of General Johnston, he was 
placed in command of the western half of North Carolina, Avhere he superin- 
tended the parole of Johnston's troops at Greensboro'. In July he was ordered 
to the command of the District of the Ohio, with head-quarters at Columbus, 
and was in charge of the mustering out and discharge of Ohio soldiers, till the 
close of the year, when, having been elected Governor of the State, he resigned, 
to enter upon the duties of his new office. 

The military character of General Cox may be read in the barrenest record 
of his career. He was not a great General. He was not even a great corps 
commander. He never seemed brilliant, but he was generall}^ safe. He never 
displayed the inspiration of war, but he generally followed sound rules of war. 
He was too cold to be loved by his troops, but when they had been sometime 
under his command, they never failed to respect him. He was too tame and 
methodical to be admired by his commanders, but when they came to know 
him well they never failed to trust and to advance him. And it can be truly 
said of him — so correct and prudent was he — that on the day of his muster-out 
he stood higher in the esteem of the Government and the country, than he had 
on any previous daj^ throughout his militar}^ career. 

To this last remark, perhaps an exception must be made. Before his mus- 
ter-out he had been chosen Governor of Ohio. But he had greatly embarrassed 
the party which nominated him, and the old friends whose faith in him had 
caused all his previous political advancement, by an unexpected blow in behalf 
of Conservatism. Some Oberlin friends addressed certain inquiries to him 
touching his views of the negro problem, and particularly of negro suffrage. 
His reply was skillful, polished, and scholarly; but it greatly disappointed them. 
He had been misled by a phase of feeling which he had found among his 
friends in the army, into the belief that the men whose fighting saved the 
Country had prejudices against the blacks so strong that they would not tole- 
rate the acknowledgment of their political rights. At the end of the war he 
bad learned no more than those who, at its outbreak, deluded themselves into 
the belief that the wisest settlement of the negro question would be that form 
of National self-abuse to be found in the forcible deportation of three million 
native-born laborers. The publication of this letter discouraged his party, 
reduced its majority, and caused his own vote to fall considerably behind that 
cast for the rest of the ticket. The coolness thus engendered was increased by 
his subsequent course. After some of the most objectionable and extraordinary 
of President Johnson's performances, he espoused his cause as against the 
Eepublican majority in Congress, and strove in an elaborate letter to the mem- 
bers of that party in the House and Senate from Ohio, to bring them over to 
his views. Mr. Johnson, indeed, soon went to extremes to which Governor 
Cox found it impossible to follow, but he remained strongly conservative, in 
opposition to his antecedents and to the expectations of those who had elected 
him 



Jacob D. Cox. 777 

It was, perhaps, in consequence of this feeling that, as the close of his term 
approached, no general movement appeared for his re-nomination. J)oubtless, 
seeing this (although he assigned private business as his motive), he declined in 
advance becoming again a candidate. The convention of his party nominated 
G-eneral Eutherford B. Hayes, of Cincinnati, as his successor, but passed the 
customary resolution of compliment to the administration of the retiring 
Grovernor. 

In personal appearance General Cox is trim, compact, and elegant. His 
accomplishments correspond to the ideas which his appearance suggests. With- 
out a spark of genius, he was still, perhaps, the most many-sided man in the 
army. He was a well-read lawyer. He was versed in belles-lettres. He read 
French fluently, and was as familiar with French novels as with French works 
of tactics. He was learned in military literature — was, indeed, before the out- 
break of the war, something of a military scholar. He was well read in remoter 
channels — in history and the philosophy of politics. He wrote with nervous 
grace and force. His style in extemporaneous debate was a model of condensed 
power and skill. On the freer arena of "the stump," he acquitted himself 
creditably. He was a good horseman. He had a still rarer accomplishment : 
he fenced well. Yet this young "Admirable Crichton" of our hurrying, modern 
times, rarely excited more than admii-ation. He was too cold for friendship or 
popularity. In war, his soldiers had no enthusiasm for him; in politics, his 
party regarded him as a dead-weight. But he never ceased to command re- 
spect, and his military services, beginning with the first troops enlisted in Ohio 
and continuing till the last were discharged, will never cease to deserve gratitude. 



^ ,^ 



778 Ohio in the War. 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE A. CUSTER. 



/NEOEGrE A. CUSTEE was born at New Eumley, Harrison County^ 
I T Ohio, on the 5th of December, 1839. He obtained a good English edu- 
^^ cation, and then engaged in teaching. Through the influence of the 
Honorable John A. Bingham, he received the appointment of cadet at West 
Point. He entered the Military Academy in June, 1857, graduated in June, 
1861, and was appointed Second-Lieutenant, company G, Second United States 
Cavalry, formerly commanded by Eobert E. Lee. 

Leaving the Military Academy on the 18th of July, 1861, he reported to 
Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott on the 20th, the day preceding the battle of 
Bull Eun. The Commander-in-Chief gave Lieutenant Custer the choice of a 
position on his staff or of joining his company, then under General McDowell, 
near Centreville. Longing to see active field-service, he chose the latter, and 
after riding all night alone, he reached General McDowell's head-quarters about 
three o'clock on the morning of the 21st. Already preparations for the battle 
had begun, and after delivering dispatches from General Scott, and partaking 
of a hasty breakfast, he joined his company. This company was among the last 
to leave the field, which it did in .good order, bringing off General Heintzleman, 
who had been wounded. He continued to serve with his company near Wash- 
ington until the lamented Phil. Kearney was appointed Brigadier-General of 
volunteers, when that distinguished officer selected Lieutenant Custer on his 
staff. He continued in this position until an order was issued by the War De- 
partment, prohibiting officers of the regular army from serving on the staff of 
Generals of volunteers. He then returned to his company, but not before his 
services on the staff were acknowledged in a flattering manner. 

With his company he moved with that part of the Army of the Potomac 
which marched to Manassas upon the evacuation of that point by the Eebels. 
The cavalry was in the advance, under General Stoneman, and encountered the 
enemy's cavalry for the first time near Catlett's Station. A call was made for 
volunteers to charge the enemy's advanced post. Lieutenant Custer volunteered, 
and in command of his company made his first charge, driving the Eebels across 
Muddy Creek, wounding a few, and having one of his own men wounded ; and 
thus drawing the first blood in the campaign under McClellan. He accompa- 
nied the Army of the Potomac to the peninsula, remaining with his company 
until the army settled down before Yorktown, when he was detailed as assistant 
engineer of the left wing under Sumner. In this capacity he planned and 
erected the earthwork neai'est to the enemy's lines. In the pursuit of the 




ft 



i 



George A. Custee. 779 

enemy from Yorktown he accompanied the advance under General Hancock. 
At the battle of Williamsburg he acted as Aid-de-Camp to that General, and 
captured the first battle-flag ever captured bj' the Army of the Potomac. When 
the army reached the Chickahominj^ he was the first j^erson to cross the river, 
-which he did, in the face of the enemy's pickets, by wading up to his armpits. 
For this act he was promoted by General McClellan to Captain, and was made a 
personal aid. He remained with the General during the entire peninsula cam- 
paign, participating in all the engagements, including the seven days' battle. 
In this capacity he marked out the position occupied by the Union forces in the 
battle of Gaines's Mills, and he also participated in the campaign ending with 
the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. 

When General McClellan was relieved of the command of the Army of the 
Potomac, Captain Custer accompanied him on his retirement, and so was off 
active service in the field until the battle of Chancellorsville, where he served 
as First-Lieutenant, company M, Fifth Cavalry, having been mustered out as 
Captain and additional Aid-de-Camp. Immediately after the battle General 
Pleasanton, then commanding a division of cavalry, made Lieutenant Custer a 
personal aid. In this capacity he participated in numerous cavalry engage- 
ments, including those at Beverly Ford, TJpperville, and Barbour's Cross Eoads. 
When General Pleasanton was made a Major-General and assigned to a cavalry 
corps, he requested the appointment of four Brigadiers to command under him. 
Upon his recommendation, indorsed by Generals Hooker and Meade, Lieu- 
tenant Custer was promoted to Brigadier-General. He was immediately as- 
signed to a brigade composed of the First, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Michigan 
cavalry. At the battle of Gettysburg he held the right of the line, and opposed 
his force to Hampton's division of cavalry, utterly routing him and preventing 
him from reaching the train of the Union army, for which he was striking. In 
this battle General Custer had two horses shot under him. 

Immediately after the battle he was sent to attack the enemy's train, then 
making its way to the Potomac. His command destroyed upward of four hun- 
dred wagons (Ewell's entire train) and captured eighteen hundred prisoners be- 
tween Gettysburg and the Potomac. At Hagerstown, Maryland, a severe en- 
gagement took place, and General Custer again had his horse shot under him ; 
and when the enemy finally crossed the South Branch of the Potomac his com- 
mand was the only one that molested the crossing. This was at Falling Waters, 
where, with his brigade, he attacked the entire Pebel rear-guard. General Pet- 
tigrew, who commanded it, was killed, and his command was routed, with a loss 
of thirteen hundred prisonei'S, four battle-flags, and two pieces of cannon. 

During the fall he was engaged constantly in skirmishing with the enemj-, 
and during the winter in picketing the Eapidan between the two armies. In 
the spring of 1864 he participated in the opening battle of the Wilderness, and 
on the 9th of May set out under General Sheridan on the raid toward Eichmond. 
His brigade, leading the column, captured Beaver Dam, burned the station and 
a train of cars loaded with supplies, and released four hundred Union prisoners. 
He rejoined Grant's army on the Pamunkey, and participated in sevei-al engage- 



780 Ohio in the Wak. 

ments, in one of which another horse was shot under him. At the battle of 
Trevillian station he was sent to surprise the enemy's rear. He executed the 
movement promptly, but Torbert, who was to attack in front, delayed, and the 
enemy was thus enabled to devote his entire attention to Custer. Five brigades 
surrounded his one, and against such odds the battle was waged for three hours. 
One of his guns was captured twice, and each time retaken. His color-bearer 
was killed, and the battle flag was only saved from capture by General Custer 
himself tearing it from the standard and concealing it around his body. The 
arrival of Torbert's force enabled him to extricate his command with compara- 
tively little loss. 

At the first battle in the Shenandoah Valley, near Sliepherdstown, his bri- 
gade was opposed to Breckinridge's corps, and was surrounded ; but it succeeded 
in effecting its escape. At Winchester the brigade was engaged from before 
daylight until after dark, and was the first to break through the enemy's lines. 
In this battle Custer captured nine battle-flags, and a greater number of pris- 
oners than he had men engaged. Again, at the battle of Fisher's Hill, his com- 
mand rendered most important service. When General Averill was relieved, 
General Custer was assigned to the command of the Second Division of Cavalry, 
Army of the Shenandoah ; but a few days after, when General Wilson was re- 
lieved from the command of the Third Division, to which General Custer for- 
merly belonged, he was assigned to that division, and remained in command of it 
until after Lee's surrender. At the battle of Cedar Creek the division was on the 
right, and was not engaged in the rout of the morning. When Sheridan aiTived 
on the field, after his famous ride, he found one command readj" for action ; and 
his immediate orders were, " Go in, Custer." Custer went in, and did not turn 
back until the enemy was driven several miles beyond the battle-ground, The 
division captured several hundred prisoners, including a Major-General, and also 
forty-five pieces of artillery of the forty-eight captured by the entire army. For 
his conduct in this battle General Custer was brevetted Major-General of volun- 
teers, and as a further mark of approval, General Sheridan detailed him to 
bear the report of the battle and the captured flags to Washington. 

On the 9th of October a brisk engagement occurred between General Cus- 
ter and General Rosser, in which the latter was entirely routed, with a loss 
of six pieces of artillery, two battle-flags, his entire ti'ain, and man}^ prisoners. 
For his conduct on this occasion he received thanks and congratulations in a 
special order from the War Department. The fall and winter was spent in con- 
stant skirmishing, and in February, 1865, Sheridan's cavalry started up the 
valley. At Waynesboro' a portion of Custer's division, about one thousand 
strong, with two pieces of artillery, became engaged with the remnant of Jubal 
Early's army, numbering about two thousand. Early commanded in person, 
and his force was well posted and well intrenched. The Second Ohio Cavalry, 
with two other regiments, turned the enemy's flank, and a vigorous charge in 
front completed his discomfiture. A vigorous pursuit resulted in the capture of 
eighteen hundred prisoners, eleven battle-flags, fourteen pieces of artillery", and 
two hundred wagons, including General Early's private baggage. He himself 



George A. Custer. 781 

only escaped capture by jumpiug upon a locomotive already steamed up and in 
waiting. General Custer lost one man killed and four wounded. 

After this he moved to Petersburg, preparatory to the final campaign 
around Eichmond. At the battle of Dinwiddie C. H. Custer's division reached 
the field when the Union forces were gradually yielding ground. According to 
his common custom, he ordered the band to strike up a IS'ational air, and to the 
tune of Hail Columbia, he threw his entire force against the advancing column, 
and not only checked it but drove it backward over the lost ground. At Five 
Forks the division occupied the left of the line, and was the first to cross the 
enemy's Avorks. It drove the enemy in utter confusion until darkness had set 
in, and only ceased when ordered to do so by Sheridan's Chief-of-Staff. At 
Sailor's Creek, the First and Second Cavalry Divisions, commanded respectively 
by Generals Merritt and Crook, were ordered to break the enemy's line, and to 
delay his retreat until the arrival of the infantry. After gallant but inefi'ectual 
attempts by both these divisions, Sheridan exclaimed: "I wish to God* old Cus- 
ter was here; he would have been into the enemy's train before this time." 
Accordingly "old Custer's" division was ordered into the fight. The men 
charged gallantly, and actually leaped their horses over the breastworks. 
Lieutenant T. W. Custer, the General's brother and Aid, was among the first to 
enter the works; which he did in the manner described. He snatched a Eebel 
standard from its bearer, and received a Minie ball through his cheek and 
neck; he however retained his trophy, and shot down his opponent with a 
pistol. The division destroyed a large number of wagons, captured sixteen 
pieces of artillery, thirty-one battle-flags, and five thousand i^risoners, including 
seven general oflScers; among them, Custis Lee, a son of Eobert E. Lee, Semmes, 
brother of pirate Semmes, and Ewell. After the battle Custer was riding up to 
General Sheridan, who was surrounded by his staff and other officers of rank, 
when the latter and all his staff, with caps waving, proposed three cheers for 
Custer, which were given with a will. 

When the Eebels fell back to Appomattox General Custer had the advance 
of Sheridan's command, when it succeeded in planting itself on Lee's line of 
retreat. The fight at Appomattox Station, which resulted in victory, lasted, in 
a desultory way, from about an hour before sunset until one o'clock at night, 
and the enemy was driven back to Appomattox C. H.f The infantry came up 

■■General Custer is by ten years the junior of General Sheridan. 

T Custer's share in this action is graphically sketched in the entertaining account of a Staff 
Officer " With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaign," pp. 200, 201 : 

"When the sun was only an hour high in the west, energetic Custer, in advance, spied the 
iepot and four heavy trains of freight cars lying there innocently, with the white smoke of the 
locomotives curling over the trees; he quickly ordered his leading regiments to circle out to the 
left through the woods, and then, as they gained the railroad beyond the station and galloped 
iown upon the astonished engineers and collared them before they could mount their iron horsed, 
be led the rest of his division pell-mell down the road, and enveloped the trains as quick as 
|vinking. Custer might not well conduct a siege of regular approaches; but for a sudden dash, 
muster against the world. Many another might have pricked his fingers badly with meddlin- 
?ently with this nettle, but he took it in his hand boldly and crushed it; for it was a nettle, and 



782 Ohio in the Wae. 

during the night, and the next day the surrender took place. General Custer ^ 
being on the advance, was the first to receive the white flag sent in by General 'i 
Lee. He took possession of this trophy and still retains it. After the terms 
of surrender had been signed by Generals Grant and Lee, General Sheridan 
purchased from Mr. McLean, in whose house the negotiations had been con- 
ducted, the table upon which the important and historic document was signed, 
and presented it to Mrs. Custer, with the following autograph letter: 

"Appomattox C. H., Va., April 9, 1865. 
"My Dear Madam: Permit me to present to you the table upon which were signed the 
terms of surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, under General Robert E. Lee; and, in 
conclusion, let me add, that I know of no person more instrumental in bringing about this most 
desirable event, than your own most gallant husband. 

" I am, madam, most truly your friend, 

"PHILIP H. SHEEIDAN, Maj. Gen., U. S. A." 
"Mrs. Gen. G. A. Custer." 

For his conduct in these closing battles, General Custer was ajjpointed 
Major-General of volunteers ; and after the review at Washington he accom- 
panied General Sheridan to the Military Division of the Gulf, where he was 
assigned to an important command in Texas, with head-quarters at Austin. His 
administration of civil aflfairs in that State received the approval of Generals 
Grant and Sheridan ; and when he left Governor Hamilton expressed by letter 
regret at his departure. He was relieved from command on the 15th of Feb- 
ruary, 1866, by muster-out, when he returned to service in the regular army. 

At the time of his appointment as Bi'igadier and Major-General, General 
Custer was the youngest ofiicer of his rank in the army. He never lost a gun 
or a color; he captured more guns, flags, and prisoners, than any other General 
not an army commander; these guns and flags were all taken in action and field 
service, not in arsenals and deserted forts; and his services throughout were 
brilliant. 

A good idea of the "boy Cavalry General's" appearance may be derived 

a very keen one, as appeared in a moment when there opened on his slap-dash party a banging 
of batteries going off like a bunch of fire-crackers. Custer was a good deal struck aback but not 
upset. He kept his wits about him enough to man the trains, and start them off toward Farm- 
ville for safe-keeping, and they were puffing up the road as General Sheridan, in the midst of 
Custer's galloping division, reached the station. Then he turned his attention to the guns, and 
dashed into the woods to see who was firing so wildly, and to see if it could n't be stopped. Gen- 
eral Sheridan rode rapidly to the right to look at the ground, and sent word to Merritt to bring 
Devin up there at a trot, and put him to work in the enemy's rear, and then returned to Custer, 
who, concluding that there was more sound than force in the woods, was going in to silence the 
one and bag the other. Devin, under Merritt's directions, took a wood-path to the right, and 
soon found a fine open field, dipping gently to a broad valley, and rising again beyond to the 
ridge of a commanding hill, from whose top the last gleams of sunset were just ricochetting into | 
the air. Dismounting his men as they came into line, he moved down into the valley, where a 
marsh bothered him some, and then bearing to his left, went into the woods on the hillside. He 
was a little slow for the crisis, but no harm came of it, for Custer had meanwhile scoured about 
in his random way, recklessly riding down all opposers, and, the force with the guns proving 
more noisy than numerous, he had captured nearly all of both before Devin opened his fire. 
Then they pushed on together, mounted and dismounted, driving before them, toward Appomat- 
tox C. H., the surprised and demoralized enemy." 



G-EORGE A. Custer. 783 

from this bit of a picture in Colonel Newhall's "With Sheridan in Lee's Last 

Camjjuign :" 

"The cavalry on the right trotted out in advance of the infantry line, and made ready to 
take the enemy in flank if he should stand to fight, or dash at his trains, which were now in full 
view beyond Appomattox C. H. At the head of the horsemen rode Custer, of the golden locks, 
his broad sombrero turned up from his hard, bronzed face, the ends of his crimson cravat floating 
over his shoulders, gold galore spangling his jacket sleeves, a pistol in his boot, jangling spurs 
on his heels, and a ponderous claymore swinging at his side, a wild, dare-devil of a General, and 
a prince of advance-guards, quick to see and act. Seeing him pass by, a stranger might smile 
and say 'Who's that?' as he noticed his motley wear, his curls, and his quick, impetuous wav, 
but would wonder to see him in the thick of a fight; for Custer loves fighting, and hated his 
enemies then. 

"As he is about to strike a final blow for the good cause, his hand is stayed and his great 
sword drops back again into the scabbard, for out from the enemy's lines comes a rider, ' bound 
on bound,' bearing a white flag of truce, to ask for time to consummate surrender. General 
Sheiidan is just behind, and word is sent to him at once, though the wild cheers of the men have 
passed the good news back on the wind, and he meets the messenger half way. The General 
notifies General Ord, and the whole line is halted on the crest overlooking Appomattox C. H. and 
the valley beyond, in which lies broken the Army of Northern Virginia." 

The last words in the first of the above jjaragraphs — "hated his enemies 
then'' — refer to the fact that after the rupture between Mr. Johnson and 
Congress, General Custer made himself more conspicuous than his old chief 
General Sheridan, and many others of his judicious friends approved, in his 
indorsement of Mr. Johnson's policy. He even accompanied the President on 
the tour to the Douglas monument dedication, which the apt wit of a popular 
caricature has embalmed as the "Swinging round the Circle," and was, on one or 
two occasions, but particularly when passing through his native county, made 
to feel somewhat keenly the dissatisfaction of a portion of his old fi-iends. In 
pursuance of the same policy he also took a conspicuous part in the Philadelphia 
Union Convention of 1866, and in the subsequent Soldier's Convention at Cleve- 
and. It was currently believed that he hoped thus to secure high grade in the 
reorganization of the regular army. In this he must have 15een disappointed. 
Ee was only made Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventh Cavalry, which, with a 
)revet as Major-General in the regular service, was his rank at the close of the 
rear 1867. 

General Custer's career was active, highly energetic, and honorable; but he 
jave no evidences of great generalship. As a subordinate, to a leader like " 
Jheridan, he was in his proper sphere. In such a capacity, for quick dashes 
md vigorous spurts of fighting, he had no superiors, and scarcely an equal, 
lis career was exceptionally fortunate ; but it is to his credit that attention was 
irst attracted to him, and his sudden and high promotion was secured by the 
act that he was found always ready for fight and eager to be among the fore- 



QOSt. 



784 Ohio in the War. 



MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES B. STEEDMAN. 



JAMBS B. STEEDMAN, a noted Democratic politician, and during the 
war an officer of volunteers, always distinguished for energy and gal- 
lantry, and at times for signally valuable services, was born in North- 
umberland County, Pennsylvania, on the 30th of July, 1818. His parents were 
not in good circumstances, and, in the absence of a good common school sys- 
tem, he grew up with only an indifferent education ; but, at the age of fifteen, 
lie was sent to a school better even than those which the beneficent system of 
most of the States now sets open before the poorest of their children. He was. 
apprenticed to learn the printing business in a newspaper office, 

• The newspaper was the Lewisburg (Pennsylvania) Democrat, then edited 
by Judge George E. Barrett, Here the apprentice learned at once Democracy, 
rudimentary branches of education, and business. So well did he improve his 
opportunities that in a couple of years he had come to be regarded as fit for a 
man's worl^ and responsibilities. About this time an opportunity was offered 
him to leave that printing office and take charge of a gang of hands engaged 
on one of the public works. He succeeded so well that he was emboldened to 
undertake similar contracts on his own account. Eemoving to Ohio, he estab- 
lished himself at ^^apoleon, in Henry County, and, while awaiting some open- 
ing in public works, which he had reason to expect, he purchased a printings 
office at Defiance and published the North-western Democrat. Meanwhile,. 
being not yet quite twenty-one years of age, and a country printer with an 
office to pay for, he married. His bride was a young lady in the village, Miss 
Miranda Stiles, who had removed thither from New Jersey. In a short time, 
the contracts were let on the Wabash and Erie Canal. Young Steedmau, 
secured one of them, and presently had a gang of three hundred men at work 
upon it. He managed the business so well as to make the contract quite profits 
able. Then, with his head fairly above water, he entered upon a series of sim-. 
ilar undertakings. In company with General E. H. Gilson, he contracted fov- 
and built fifty miles of the Toledo, Wabash, and Western Eailroad between Defi- 
ance and Fort Wayne. This, and other similar operations, placed him iu com- 
paratively easy circumstances. 

All this time he had kept up his Democracy and his newspaper He now 
became one of the local leaders of his party, was elected for two successive 



James B. Steedman. 785 

teiTQS to the lower branch of the State Legislature, and was presently recog- 
nized as one of the powers of the party in the State. He was next made a 
member of the Board of Public Works — an office for which his experience gave 
him special fitness. He remained in the Board for four years, during three of 
which he served as its President. 

In 1857, after a vigorous and protracted contest, he was elected public 
printer at "Washington, There had been charges of corruption against other 
candidates, and his election was heralded by leading organs of the Democratic 
party as a "great moral triumph." The defeated party chose to regard this in 
a jocose light, and for a long time they were accustomed to speak of the pub- 
lic printer as "Moral Triumph Steedman." He took a very active part for 
Douglas, and was selected as a delegate to the Charleston Convention, in which 
he adhered to his candidate until the nomination was made at Baltimore. On 
his return from the convention he was nominated as the Douglas candidate for 
Congress, and canvassed the district with his opponent, Mr. Ashley, who was 
elected. 

In 1861, Mr. Steedman, having disposed of his interests in the public print- 
ing at Washington, was at his home, which he had now removed to Toledo. 
Among the earliest of the patriotic Democrats who forgot party, when the 
country was in peril, he telegraphed to Governor Dennison, offering a regiment 
for the service, within a day or two after the call for volunteers. Within three 
days after his apj^ointment as Colonel, he had the regiment ready for the field, 
and nine days after the firing on Sumter, he took it from Toledo to Camp Tay- 
lor, near Cleveland, where it was drilled and fully organized. 

What followed in the history of this Fourteenth Ohio Regiment we need 
aot here repeat.* With its energetic Colonel always at its head it was among 
:he foremost of the State troops to tread the soil of Virginia; it opened up the 
Parkersburg Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad, fell upon Porterfield 
it Philippi, and in that little skirmish opened the war; led in pressing upon 
;he enemy at Laurel Hill; led in the hot pursuit, and fought, almost alone, the 
jharp little action of Carrick's Ford, in which the Eebel General commanding was 
iilled; was recognized everywhere as among the trustiest and best of the Ohio 
•egiments. Ee-enlisting for three years, it entered into Kentucky, took jJiirt in 
ihe affair at Wild Cat ; was the first to enter the Eebel works at Mill Springs. 
By this time the merits of Colonel Steedman as an officer were so well recog- 
lized that he was withdi-awn from his regiment and placed in command of a 
)rigade. In the advance of Buell's army he had no further opportunity for 
ighting, but he so well handled his command that there was a general feeling 
)f approval in the army when, on the 17th of July, 1862, he was appointed a 
Brigadier-General of volunteers. 

^1 His first important action was at Perryville. Here he had a large brigade 

^umbering forty-one hundred muskets) supporting McCook, and preventing 

b enemy from turning his right. He came into the battle at an oj^portune 

■■' See history regiment, Volume II. 
Vol. 1.— 50. 



786 Ohio in the Wae. 

moment, saving Loomis's battery, of which the enemy was just taking posses- 
sion. His conduct received the commendation of so cautious a critic as Gen- 
eral Buell, who complimented him for his energy and gallantly. 

General Steedman next marched with the army as far as Tunnel Hill, when, 
with his brigade, he was halted to clear and repair two tunnels — half a mile each 
in length — which had been partiallj^ destroyed by John Morgan. After putting 
the tunnels in thoi-ough repair, he again joined the army, and skirmished with 
the enemy's cavalry dui-ing the battle of Stone River, but was not heavily 
engaged during any part of that action. 

Shortly after the battle of Stone Eiver General Steedman was assigned to 
the command of a division of infantry. For the next three months he held an 
independent position on the Nolinsville Turnpike, twenty-five miles south of 
Nashville, and fifteen miles away from the main army — skirmishing with the 
enemy almost every day. General Thomas, Avith w^hom Steedman was always 
a great favorite, now complimented him for the energy and cajjacity he dis- 
played in these affairs, and when obliged to supersede him on account of rank, 
expressed, in written form, his regret that "rank and the fortunes of war" 
should deprive General Steedman of a command in which he had given so 
much satisfaction to his commanding officer. 

In the campaign from Murfreesboro', which forced Bragg's army out of ' 
Tullahoma, General Steedman was in command of a brigade which occupied 
the Old Tullahoma Road, and after heavy fighting with the Rebels, who were 
posted to hold that approach, was the first to enter the enemy's works at Tulla- 
homa. When the Army of the Cumberland was concentrated at Winchester, 
Tennessee, in July, 1863, Steedman w^as assigned to the command of the First 
Division of the Reserve Corps. He marched his division from Murfreesboro' 
to Chickamauga. Here he took a distinguished part. He was stationed at 
"Red House Bridge," over the Chickamauga River, and was ordered to "hold it 
at all hazard." In front of it there was no enemy. He knew that Thomas was 
sore pressed, and that his trooj3s were needed; and he took the responsibility 
of disobeying the orders requiring him to hold his position. In going to 
General Thomas, having no knowledge of the country, or the position of eitheri 
army, he marched to the "sound of the cannon." He had severe skirmishing 
with the enemj^^'s cavalry on the way; but he arrived just in the nick of time. 
He was hotly engaged with the enemj^ in thirty minutes after reporting to 
General Thomas. 

In this battle General Steedman's conduct was the subject of general admi- 
ration — the officers and soldiers of the army being his warmest eulogists. He 
was shortly after, " for distinguished and gallant services on the field," made 
Major-General of volunteers. 

He took an active part in the campaign of General Sherman which resi 
in the fall of Atlanta; having command of the "District of the Btow^n 
extending from Bridgeport, Alabama, to the Allatoona Mountains, proteth( 
the railroad communications which supplied General Sherman's army. Du 






James B. Steedman. 787 

this time Steedman's command had frequent fights and skirmishes with the 
enemy, but one of these actions deserves special mention. In June, 1864, the 
Eebel General Wheeler, with about six thousand cavalry, passed around the 
flank of General Sherman's army, to cut the railroad, and attacked a little 
garrison of four hundred of our troops stationed at Dalton, Georgia, commanded 
by a brave German Colonel — Liebald, of St. Louis. Wheeler di-ove Liebald 
into a small earthwork and demanded his surrender. The telegraph not being 
•cut Liebald refused to surrender, and telegraphed Steedman at Chattanooga. 
Steedman immediately started by rail with twelve hundred men — six hundred 
oolored and six hundred white — to relieve the garrison at Dalton. Within three 
miles of the enemy he took his troops off the cars. After resting them for an 
hour or two, at break of day he fell upon Wheeler with his twelve hundred 
men, routing the six thousand cavalry in thirty minutes, and saving the garri- 
son and the railroad. 

When General Sherman started on his "march to the sea" he left General 
Steedman in command of the "District of the Etowah," to tear up the railroad, 
burn the bridges south of Dalton, and support General Thomas, if Hood attacked 
Nashville. Hood crossed the Tennessee Eiver at Florence, Alabama, and moved 
on Nashville. Steedman, with ten thousand men and three batteries of artil- 
lery, loaded on fourteen trains of cars, moved from Chattanooga by rail to sup- 
port General Thomas, reaching Nashville with his command just as the enemv 
were investing the place. 

In the battle of Nashville General Steedman commanded the left wing of 
the army, and brought on the engagement, attacking the enemy's right and 
carrying his first line of works early in the first day's fight. On the second 
day it was his command, with that of General Wood, that stormed Overton 
Hill, the enemy's center. 

It was in this battle, and in successfully assaulting the enemy's center, that 
the colored troops, under the command of General Steedman, did the brilliant 
fighting for which they were complimented by most of the ofiicers of the Army 
of the Cumberland, and especially by its honored commander. General George 
H. Thomas. 

At the close of the war General Steedman was assigned to the command 
of the State of Georgia, which he held until he asked to be relieved from it. 
The service in time of peace had become irksome and distasteful; and, pre- 
ferring private life, he resigned, and his resignation was accepted July 19, 1866. 
Before this time he had been required, as a last act, to make a tour of inspec- 
tion through the South, to examine the workings of the Freedmen's Bureau, 
and report to President Johnson. His report was tinged by his political views. 
He was now offered one or two civil offices, which he declined ; but he finally 
accepted the Collectorship of Intei-nal Eevenue at New Orleans. He has been 
often spoken of by the President in connection with the portfolio of the War 
Department. 

General Steedman's career during the war was highly honorable ; and it 



788 Ohio in the Wak. '^ 

can scarcely be said that any Ohio General, not in command of a large army, 
rendered more valuable or distinguished service. He was a bold, enei'getic 
fighter, and his voice was always for fight. He never belonged to the school of 
delaying Generals. His troops had unbounded confidence in and admiration 
for him. Personally he is warm-hearted and generous, careless as to appear- 
ances, and often neglectful of his own interests; hearty in his ways, with 
the free-and-easy manners of the people among whom he grew up. He never 
betrays a friend. Politically he is shrewd, and, according to the verdict of his 
antagonists, unscrupulous. His own party has great faith in him, and he is 
still looked upon as one likely to rise higher in its favors. 



Godfrey Weitzel. 789 



MAJOR-GENERAL GODFREY WEITZEL. 



SECOND to none among the younger members of the Engineer Corps, 
in the value of the services rendered during the rebellion, or in general 
military capacity, stands Major-General Godfrey Weitzel. He was born 
at Cincinnati, Ohio, November 1, 1835. He received his early education in the 
public schools of that city, and was a member of the first class in the old Cen- 
tral High School. 

Upon the recommendation of the Ho'norable David T. Disney he was ap- 
pointed a cadet at West Point in 1851. He graduated in 1855, standing second 
in a class of thirty-three. He was appointed Brevet Second-Lieutenant of En- 
gineers July 1, 1855, was promoted to Second-Lieutenant August, 1856, to First- 
Lieutenant July 1, 1860, and to Captain March 3, 1863. 

On the 1st of November, 1855, he reported to Captain and Brevet Major P. 
G. T. Beauregard for duty as assistant in the construction and repairs of the forti- 
fications in Louisiana. In August, 1859, he was relieved and ordered to the 
Military Academy as Acting Assistant Professor of Civil and Military Engi- 
neering. In January, 1861, he was oi'dered to report to First-Lieutenant J. C. 
Duane, commanding company A, engineers, and with this company he pro- 
ceeded to Washington City. On the 4th of March it was the body-guard of 
His Excellency, the President, during the inauguration ceremonies. In April, 
Lieutenant Weitzel accompanied his command to Fort Pickens, Florida. While 
at this post he twice crossed the bay and penetrated the enemy's lines to reeon- 
noiter, under confidential orders from Colonel Brown. He returned to West 
Point on the Ist of October, 1861, and soon after was ordered to report to Gen- 
eral Mitchel, commanding the District of Ohio, as chief engineer, and also to 
recruit for company D, engineers. On the 10th of December, 1861, he was 
ordered to report with the engineer battalion in the Army of the Potomac, and 
upon arriving was placed in command of company C, engineers. In addition, 
he was assigned to the special duty of placing together some of the pontoon 
trains for the Army of the Potomac. 

All this while his reputation as a a engineer had been gradually rising in 
the army, so that now, when General Butler's expedition to New Orleans was 
undertaken, young Weitzel was selected as its engineer, and was ordered to 
report to General Butler accordingly, for duty on his staff. 

We have seen that four years of his army life had been spent under Beau- 
regard in the repair and construction of fortifications in Louisiana. His inti- 
mate knowledge of the country below and about New Orleans, thus acquired, 
now became of signal service. 



790 



Ohio in the War. 



General McClellan had doubted the feasibility of any undertaking against 
New Orleans with a force of less than fifty thousand. But the entire force 
available for the expedition proved to be but thirteen thousand seven hundred. 
These rendezvoused on Ship Island, one of the inconsiderable sand-bars lying in 
the Gulf of Mexico, between the mouths of the Mississippi and Mobile. Lieu- 
tenant Weitzel was at once taken into the consultation between Captain (since 
Admiral) Parragut and General Butler. He described the forts on the Missis- 
sippi to be passed before reaching New Orleans, and gave the commanders an 
accurate idea of the nature of the surrounding country. He held Fort St. 
Philip, on the east bank of the Mississippi, the more vulnerable to attack by 
the land forces, and advised that it should be either assaulted or turned by 
means of the shallow water approaches to Bird Island and.points in its rear and 
above it. Before this should be attempted, it was decided to see what could be 
done by bombarding the forts. 



I 




yASSA't'oUTRE 
OB. 

s.PASS;s 



PASS <i^ 



O r ^^OPASS 



PASS c,^ 



°eLTA 



DEFENSES OF NEW ORLEANS. 

Captain Farragut accordingly moved up with his fleet. For three daj^s the 
bombardment went on. Then a fresh council of oflScers was called, at which 
the determination was reached to run past the forts. First, however, the great 
chain, stretched across the river and supported by hulks anchored at regular dis- 
tances in line across the stream, must be cut. This was done at night, not with- 
out serious damage to the gunboats which undertook it. A further delay of 
two days gave time to make the necessary repairs, and meantime the bombard' 



1 



GrODFEEY WeITZEL. 791 

ment was kept up. Then, on the night of the fifth day after the appearance of 
the fleet before the forts, they steamed up. A fierce conflict ensued ; several of 
the vessels were seriously damaged or quite disabled; some failed to get through 
the gap cut in the chain across the stream ; others had trouble avoiding the fire- 
ships sent down from above, and the half-finished gunboats which the Eebels 
employed; but Captain Farragut finally found himself with an effective squad- 
ron above the forts, with an almost open road to New Orleans. He had been 
greatly aided by the suggestions of Lieutenant Weitzel as to the nature of the 
fire from the forts, and the best way of inducing the Eebel gunners to overshoot. 
The moment the fleet passed the forts General Butler started to put his 
troops in motion. Lieutenant Weitzel conducted them to Bird Island ; then, in 
small boats, through intricate bayous and channels not known to another man 
in that army, to the Quarantine Station on the Mississippi, five miles above the 
forts. The works which Farragut had passed, Butler and Weitzel had now com- 
pletely turned and cut off from the city they were meant to defend. They soon 
surrendered, and the troops, with the full control of the river behind them to 
the Gulf, were ready to move up to New Orleans. 

Within a few days Lieutenant Weitzel, in consequence of his intimate 
knowledge of the city, country, and people, not more, we may well believe, than 
because of the sound judgment he had displayed in the previous operations, was 
appointed Assistant Military Commander and Acting Mayor of jSTew Orleans. 
He was also placed in charge of the organization of troops in Louisiana, and 
under his supervision the First and Second Louisiana Infantry, and companies A, 
B, C, and D of the First Louisiana Cavalry were organized. After the battle of 
Baton Eouge, he was ordered to report there for temporarj^ duty, and while at 
that post he laid out the intrenchraents which have since served as the basis for 
the fortifications at that j)oint. 

On the 16th of September, 1862, our young Lieutenant was appointed 
Brigadier-General of volunteers, a promotion due to the esteem he had inspired 
by his services thus far, and particularly to the warm friendship of General 
Butler. He was immediately placed in command of a brigade, consisting of five 
regiments of infimtry, four companies of cavalry, and two batteries. Of this 
entire command onlj- one battery had ever been under fire ; one regiment of 
infantry and three companies of cavalry had just been organized ; and the bat- 
teries were so reduced by disease, that each could only man one section. 

Before the brigade was in a condition anything like satisfactory to General 
Weitzel, he was ordered by General Butler, in connection with four light gun- 
boats, operating by way of Berwick's Bay, to clear the La Fourehe District of 
Eebels. Accordingly he left Carrollton on the 24th of October, and proceeding 
up the Mississippi, landed at Minor's plantation six miles below Lonaldsonville. 
He advanced against the town, and occupied it after a slight skirmish. After 
collecting a sufficient number of transports, he moved down Bayou La Fourehe 
and on the 27th encountered the enemy at Georgia Landing, about a mile and 
half above the village of Labadierville. He immediately assaulted the position, 
and after a short resistance the enemy fled, with a loss of twenty-five killed. 



792 Ohio in the Wae. 

forty wounded, and two hundred and sixty captured ; also three pieces of artil- 
lery and a large number of small arms. The National loss was thirty killed, 
seventy wounded, and three captured. 

The march was resumed toward Thibodeaux, and about a mile and a half 
below the town the Eebels made another stand ; but they fell back without 
waiting for an attack. This precipitate retreat was occasioned by the appear- 
ance of the gunboats off Berwick's Bay. A northerly gale prevented the boats 
from entering the bay and cutting off the retreat. With the exception of a few 
skirmishes with the enemy's pickets at Plaquemine and Brashear City, General 
Weitzel held undisputed possession of his district until the following April, and 
it was as safe for an officer or soldier to go through the country alone as it was 
to walk the sti-eets of New Orleans. This was the only important military oper- 
ation undertaken by General Butler during his command of the Department. 

In April, 1863, WeitzeUs brigade, with other troops, moved across the coun- 
try to Port Hudson, destroying the Eebel navy in the streams and bayous which 
they crossed, capturing fifteen hundred prisoners and large quantities of arms, 
ammunition, and supplies. During the siege of Port Hudson the General com- 
manded sometimes a division and sometimes a brigade. For forty days his 
troops were under fire, hard at work, without tents, and with short rations. 

After the surrender, he was placed in command of the First Division, 
Nineteenth Corps, and was ordered to Donaldsonville. From there he pro- 
ceeded to New Orleans, and served on a board, of which General Franklin was 
President, convened to prepare a general system of defense for the Department. 
After the board was dissolved he was detained as a witness before a court-mar- 
tial until August, when he returned to the command of his division. 

He left Baton Eouge on the 2d of September with the expedition to Sabine 
Pass, Texas. He was in personal command of five hundred picked men on 
board the transport General Banks. His orders were to lollow the gunboats 
closely, and at a certain time to land and attack the enemy's works. However, 
the two best gunboats were disabled and the other two did nothing; and Gen- 
eral Franklin ordered him back without an attempt to land. The two disabled 
boats struck to the enemy, and with them went one hundred and five men of 
Weitzel's division, detailed on them as sharp-shooters. 

He next moved with his division on the "Western Louisiana campaign, the 
operations apparently being only a feint to enable General Banks to land troops 
on the coast of Texas, which was accomplished. He was ordered to Ohio on 
recruiting service in December, 1863, and upon returning, preferring service 
under the chief with whom he had first risen to prominence, he applied to the War 
Department to be relieved from duty in Louisiana. Until the result of his ap- 
plication could be known, he was assigned to duty in the defenses of New 
Orleans. 

The request was granted, and in April, 1864, he reported to General Butler 
in Virginia, and was assigned to duty in two capacities, as Chief Engineer of 
the Department, and in command of the Second Division, Eighteenth Corps. 
He participated in several skirmishes near Petersburg and Eichmond, includ- 



GrODFEEY WeITZEL. 793 

ing the action of Swift Creek. In the dissensions between General Butler and 
j the two noted engineers who were his Corps Generals, Weitzel sided with 
Butler. 

As Chief Engineer of the Depai'tment, he constructed the various lines of 
: defense, works, and bridges on the James and Appomattox Elvers, including 
the approaches and piers for the famous pontoon bridge by which the Army 
of the Potomac crossed the James. In September he was sent on a reconnois- 
sauce to the blockading fleet at the mouth of Cape Fear Eiver, expecting to 
command an expedition against Fort Fisher during the succeeding three w-eeks. 
This expedition was postponed, chiefly because the enemy received information 
of it, and because troops could not be sjDared. Upon returning he was assigned 
to the command of the Eighteenth Corps, numbering only five thousand and 
one hundred effective men. He was attacked on the 30th of September by two 
Eebel divisions, assisted by the entire fleet in the James. The assault was re- 
pulsed handsomely, the Eebels losing over six hundred killed and wounded, 
over two hundred captured, and eight battle flags. General Weitzel lost only 
fifteen killed and seventy-nine wounded. On the 29th of October he com- 
manded the corps in a division on the Williamsburg and Nine Mile Eoads, to 
favor a movement to the left of the Army of the Potomac. In this affair his 
loss was nine hundred, mostly prisoners. 

In December, 1864, he was assigned to the command of the Twenty-Fifth 
Corps, colored. He held the position until the corps was disbanded, and he was 
mustered out of service. During this month, December, he accomj^anied the 
first expedition to Fort Fisher as second in command, and conducted a recon- 
noissance of the work, ordered by General Butler, to ascertain to what extent 
the fire of Admiral Porter's fleet had damaged it. The expedition was a fail- 
ure, through want of co-operation between the army and navy. General Weit- 
zel's verdict was against the proposition to assault. He found comjxaratively 
little damage done by Admiral Porter's fire, the sand embankments very well 
resisting a bombardment; and, with the customary caution of the engineer, he 
was unwnlling to advise an attack of great hazard and extremely doubtful j)ros- 
pects of success. The fort was subsequently carried by assault, but under cir- 
cumstances which prevent the fact from constituting any reflection upon the 
wisdom of General Weitzel's counsel. 

He was engaged in the final operations around Eichmond, and was in com- 
mand of all that portion of the army north of the Appomattox and James 
Elvers. It was his rare good fortune to clutch the prize for which for four years 
the armies of the East had struggled. He entered Eichmond unopposed, with 
about nine thousand men, on the 3d of April, 1865. He took up his head-quar- 
ters at the residence of Mr. Jeff. Davis, abandoned by him only the evening be- 
fore. Here he received President Lincoln on the occasion of his memorable 
visit to the fallen Eebel capital ; and here occurred the interviews with Judge 
Campbell and others, in which the crafty Eebel functionaries sought to secure 
from Mr. Lincoln the recognition of their State government. Under his direc- 
tion. Genex-al Weitzel gave public notice to the State Legislature that they would 



794 Ohio in the War. 

be permitted to assemble. A day or two later, under similar direction, he pub- 
lished his orders withdrawing this permission. 

On the 12th of April he proceeded to concentrate his corps at City Point,, 
for removal to Texas, where he remained on duty, under General Sheridan, un- 
til February, 1866, when he Avas mustered out as Major- General of volunteers, 
and returned to his grade in the engineer corps of the regular array. 

During his service in Texas he was, for a large part of the time, on duty along 
the Mexican frontier. Here he cast his influence, in accordance with his own 
wishes, as well as those of General Sheridan and the Government, in favor of 
Juarez against Maximilian and the Imperialists. The notorious General Mejia 
having captured some Juarist prisoners, was about, under Maximilian's orders, 
to execute them. General Weitzel, on hearing of it, immediately addressed this 
protest to the Imperialist commander: 

"Head-Quarters, District of the Rio Grande,") 
" Brownsville, Texas, January 2, 1866. ) 

" Major-General Thomas Mejia, Commanding line of the Rio Grande : 

" General : I understand that you have taken seventeen prisoners from the Liberal forces^ 
and that you intend to execute them. 

" In the name of the entire civilized world, I protest against such a horrible act of barbar- 
ity. I believe it will stamp the power which you represent with infamy forever. 

"To execute Mexicans fighting in their own country, and for the freedom of their country, 
against foreign power, is an act which, at this age, will meet with universal execration. 

" I can not permit this to be done under the eye of my Government without, on its behalf, 
entering this solemn protest. 

" I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

"G. WEITZEL, 
"Major-General Commanding." 

The following reply was received on the same day • 

"Imperial Army, Mexico, Division Mejia, \ 
" Sead- Quarters, Matamoras, January 2. ) 
'' General: I acknowledge the receipt of your communication dated this day. 
"I find myself under the necessity of repelling energetically the participation which you 
pretend to take in the internal concerns of this country. 

" The business to which the protest in your note refers has now been brought before compe- 
tent tribunals, and no one has a right to suspend the proceeding.s. 

" For your individual cognition I will add, that the persons in question are. accused of hav- 
ing taken by force of arms thirteen wagons, twenty-six mules and horses, and robbed thirteen 
persons. 

" It would be very strange. General, if, in the middle of this nineteenth century, the bandits 
and fighting robbers were to receive help and protection from the civilized world. 

" By the same occasion I see myself obligated to remind you of the contents of the letter 
which I had the honor to address you on the 21st of last December. I shall return without 
answer all communications of the character and couched in the language of the one now 
before me. 

" Accept, General, my esteem and consideration, 

"THOMAS MEJIA, 
" General Commanding Line of the Rio Grande. 
" To Major-General Weitzel, 

"Commanding Western Division of Texas, Brownsville." 



1 



GoDFEEY Weitzel. 795 

After being mustered out of the volunteer service, General Weitzel was as- 
signed to duty in the engineer corps ; his most important work being the com- 
pletion of surveys and estimates for the consideration of Congress for a canal 
around the Falls of the Ohio, on the Indiana side, opposite Louisville. He was 
engaged on this during a great part of the year 1867. 

General Weitzel will always be honored for his share in the suppression of 
the great rebellion. His skill as an engineer commanded the confidence of his 
corps and of the army. He succeeded better than most engineers in the com- 
mand of trooj)S in the field ; and his reputation as a good corps General was 
undisputed. He was also free from many of the prejudices of the regular ai-my, 
particularly with reference to the capacity of negro troops. He is still young, 
and should have a brilliant future in the army. 

His appearance and bearing denote his German descent. He was married, 
shortly before the close of war, to the daughter of Mr. Bogen, a prominent 
manufacturer of Catawba wines, in Cincinnati. 



796 Ohio in the War. 



MAJOR-GENERAL DAVID S. STANLEY. 



DAVID S. STANLEY was born in Wayne County, Ohio, on the Ist 
of June, 1828. His father was a farmer. In 1848 he was appointed a 
cadet at West Point; and in 1852 he graduated, with a standing suffi- 
ciently high to warrant his assignment as Second-Lieutenant to the Second Dra- 
goons, now the Second Cavalry. The next year he was employed as assistant on 
the survey of the Pacific Railroad route, under Lieutenant, since G-eneral Whip- 
ple, and in this service he remained for two years. In 1855 he was transferred 
to the First Cavalry, a new regiment of which Sumner was Colonel, Joe John- 
ston Lieutenant-Colonel, and Sedgwick Major. McClellan and many others who 
subsequently held important positions, wei'e subordinates in this regiment. He 
was engaged in maintaining the peace in Kansas until the spring of 1857, and 
during the summer of that year he accompanied Colonel Sumner on an expedi- 
tion against the Cheyenne Indians. He was engaged in a sharp fight on Solo- 
mon's Fork of the Kansas, in which the Indians were defeated and compelled 
to beg for peace. In 1858 he was engaged in the Utah expedition, and in the 
same year he crossed the plains to the northern boundary of Texas. In March, 
1858, he had a successful fight with the Camanche Indians, for which he received 
the complimentary orders of Lieutenant-G-eneral Scott. 

He was stationed at Fort Smith, Arkansas, at the opening of the rebellion. 
He was appointed Captain in the Fourth United States Cavalry in March, 1861, 
and soon after that the troops at Fort Smith and neighboring posts were com- 
pelled to evacuate. They united in one column and marched through the buf- 
falo country to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. On the 8th of May they captured 
and paroled a force of Eebels sent in pursuit of them. Kansas City was occu- 
pied June 15th, and on the same day Captain Stanley was fired upon by Rebels, 
near Independence, Missouri, while carrying a flag of truce. He moved on the 
expedition to Springfield ; and joined General Lyon at Grand River. Spring- 
field was occupied July 12th. He was engaged in the capture of Forsythe ; in 
the defeat of the Rebels at Dry Spring ; and in guarding the ti-ain at the battle 
of Wilson's Creek. On the retreat to Rolla he was in charge of the rear-guard. 
He participated in a skirmish, in which the Rebels were defeated, near Salem, 
Missouri, and in September, commanding his regiment, he joined General Fre- 
mont, at St. Louis. He marched in pux'suit of Price, from Syracuse, and in 
November moved against Springfield. 

Captain Stanley was appointed Brigadier-General of volunteers in Novem- 
ber, 1861. He was ordered to St. Louis, and during the winter of 1861-2 was 



David S. Stanley. 797 

a member of a Military commission. He moved with Pope's army down the 
Mississippi, March, 1862, and commanded the Second Division of that army at 
New Madrid and Island No. 10. He participated in the Fort Pillow expedition, 
and on the 22d of April joined General Halleck's army before Corinth. He 
was engaged in a skirmish at Monterey, in the battle of Farmington, and in the 
repulse of the Eebels before Corinth, May 28th. The Eebels evacuated Corinth 
on the 29th, and General Stanley was engaged in the pursuit to Booneville. 
During the months of June, July, and August he was in command of the troops 
on the Memphis and Charleston Eailroad. In the battle of luka he commanded 
one of Eosecrans's two divisions, and was specially commended in the official 
report. In the battle of Corinth, October 4th, his division lost many valuable 
officers and men. It sustained the terrible attack of the enemy on batteries 
Williams and Eobinett. 

General Stanley joined the Army of the Tennessee, under General Grant, 
at Grand Junction, in October; but in November he was relieved from duty 
there, and was ordered to report to General Eosecrans, commanding the Army 
of the Cumberland, who assigned him to the command of the cavalry of that 
army. On the 21st of November he was made Major-General of volunteers. 
On the 15th of December he skirmished with and defeated the Eebels at Frank- 
lin, Tennessee. He skirmished again at Nolinsville, and commanded the cav- 
alry in the battle of Stone Eiver. In this engagement the duty of the cavalry 
was very arduous. From the 26th of December until the 4th of January, 1863, 
the saddles were only removed to groom the horses, and then they were imme- 
diately replaced. The cavalry pursued the Eebels and skirmished with the rear- 
guard. General Stanley's command was again engaged at Bradyville, March 
1st; at Snow Hill, April 2d; at Franklin, April 10th; and at Middleton, May 
21st. In the Tullahoma campaign General Stanley was engaged at Shelbyville 
and Elk Eiver. He moved on an expedition to Huntsville in July. He crossed 
the Tennessee Eiver, in command of all the cavalry, on an expedition into 
Georgia, and on the 9th of September he skirmished at Alpine. 

General Stanley was absent on sick-leave, after the battle of Chickamauga, 
for two months; and upon returning he was assigned to the command of the 
First Division, Fourth Army Corps. He was stationed at Bridgeport, Alabama 
until December, 1863, and then at Blue Springs, East Tennessee, until May, 
1864. General Stanley was on the Atlanta campaign, under Shei-man, from May 
2d until August 25th, and was engaged at Eocky Face Eidge, Eesaca, New 
Hope Church, Kenesaw, Jonesboro', and Lovejoy Station. He commanded the 
Fourth Corps, by appointment of the President, from July, 1864, until the close 
of the war; and during Hood's raid upon Sherman's communications, in Octo- 
ber, he commanded two corps of the Army of the Cumberland. On the 27th of 
October he separated from Sherman's army, and camped in Coosa Valley, Ala- 
bama. He marched the Fourth Corps to Chattanooga, and thence to Pulaski, 
confronting Hood's army, which was then threatening Nashville and Middle 
Tennessee. He fell back through Columbia, and at Spring Hill was engaged 
with two corps of Hood's army. At the battle of Franklin, General Stanley 



798 Ohio in the War. 

came upon the field just as a portion of the National line was captured by the 
Rebels. His timely arrival averted disaster ; and placing himself at the head 
of a brigade, he led a charge, which re-established the line. The soldiers fol- 
lowed him with enthusiasm, calling out, " Come on, men ; we can go whei'ever 
the General can." Just after retaking the line, and while passing toward the 
left, the General's horse was killed ; and no sooner did the General regain his 
feet, than he was struck by a musket-ball in the back of the neck. But he still 
remained on the field. This wound disabled him from further service until Jan- 
uary 24, 1865, when he was placed on duty in East Tennessee. In July he 
moved with the Fourth Corps to Texas. He commanded the corps, and the 
Middle District of Texas until mustered out, February 1, 1866. 

General Stanle}^ enjoyed to the fullest extent the confidence of his superior 
officers, and General Thomas, in recommending him for promotion, says: '^A 
more cool and brave commander Avould be a difficult task to find, and though he 
has been a participant in many of the most sanguinary'- engagements of the war, 
his conduct has, on all occasions, been so gallant and marked that it would 
almost be an injustice to him to refer to any isolated battle-field. I refer, there- 
fore, only to the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, November 30, 1864, because it 
is the more recent, and one in which his gallantry was so marked as to merit 
the admiration of all who saw him. It was here that his personal bravery was 
more decidedly brought out, perhaps, than on any other field ; and the terrible 
destruction and defeat which disheartened and checked the fierce assaults of the 
enemy, is due more to his heroism and gallantry than to that of any other offi- 
cer on the field."* Generals Sherman and Grant most cordially indorse Genei-al 
Thomas's recommendation, and General Sheridan also adds his testimony in 
favor of General Stanley. The authorities at Washington acted upon these tes- 
timonials, and rewarded General Stanley's gallantry with the Colonelcy of the 
Twenty-Second United States Infantry, and a Brevet Major-Generalship in the 
United States army. 

* Extract from a letter addressed to the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, dated 
Head-Quarters Military Division of Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee, September 14, 1865, and 
-signed George H. Thomas, Major-General United States Army, commanding. 



1 



George Ceook. 799 



MAJOR-GENERAL GEORGE CROOK. 



GEOEGE CEOOK was born in Montgomery County, near Dayton, Ohio, 
September 8, 1828. He entered West Point in 1848, and graduated 
Jul}" 1, 1852. He was appointed Brevet Second-Lieutenant, and was 
assigned to tlie Fourth United States Infantry, then serving in California. He 
was engaged in many scouts and skirmishes in the Indian country, and was once 
severel}' wounded. He was promoted to Second-Lieutenant in 1853 ; to First- 
Lieutenant March 11, 1856, and to Captain May 4, 1861. He left San Francisco 
for Xew York in August, 1861, and upon arriving was tendered the Colonelcy 
of the Thirty-Sixth Ohio Infantry. He accepted the position, and applied him- 
self to the work of thoroughly disciplining his regiment. 

Eai'ly in the spring of 1862 Colonel Crook was placed in command of the 
Third Brigade of the Army of AVest Virginia, and with this brigade, on the 24th 
of May, he defeated the Eebel General Heath, capturing all his artillery and 
many of his men. In July Colonel Crook was transferred to the Army of the 
Potomac, and with his command he took a prominenc jDart in Popes retreat, 
and in the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. For his services in those 
campaigns he was made Brigadier-General of volunteers, and was placed in 
•command of the Kanawha Division, composed almost entirely of Ohio troops. 
He was again transferred to West Virginia, but he remained only a few weeks, 
during which time, under his direction, a Eebel camp was comjjletely surprised 
and captured hj Major Powell's command. 

In January, 1863, at the request of General Eosecrans, General Crook was 
transferred to the Army of the Cumberland, and upon the advance of that army 
he was assigned to the command of the Second Cavahy Division. He led this 
•division throughout the ensuing campaign, and in the battle of Chickamauga. 
Immediately after that battle General Wheeler, with a force of cavalry, crossed 
the Tennessee Eiver with the intention of cutting communications northward 
from Chattanooga. General Crook was ordered by General Eosecrans " to 
pursue and destroy him.'' With twenty-five hundred men he drove General 
Wheeler before him, and in three battles routed and defeated him, capturing all 
his artillery, and finally, after ten days' pursuit, driving him broken and disor- 
ganized aci'oss the Tennessee and Muscle Shoals. In these battles the use of 
the saber was first introduced into the cavalry of that army, and General Crook 
was thanked, in orders and privately', both by General Eosecrans and General 
Thomas, and was also recommended for promotion. 

General Crook was detached from the Department of the Cumberland in 



800 Ohio in the War. 

February, 1864, and was assigned to the command of the Third Division, 
Department of West Yirginia, then lying in the Kanawha Yalley. The column 
was increased by a cavalry force under General Averill, and by four regiments 
of infantry, drawn from the troops stationed along the Baltimore and Ohio 
Eailroad. The cavalry, under General Averill, commenced their movements 
from Camp Piatt on the 30th of April, and on the 2d of May the infantry 
comprising three brigades, under General Crook, marched from Fayetteville, 
and on the morning of the 9th met the enemy in strong force at Cloyd Mountain, | 
under command of General Jenkins. The position was well chosen on the crest <. 
of a hill, skirted by a small creek, difficult to cross on account of its muddy ^ 
bottom. Directly in front was an open field about a quarter of a mile wide, 3 
every portion of which was swept by the enemy's artillery. In addition to all 
its natural advantages General Jenkins had greatly strengthened his position by 
fortifying. General Crook determined to attack, and directed Colonel White to 
move his brigade over the mountain, to turn the enemy's right and to charge | 
his flank. The movement was successful, and as soon as White's guns were | 
heard, the other two brigades moved to the attack in front. The Kebels lost two 
pieces of artillery, and nearly one thousand men killed, wounded and captured ; 
among them General Jenkins, who was mortally wounded. The National loss 
was about seven hundred. General Crook continued his march, and encountered 
the Rebels again at New River. After a light engagement the enemy was 
driven from his position, and two pieces of artillery and a large amount of 
ammunition were captured. General Crook moved on to Blackburg, and there 
learned that the cavalry had failed to execute its part of the campaign. Inter- 
cepted dispatches from General Lee reported that Grant had been repulsed in 
the Wilderness, and that Lee's victory was complete. Rations were exhausted, 
and the ambulances were loaded down with the wounded. General Crook 
decided to place himself in communication with the National lines, and the 
march of the column was directed toward Meadow Bluffs. Greenbrier River 
was found to be too deep for fording, and by forty-eight hours of continuous 
and exhaustive labor the command was crossed on a single flatboat. 

Upon reaching Meadow Bluffs information was received that General Hunter 
had been assigned to the command of the department, and Genei*al Crook's 
force was ordered to Staunton. The infantry reached Staunton on the 8th uf 
June, after a march which had been one continuous skirmish, the Rebels con- 
testing every inch of the ground. The cavalry started two days after the 
infantry, and arrived on the 9th, its march being unobstructed. General Crook's 
division led the advance in General Hunter's movement upon Lynchburg, and 
covered the rear upon the retreat. At Craig Valley information was received 
that the enemy was moving on a parallel road, to strike the column at New- 
castle ; and General Crook was ordered, with his division, to take the advance 
to guai"d the threatened point. The enemy, however, did not attack, and the 
retreat was continued uninterrupted up the Kanawha Yalley. General Crook's 
command had been on foot almost constantly for two months ; it had marched 
nearly nine hundred miles; it had ci'ossed different ranges of the Alleghany 



J 



Geokge Ceook. 801 

and Blue Eidge sixteen times; it had been continually on short rations, fre- 
quently without any; it had fought and defeated the enemy in five severe 
engagements; it had participated in innumerable skirmishes; it had killed, 
wounded, and made prisoners, nearly two thousand Eebels; and it had captured 
ten pieces of artillery. It had not lost one man captured; and neither a gun 
nor a wagon had fallen into the hands of the enemy; but nearly one-third of 
its number had been left dead on the field of battle, or had been carried away 
wounded. The Kanawha Division never lost the right to be called the best in 
an army where all were good. 

General Crook was assigned to command the District of the Kanawha, 
embracing that section of country south of the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad 
from Grafton to Parkersburg. But the troops had hardly settled in camp when 
Early's raid across the Potomac made it necessary for them to move to repel the 
invasion. General Crook arrived at Harper's Ferry on the 15th of July, and 
was directed to assume command of the troops then lying near Hillsboro'. 
Upon the arrival of General Wright he, by virtue of seniority, assumed com- 
mand, and directed General Crook to move his troops across the Shenandoah at 
Snicker's Ferry. It was supposed then that the main body of Early's army had 
retired, leaving only the cavalry to guard the ford. General Crook forced a 
passage about two miles below the ferry, and occuj^ied a strong position; but 
soon discovered that instead of Early having withdrawn his troops he was 
massing them, and evidently with the intention of making an attack. General 
Crook notified General Wright of his situation, but was directed to hold his 
position, and was promised re-enforcements. Early pressed the line closely, 
but General Crook's men fought gallantly, being encouraged by the arrival of 
the Sixth Corps on the opposite bank of the river. General Crook urged the 
commander of the Sixth Corjjs to cross the river immediately; but for some 
inexplicable reason that officer declined to advance, and General Crook was 
compelled to choose between having his command cut to pieces and crossing the 
river under fire. He chose the latter, and the troops recrossed in good order, 
but sufi'ered severely, losing nearly six hundred men killed, wounded, and 
captured. 

On the 20th of July General Crook was brevetted Major-General "for dis- 
tinguished gallantry and efficient services in the preceding campaign;" and 
being assigned to duty by the President in accordance with his brevet rank, he 
was placed in command of the forces of the Department of West Virginia, in 
the field, and was ordered to pursue Early up the Shenandoah Valley, and to 
destroy everything that could be of service to the enemy. So complete was to 
[be this destruction that, to quote from the order received, "a crow passing over 
the country would be obliged to carry his rations with him." General Crook 
remonstrated against this plan, stating that his command was much too small to 
'execute successfully these orders. The Army of West Virginia, as General 
Crook's command was styled, had a numerical strength of little more than ten 
thousand men. It consisted of two cavalry divisions, each comprising two small 
brigades; and of three infantry divisions, each comprising two brigades. The 
Vol. I.— 51. 






802 Ohio in the Wak. 

cavalry, much disorganized, worn out by long marches, poorly equipped, 
wi*etchedly mounted, and armed with inferior weapons, was almost worthless. 
Exception, however, should be made to Colonel Powell's brigade of Averill's 
division, but this brigade owed its efficiency solely to the skill, energy, and 
courage of its commander. A portion of the infantry was made up of the debris 
of camj) and rendezvous; and one provisional regiment of eleven hundred men 
was composed of detachments from fiftj'-one different regiments. In addition 
to this it would probably have been impossible to have found a single soldier 
completely equipped; many were almost naked, and fully one-third were bare- 
foot. It was in vain to hope for success under such circumstances; but General 
Crook's orders were peremptory. On the 23d of Julj^ there was some skirmish- 
ing, and on the 24th the enemy appeared in force. General Crook's command j 
made a stand, but the enemy was greatly superior in numbers. The trains were ( 
moved out, and slowly and deliberately the troops fell back to Harper's Ferry, 

General Sheridan was now transferred to the Shenandoah Yalley, and under i 
him the Army of the Shenandoah was organized. The Army of West Virginia f 
was placed on the extreme left, and moved with Sheridan's forces to Cedar i 
Creek, and after several days' skirmishing, fell back, with the entire army, to 
Halltown. Several reconnoissances were made by General Crook's command i 
while the army lay at Halltown. These were attended with considerable loss, 
but were uniformly successful. On the Ist of SejDtember the Army of the( 
Shenandoah again moved forward, and after the fight at Berryville went into 
camp for two weeks near Summit Point. General Crook had been assigned, 
meantime, to the command of the Department of West Yirginia, and he exerted 
himself to the utmost in making the Army of West Virginia efficient. The 
much -needed sui^plies were iesued, recruits were brought up from hospitals, and 
the work of drilling and disciplining went on rapidly. On the 19th of Septem- 
ber the Army of the Shenandoah moved from its lines, with the Army of West 
Virginia on the right. At the battle of Opequan the Army of West Virginia 
was at first placed in reserve, but it was soon ordered forward, and by a vigor- 
ous charge turned the enemy's flank, and insured victory. In this battle Gen- 
eral Crook's command lost nine hundred men killed and wounded. At the 
battle of Fisher's Hill the Army of West Virginia executed a skillful flank 
movement, and, coming down upon the enemy's left and rear, carried everything 
before it. Eighteen pieces of artillery and many prisoners were captured.i 
General Crook's entire loss was less than three hundred men. For gallant con- 
duct at the battles of Opequan and Fisher's Hill General Crook was recom- 
mended by General Sheridan, after the close of the war, for the rank of Brevet 
Major-General United States Army. 

The march was continued up the Valley, and the cavalry advanced as far 
as Staunton. On the 6th of October the army commenced its return march, 
and on the 11th it went into camp near Middletown. At Cedar Creek General 
Crook's command occupied the portion of the line between the Winchester Pike 
and the river, on the left of the army. General Sheridan went to Washington, 
leaving General Wright in command of the army; and General Crook was 



George Ceook 803 

lengaged in strengthening his line, particularly his left and rear, which he con- 
isidered most exposed. General Crook called General Wright's attention to the 
■fact that the fords of the Shenandoah, below the left of the army, were not 
guarded. It was agreed that they should be strongly picketed by cavalry, but 
on the night of the 18th of October a force of Eebels crossed at the fords men- 
tioned, about two miles below the extreme left of the infantry picket-line, and 
.before daybreak on the 19th made a furious attack on the National lines, strik- 
ling an advanced division before the men were awake, and capturing a battery 
.before a shot could be fired. The left was driven back in confusion ; but a single 
brigade of Hayes's division checked the enemy for a moment, and gave the 
troops on the right time to form. About nine o'clock the Eebel advance was 
[checked, and about eleven o'clock an attack was repulsed. Preparations were 
made for an attack in return, when General Sheridan arrived on the field. His 
presence did much to restore confidence, and about four o'clock P. M. his lines 
(Charged the enemy, and drove him in confusion through Middletown, and over 
:Cedar Creek. Many prisoners, forty-nine pieces of artillery, and a large number 
of wagons were captured ; and twenty-four pieces of artillery, lost in the morn- 
|ing, were retaken. General Crook's command lost over one thousand men ; 
|more than half of these were captured. General Crook was promoted to full 
Major-General, and about the 1st of January, 1865, his army of West Virginia 
went into winter-quarters along the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad. The General 
established his head-quarters at Cumberland, Maryland, and was engaged in the 
duties incident to a department commander. 

About half-past two o'clock on the morning of the 2l8t of February a band 
of seventy picked men, under Lieutenant McNeil, of guerrilla notoriety, crossed 
the Potomac three or four miles above Cumberland. The advance-guard of this 
party, clothed in United States uniform, came upon the cavalry picket about 
two miles from town, and being challenged, promptly answered, "Friends;" 
representing themselves as a party of National cavalry returning from a scout. 
While this explanation was being made the main force came up and instantly 
captured the entire picket-line. The infantry pickets, a mile nearer town, were 
disposed of in the same manner. The party rode into town, and a portion, of 
them went to General Crook's head-quarters. The sentry challenged; they 
i-eplied, "Eelief; " and one man advanced as if to receive instructions, but instead, 
presented his revolver, and the sentry surrendered. The negro watchman was 
3ompelled to conduct the party to the General's room. He was captured, placed 
Dn a horse, and then the party set out on its return, having been in the town 
less than ten minutes. So rapidly and so quietly was the capture effected, that 
liad not one of the staff, four of whom occupied a room on the opposite side of 
Che hall from General Crook, been awake, the affair would probably not have 
been discovered for several hours. This officer, hearing a slight movement in 
the General's room, and. thinking he might be unwell, crossed the hall and found 
Lhe room vacant. His suspicions were aroused, and throwing up the window he 
tieard the clatter of hoofs, and saw the party disappearing down the street. 
The alarm was instantly given, and parties were started in pursuit, but they 



804 Ohio in the Wae. 

were unable to recapture the prisoners. General Crook was exchanged on the 
20th of March, and he again assumed command of the Department of West 
Virginia. On the next day, however, he was directed to report to General 
Grant, and was assigned to the command of the cavalry of the Army of the 
Potomac, with orders to report to General Sheridan. 

General Crook participated in all the movements of Sheridan's cavalry 
until the close of the war, and in the eleven days preceding General Lee's sur- 
render, his division lost one-third of its number in killed and wounded alone 
When General Sheridan was assigned to a command in the South -West, General 
Crook was placed in command of the Cavalry Corps, which he retained until 
relieved, at his own request, about the Ist of July. In August General Crook 
was ordered to report to General Schofield, in the Department of North Caro*- 
lina. He was assigned to the command of the District of Wilmington, and ho I 
remained in that position until honorably mustered out of the volunteer service j 
on the 15th of January, 1866. 



] 



MAJOR-GENERAL WAGER SWAYNE. 



WAGEE SWAYNE, eldest son of the Hon. N. H. Swayne, Associate 
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was born at Co- 
lumbus, Ohio, about the year 1835. At the age of seventeen he entered 
Tale College, where he graduated with credit, after considerable interruption 
on account of ill health ; and from that time until the breaking out of the war, 
he devoted himself to the study and practice of law in his native city. 

In the summer of 1861 Governor Dennison offered him the position of' 
M^jor in the Forty-Third Ohio Infantry. He assisted in organizing the regi- 
ment at Mount Vernon, and accompanied it to the field in February, 1862. Thei 
principal part of the first summer was spent at Bear Creek and Clear Creek, in 
the vicinity of Corinth. The regiment was engaged in the battles of luka and 
Corinth, and in the latter the Colonel of the regiment was killed. Major 
Swayne had, in the meantime, been promoted to the Lieutenant-Colonelcy, and 
he now succeeded to the Colonelcy. In December, the regiment went into camp 
at Bolivar, Tennessee, where the winter was spent. After a brief raid intc 
Northern Alabama, under General Dodge, the Forty-Third was stationed al 
Memphis. Here, for nine months, Colonel Swayne held the office of Provost 
Marshal, and discharged the duties to the satisfaction of all loyal citizens. Aftei 
the removal of the regiment to Prospect, in Middle Tennessee, the order in regarc 
to veteran furloughs was received, and Colonel Swayne's command was not slow 
in re-enlisting. 



[ Wager Swayne. 805 

Soon after returning to the field, the regiment moved on the Atlanta cam- 
paign, and during all the mai-ches and battles, Colonel Swayne conducted him- 
elf like a true soldier. At Eesaca he led his men across a bridge, fully exposed 
Eebel sharp-shootei's, and stationed them in an advanced position, with but 
)ne or two casualties ; and on all occasions he cheerfully shared the dangers and 
)rivations of the private soldier. During the interval of rest after the capture 
)f Atlanta, he commanded a brigade, but upon the march to the sea he accom- 
mnied his regiment. He moved on the campaign of the Carolinas, and at the 
salkahatchie was wounded severely in the right leg. The limb was ampu- 
,ated. and for some time Colonel Swayne was disabled for duty. He was pro- 
noted to Brigadier-General, and subsequently to Major-General, and in July, 
.865, he reported for duty at Montgomery, Alabama, as Assistant Commissioner 
)f Eefugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. 

Here, through the manifold troubles of the reorganization, General Swayne 
sontinued to bear himself no less honorably than- in the field. Eecognizing 
ilearly for what he had fought, and fully resolved that no act of his should help 
,0 cheat the nation out of the fruits of its victory, he steadily cast his influence 
n favor of impartial justice and equality before the law for all. The efforts of 
,he party which sought to give these principles practical recognition in the re- 
)rganization, found in him a firm supporter. He was prominent in .their public 
neetings, and soon became a civil as well as a military power in Alabama. 



806 Ohio in the Wae. 



MAJOR-GENERAL ALEXANDER M. McCOOK. 



ALEXANDBE M. McCOOK was born in Columbiana County, Ohio,) 
on the 22d of Api'il, 1831. He removed with his parents to Carroll I 
County, in 1832, and at the age of sixteen was appointed a cadet at 
West Point. He graduated July 1, 1852, with a standing which entitled him! 
to appointment as Brevet Second-Lieutenant in the Third Infantry. He reported 
for duty at Newport Barracks, September 30th, and on the 14th of May, 1853,1 
was ordered to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. He joined company E, of the* 
Third Infantry, in August, 1853, and in June, July, and August of the following; 
year, he was engaged in the campaign against the Apaches. He was promoted 
to Second-Lieutenant on the 30th of June, 1854, and in the following September! 
he reported for duty at Fort Union, New Mexico. In February, 1855, Lieuten- 
ant McCook was appointed Commissary in a campaign against the Utah Indians- 
and other tribes. He served in this campaign until September, participating in 
the actions at Sawatchie Pass and the head- waters of the Arkansas. On the 
30th of September he reported for duty at Cantonment Buryuni, New Mexico. 
In Mai'ch, 1856, he was appointed chief guide of an expedition against the 
Indians of Arizona, and he also served as the Adjutant-General of the command- 
He participated in the battle of Grila Hivei*, and in all the skirmishes of the cam- 
paign until October, when he again repoi'ted at Cantonment Buryuni. He was 
in command of that post from July to October, 1857, and in December of the 
same year he received sixty days' leave. 

He reported at the Military Academy as Instructor of Infantry Tactics,., 
January 14, 1858, and remained there until April 22, 1861, when he was ordered I 
to Columbus, Ohio, as mustering and disbursing officer. He was here appointed. I 
Colonel of the First Ohio Infantry, a three-months' regiment, and on the 29th 
of April he assumed command of the Ohio Camp at Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 
In May he marched with his regiment to the defense of Washington City. 
Colonel McCook was promoted to Captain in the Third United States Infantry, 
May 14, 1861. He participated in the affair at Vienna, Virginia, June 17th, 
and he commanded the First Ohio in the battle of Bull Eun, July 21, 1861^ , 
receiving commendation for the handsome manner in which he handled hi&< 
regiment. In August Colonel McCook was again appointed Colonel of the • 
First Ohio, now a three-years' regiment, and in December he was commissioned 
Brigadier-General of volunteers. 

He reported for duty at Louisville, and on the 14th of October assumed 
command of the advance of the army at Nolin Eiver, Kentucky. He organized, 
equipped, and instructed the Second Division, Army of the Ohio, and in February, 



Alexander M. McCook. 807 

1862, led that division in Buell's advance against Nashville. With the rest of 

Buell's army he next marched across Tennessee toward Savannah, and on the 

7th of April General McCook commanded his division in the last day's action at 

I the battle of Pittsburg Landing, again handling his troops so as to receive the 

j approval of his superiors. He commanded the reserve of the Army of the Ohio 

in the advance upon and siege of Corinth. His division, however, was engaged 

at Bridge's Creek and at Seratt's Hill. In June General McCook marched with 

I his division into East Tennessee. On the 17th of Jul}' he was ap^Dointed Major- 

General of volunteers. On the withdrawal of the army to Louisville, General 

' McCook commanded a column, composed of the Second Division, Arm}' of the 

I Ohio, and General E. B. Mitchel's division, Army of the Mississippi. 

In the advance from Louisville he commanded the First Corps of the Army 
i of the Ohio, consisting of Rousseau's and Jackson's divisions. With these he 
! brought on the battle of Perryville, contrary to the spirit of his instructions, 
f and before the army was prepared to sustain him. The commanding General, 
f in his official report, censured him for having thus undertaken a task beyond his 
I strength, but left him in command of this corps during the pursuit of Bragg to 
Crab Orchard, Kentucky. 

Under General Eosecrans, who now assumed command of the army, General 
McCook led his troops to Nashville in the latter part of October. On the 26th of 
December he moved with the army against the Eebels at Murfreesboro', and in 
the battle of Stone Eiver he commanded the right wing, which was so suddenly 
routed and crushed by Bragg's onset. General Eosecrans here censured the 
formation of his lines. He displayed, as he always did, fine personal bravery, 
but few after this battle believed in his capacity to handle so large a command. 
General Eosecrans, however, retained him, and in December, 1863, in the 
reorganization of his forces, assigned General McCook to the Twentieth Corps, 
Army of the Cumberland, which he led through the Tullahoma campaign, par- 
ticipating in the action of Liberty Gap, and at skirmishes at Tullahoma, Elk 
Eiver, and Winchester. General McCook continued to command the corps in 
the Chattanooga campaign, and in the battle of Chickamauga, whex-e again his 
lines were broken, crushed, and driven in wild retreat toward Chattanooga.* 
He was now relieved from command, October 6, 1863. This disaster, added to 
the others which had occurred under his management, led to much public and 
official censure. To relieve himself. General McCook asked for a Court of In- 
quiry. The request was granted, and Generals Hunter, Cadwallader, and Wads- 
worth, and Colonel Schriver were detailed for the Court. The following is an 
extract from the findings and opinions in General McCook's case: 

"It appears from the investigation that Major-General McCook's command, on the 19th of 
September, 1863, the first day of the battle of Chickamauga, consisted of Sheridan's and Davis's 
divisions, and of Negley's temporarily, .Johnson's having been detached to Thomas's command. 
The evidence shows that General McCook did his whole duty on that day with activity and intel- 
ligence. Early on the 20th of September General McCook had under his command the divisions 
of Sheridan and Davis, the latter only thirteen to fourteen hundred strong. . . . The posting 

* For the details of this, which relieve General McCook from a large share of the blame, see 
ante, Life of Rosecrans. 



808 Ohio in the War. 

of these troops was not satisfactory to the commanding General, who, in person, directed several 
changes between eight and ten A. M. . . . The Court deem it unnecessary to express an 
opinion as to the relative merits of the position taken by General McCook, and that subsequently 
ordered to be taken by the commanding General ; but it is apparent from the testimony that Gen- 
eral McCook was not responsible for tlie delay in forming the new line on that occasion. It fur- 
ther appears that General McCook was impressed with the vital importance of keeping well closed 
to the left, and maintaining a compact center, but he was ordered to hold the Dry Valley Road; . 
this caused the line to be attenuated, as stated in the testimony of the commanding General, who ;; 
says that its length was greater than he thought when first assumed. It is shown, too, that the ; 
cavalrv did not obey General McCook's orders. The above facts, and the additional one, that , ; 
the small force at General McCook's disposal was inadequate to defend against greatly superior . 
numbers the long line hastily taken, under instructions, relieve General McCook entirely from 
the responsibility for the reverse which ensued. It is fully established that General McCook did 
everything he could to rally and hold his troops after the line was broken." 

The design of this report, which so carefully evaded the point on which the 
whole question turned (in fiiiling to inquire whether, in this formation of the 
line which the commanding General disapproved the moment he saw it, General 
McCook had displayed the capacity necessary in one holding such a position), 
was very apparent. But it failed to accomplish its purpose, either with the War 
Department or the people. None questioned the General's bravery or his desire ^ 
to do all he knew how to repair disasters, but he was never again trusted in any 
position of high responsibility. 

In November, 1864, he was assigned to some (mostly) unimportant duties 
in the Middle Division, and on the 12th of February, 1865, he was placed in 
command of the Eastern District of Arkansas. On the 6th of the following 
May he was ordered to represent the War Department in the investigation of 
Indian aflPairs, with a committee from both Houses of Congress, in the State of 
Kansas and in the Territories of New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. On the 21st 
of October, 1865, he was mustered out as Major-General of volmiteers, retaining 
his rank in the regular service, in which he soon rose, by regular gradations, to 
a Lieutenant-Colonelcy.* 

He has received the following brevet commissions in the regular army: 
Brevet Major, for "gallant and meritorious services" at the battle of Bull Eun, 
July 21, 1861; Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, for "gallant and meritorious services" 
in the capture of Nashville, March 3, 1862; Brevet Colonel, for "gallant and 
meritorious services" at the battle of Pittsburg Landing, April 7, 1862; Brevet 

* General McCook's political views before the war were Southern and Democratic. Much 
complaint once existed concerning his unpleasant manifestation of these views, in the manner 
described at the time by an admiring slaveholder to a Nashville paper, whose account of it Mr. 
Greeley has preserved. (Amer. Conflict, Vol. II, p. 245.) "He visited the camp of General 
McCook in Maury County, in quest of a fugitive ; and that oflScer, instead of throwing obstacles 
in the way, aiforded him every facility for the successful prosecution of his search. That Gen- 
eral treated him in the most courteous and gentlemanly manner, as also did General Johnson 
and Captain Blake, the Brigade Provost-Marshal. Their conduct toward him was in all respects 
that of high-toned gentlemen, desirous of discharging their duties promptly and honorably. It 
is impossible for the army to prevent slaves from following them, but whenever the fugitives come 
into the lines of General McCook they are secured, and a record is made of their names and the 
names of their owners. All the owner has to do is to apply, either in person or through an 
agent, examine the record or look at the slaves; and if he finds any that belong to him, take them 
away." Shortly after this Congress passed a law prohibiting army slave-catching. 



Mortimer I). Leggett. 809 

Brigadier-General for "gallant and meritorious services" at the battle of Perry- 
ville, to date from the 13th of March, 1865, and Brevet Major- General, for "gal- 
lant and meritorious services" in the field during the war. 

It was the misfortune of General McCook, that in the universal rawness at 
the outset of the war, his familiarity with the subject of tactics, which he had 
been engaged in teaching at West Point, was mistaken for military genius. 
High promotions naturally ensued long before he had any opi:>ortunity to grow, 
practically, up to them, and as naturally the repeated disappointments in his 
performance led to a revulsion which went, perhaps, as far to the other extreme. 



MAJOR-GENERAL MORTIMER D. LEGGETT. 



M 



OETIMEE D. LEGGETT was born in Ithaca, New York, April 
19th, 1831. His parents were Friends, and he was educated in the 
peculiar doctrines of that non-resistant people. When he was sixteen 
years old he emigrated to Ohio, and settled in Geauga County. He had few 
opportunities for attending school, but he studied at nights, under the direction 
of his parents, and by this means he acquired such an education as to secure 
the voluntary bestowal of literary degrees by several Western colleges. He 
organized the first system of union classified schools in the State, at Akron, 
under a special law. Though admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-two, his 
time was occupied entirely with the cause of popular education until at the age 
of twenty-eight he commenced the practice of law at Warren, Trumbull County, 
Ohio. In the fall of 1857 he removed to Zanesville, and continued to practice 
law and to superintend the public schools of that city until the fall of 1861, 
when he was authorized by Governor Dennison to recruit a regiment. 

He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-Eighth Ohio Infantry, 
on the 18th of December, 1861, and was promoted to Colonel on the 11th of 
January, 1862. He accompanied his regiment to the field, and arrived at Fort 
Donelson during the hard fighting on the 15th of February. Upon the surren- 
der of the fort, he was appointed Provost-Marshal. For the eflficient manner 
in which he performed his duties he received the warmest praise from General 
Grant, and has enjoyed ever since his personal friendship. At Pittsburg Land- 
ing the regiment distinguished itself, and waa honorably mentioned in General 
Orders. In this battle Colonel Leggett was wounded. He participated in the 
siege of Corinth, and on the 16lh of May, while engaged in a spirited little 
fight, his horse was shot, and in the fall he himself was severely injured. How- 
ever, he immediately mounted another horse, which, during the battle, was also 
wounded. 

After the evacuation of Corinth he was placed in command of a brigade, 



810 Ohio in the Wak. 

and was ordered to seize and hold Jackson, Tennessee. He surprised the en- 
emy and captured all his camp and garrison equipage, a large amount of com- 
missary, quartermaster, and ordnance stores, and many prisoners. When the 
main body of the army came up, he was sent to Grand Junction and La Grange, 
where, during the summer of 1862, he was frequently engaged in skirmishes 
with the enemy, and was uniformly successful. On the 30th of August, at Bol- 
ivar, Tennessee, he, with eight hundred men, fought the Eehel Generals Arm- 
strong, Jackson, and Forrest, with seven thousand men, for more than seven 
hours, and finally drove them from the field. Here he was again slightly 
wounded. 

He was j^romoted to Brigadier-General on the 29th of November, 1862. 
He participated in all the battles preliminary to the siege of Yicksburg, and at 
Champion Hills was severely wounded at the beginning of the fight. He con- 
cealed the wound even from his stafi", and remained on the field commanding 
his troops throughout the battle. During the siege he occupied a prominent 
position in front of Fort Hill, and was wounded twice, once severely. On the 
4th of July he was honored with the advance in entering the city. 

General Leggett commanded the Third Division, Seventeenth Corps, from 
the siege of Yicksburg to the close of the war, except when temporarily in 
command of the corps, which was very frequently the case. He was engaged 
at Bushy Mountain, Nicojack Creek, Kenesaw Mountain, and Atlanta July 
22d and 28th. The battle of the 22d was fought principally by his division. 
He was on Sherman's march to the sea, and at the taking of Pocotaligo, South 
Carolina. He was brevetted Major-General from July 22d, 1864, and was ap- 
pointed full Major-General from the 15th of January, 1865. He resigned on 
the 22d of July, 1865, and his resignation was accepted November 1st of the 
same year. 

After the siege of Yicksburg he received from his corps commander, as the 
award of a Board of Honor, a gold medal, inscribed "Fort Donelson, Shiloh, 
Siege of Coi'inth, Bolivar, luka. Champion Hills, Yicksburg." He is a strictly 
moral man, never drinks anything that will intoxicate, never smokes cigars, 
never chews tobacco, never uses profane language, and never plays cards; and 
drinking and card-playing were always prohibited at his head-quarters. His 
services lasted from the beginning to the close of the war ; they were always 
honorable, often arduous, and sometimes distinguished, so that in the end he 
came to command the trust of his superiors, the admiration of his soldiers, and 
that gratitude from the country which all deserve who add capacity and skill 
to their personal devotion. 



m 



Charles W. Hill. 811 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES W. HILL. 



CHAELES W. HILL is a native of Yermont, though from six years 
of age he has resided nearly all the time in Ohio, and since March, 
1836, in Toledo. His father was a native of New Hampshire, and his 
mother of Connecticut, and their ancestors were among the earlj^ settlers of 
New England. 

In June, 1839, he was admitted to the bar, and on the Ist of October fol- 
lowing became a partner of Judge Tilden, late of Cincinnati, in the practice of 
the law. From that time until called into the military service, in June, 1861, 
his practice was large. 

From boyhood he had shown decided aptness for military duty, and 
endeavored to keep well informed in military matters. In April, 1861, he 
spent some time in the instruction of the officers and men of the Fourteenth 
Ohio. Early in June of that year he was invited by Governor Dennison to 
take command of the Twenty-Fifth Ohio (three-years' regiment), but circum- 
stonces did not then permit him to leave home for so long a period. On the 
15th of June Governor Dennison requested him, by telegram, to accept a Brig- 
adier-General's commission for service in West Virginia. At Grafton he 
reported to General McClellan. About the same time an aj^pointment of Major 
in the Thirteenth United States Infantry (regulars) reached him, but he de- 
clined. He was placed in command of a district extending from Wheeling and 
Parkersburg east to the Cheat Eiver, including both railroad lines. In General 
McClellan's instructions is the following: "The Commanding General instructs 
me to add that he has intrusted to you the most important duty next to his own 
in this territory, viz. : That of securing the base of his operations and line of 
retreat. At any cost — that of your last man — you will preserve the Cheat 
Eiver line, Grafton, and the line thence to Wheeling. On this depends the 
entire success of the plan of operations." The performance of this duty 
involved the scattering of his troops over about two hundred and fifty miles of 
posts, in small detachments. General McClellan estimated the Eebel army, at 
and near Laurel Hill, at ten thousand men. For immediate service against 
them he appropriated about twenty thousand troops, and was so persistent in 
his order to forward troops, and so unready to comply with General Hill's 
often -repeated request (and his own promises) to allow some disposable forces 
with which to operate to the east, in anticipation of the possible escape of Gar- 
nett's army, that up to the time of that escape not a man had been furnished to 
General Hill available for such service. Nevertheless, at the risk of weaken- 



812 Ohio in the Wae. 

ing General McClellan's " line of retreat," and without being able to get the 
approval of that officer, he withdrew portions of detachments from several of 
the posts and pushed them out by way of Oakland and Cheat River to West 
Union, under Colonel Irvine. On the 9th of July Colonel Irvine telegraphed 
General Hill : " Our increased knowledge clearly indicates the occupancj' of 
the Junction (Red House) as the proper position for our troops." He was re- 
ferred to the views of the engineers already known to him, and instructed to 
act on his best judgment. On the 12th he reported : " My main force will be 
at the mill mentioned (Chisholm's), eight miles from Oakland, with a strong 
advance at the Red House — say two or three hundred men." On the 13th, at 
eleven A. M., a telegram reached General Hill at Grafton, dated 12th, at Bev- 
erly, and 13th, at Roaring Run, announcing the escape of the Rebel forces 
north-easterly, via Leedsville, and directing General Hill to take the field at 
once with all the force he could make available to cut off their retreat, saying 
that two Pennsj^lvania regiments at Cumberland had been ordei"ed to report to 
him at Rowlesburg, and directing him to withdraw detachments on the rail- 
roads between Wheeling and Parkersburg, and concentrate by specials trains, 
adding: "It is supposed that jou will be able to take the field with, say, six 
thousand men, including Colonel Irvine's command, and at least four guns." 
Believing Colonel Irvine to be in the position indicated by him on the 12th, 
General Hill telegraphed him: " The Rebels are driven out of Laurel Hill, and 
in full retreat eastward on St. George's Pike. Hold your position with firm- 
ness to the last man. I will re-enforce you in person, and with all available 
forces, as soon as possible." No Pennsylvania regiments came, or were ex- 
pected. The guns at Grafton were manned by a new company, without a sin- 
gle horse or set of harness. The utmost dispatch was had in ordering trains, 
troops, and supplies; but the entire command was almost destitute of teams 
with which to move away from the railroad lines, and only a few could be got 
by impressment. Having made such arrangements as he could at Grafton, 
General Hill, with a portion of his staff and four companies of infantry, took 
the first train east to Oakland. Thence, about eleven o'clock that night, he 
dispatched three companies, under Major Walcott, to report to Colonel Irvine 
at Chisholm's mill, himself remaining to hurry up troops by aid of the tele- 
graph, and to move on with them on their arrival. No other companies 
reached Oakland so as to be disembarked before the 14th. On reaching Chis- 
holm's mill Major Walcott found that Colonel Irvine had stationed his whole 
command at West Union ; he had also drawn in all his scouts and pickets on or 
near the Rebel line of retreat, on the afternoon of the 13th, leaving a space 
eight miles in width entirely open to the Rebel army, whose rear-guard passed 
the Red House, going east, at five o'clock on the morning of the 14th, eighteen 
hours after the time when General Hill received his orders from Genei-al 
McClellan. Colonel Irvine having news of the passage of the Rebel army soon 
after six o'clock on the morning of the 14th, ordered his trooi)S upon the pur- 
suit, starting eight miles west of the Red House. The j)ursuit was continued 
fourteen miles, at wliich ]ioint General Hill, with six mounted men, overtook 



Chakles W. Hill 813 

the command. The Eebel army was reported at least five miles in advance. 
(In point of fact it Avas eight miles in advance, and had burned the bridge over 
Ston}" Eiver.) There was no possibility of moving toward the Eebel army, 
except by following in their track. The country was sparsely settled, and all 
available supplies were exhausted. The troops, numbering some twelve hun- 
dred, Avere without breakfost, some of them without supper the night before ; 
in all their haversacks there was not half a meal for the command, and they 
were without transportation. For these reasons General Hill ordered them 
back to the Eed House. Most of the troops ordered had come up on the 14th 
and 15th, and scouts on the afternoon of the 15th reported that the Eebel army 
had encamped on the night of the 14th at Greenland, where it still remained, 
and had burned the bridge at the gap in rear of its camp. Finding that the 
position could be turned by either of two routes. General Hill disj^atched a col- 
umn, under Colonel Morton, by rail to New Creek Station, to move thence ujion 
the enemy's left flank ; and at five o'clock P. M. of that day moved with the 
Fifth and Eighteenth Ohio from Oakland, by a diagonal line, to the bridge on 
the North-West Pike, over the west branch of the Potomac, at which point he 
was to be joined by Colonel Irvine's command from the Eed House, intending 
to turn the Eebel right and cut them off before they could reach Petersburg. 
After his arrangements were all made, and orders issued, General Hill received 
a telegram from General McClellan, dated the 14th, at Huttonsville, announcing 
the action at Carrick's Ford and the death of General Garnett, and saying : " I 
charge you to complete your operations by the capture of the remainder of his 
force. If you have but one regiment, attack and check them until others 
arrive. You may never have such another opportunity. Do not throw it 
away. Conduct this movement in person, and follow them a Voutrajice." 'Gen- 
eral Hill was executing this order before he knew of its existence, and marched 
with his column over the Alleghany Mountains, a distance of thirty-five and 
one-half miles, within twenty-four hours after leaving Oakland. News carried 
to the enemy's camp of the approach of Colonel Morton, who had been discov- 
ered from the top of Knobby Mountain, induced the Eebels to break up and 
move toward Petersburg. At four o'clock the next morning General Hill, with 
about eight hundred picked men, in light marching order, started for an addi- 
tional forced march, but, after moving about five miles, was overtaken by a 
courier with a dispatch from General McClellan, ordering him to return. 

In a communication from General McClellan to General Hill, dated the 5th 
of July, General McClellan said : " Your course thus far has been in all resjjects 
judicious and soldierly." But having, on the 14th of July, in an official dis- 
patch to Washington, declared : '• We have completely annihilated the enemy 
in Western Virginia — (when, in point of fact, in killed, wounded, and prison- 
ers he could not account for over one-eighth of his own estimate of the Eebel 
strength) — and having, upon such exaggerated reports, acquired a great repu- 
tation. General McClellan now found it necessary to lay the blame for the 
escape of Garnett's army upon General Hill. 

In passing through Grafton, on his way to Washington, General McClel- 



814 Ohio in the Wak. 

Ian promised General Hill, in the presence of General Eosecraus, that, as soon 
as he should receive General Hill's report, he would examine the subject and 
publicly announce his conclusions. That report was sent to him before the 5th 
of August, 1861. He never made a report to the War Department upon his 
West Virginia campaign, and never afterward publicly announced, in any 
official way, any conclusion with reference to General Hill's acts. 

After General Eosecrans took command of the Department of the Ohio he 
assigned General Hill to the command of his second brigade of three-years' 
troops ; but, as the General held only a State commission, the order was soon 
revoked. He was ordered to report to the Governor of Ohio, to be assigned to 
the command of Camp Chase, as a camp of rendezvous and instruction. He 
was here retained until the 18th of December, 1861, wher , at his own request, 
he was relieved. He had kept up an officers' school, and attended diligently in 
person to the instruction, drill, and discipline of the troops. 

General Hill was now well supported in an effort to secure an appointment 
from the President as Brigadier-General, but popular censure had largely fol- 
lowed in the track of McClellan's censure for his conduct in West Virginia. 
This, and the influence of McClellan himself— then all-powerful at Washing- 
ton — prevented his success. 

He was subsequently asked by Governor Tod if he would accept the 
Colonelcy of the Sixty-Seventh Ohio, in accordance with the wishes of the 
officers, and he answered in the affirmative, but circumstances prevented the 
appointment. A month or two later he was appointed Adjutant-General of 
Ohio. 

In 1862 Ohio had been menaced by Eebel forces in Kentucky and Vir- 
ginia, and, to repel them, had been forced to depend chiefly upon the " Squir- 
rel Hunters." These demonstrations induced the Legislature, at the session of 
1862-3, to pass a law requiring the organization of the entire militia of the 
State, and also to authorize a volunteer force by formal enlistments. The con- 
sequent additions to the duties of the Adjutant-General's office involved a great 
increase of work. Three hundred and ten regiments and battalions of militia 
were organized, officered, and commissioned; a large force of volunteers was 
enlisted and fully organized, and they and the commissioned officers of the 
militia were brought into camp and instructed. The returns for the season 
showed forty-three thousand nine hundred and thirty volunteers " available for 
duty ; but none of these organizations were complete at the time of Morgan's 
raid through the State in July, 1863. General Hill held public meetings in the 
larger towns and cities, and devoted himself to the woi-k of organizing the 
militia with an energy much beyond his power of endurance. At the office his 
whole time, except when taking his meals, or getting a little sleep in the late 
hours of the night, was occupied ; and even Sunday brought little rest. The 
result of this labor was serious illness in the latter part of 1863, from the 
effects of which he never recovered. 

The volunteer militia organized by him was afterward known as the Na- 
tional Guard. His successor found them ready for any call on the shortest 



Chaeles W. Hill. 815 

notice, so that all he had to do in 1864 was to issue his telegram, and the Na- 
tional Guard came, readj- for the required hundred-dajs' service. 

Earlj^ in 1864 General Hill, now in broken health, was given the oi^portu- 
nitj- of commanding a regiment, for which he had more than once asked, to be 
relieved from the duties of the Adjutant-General's office. He was made Colonel 
of the One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Ohio, for service at Johnson's Island, 
which the Eebel machinations in Canada had suddenly made a point of consid- 
erable importance. Before leaving Columbus he was invited by the Standing 
Committees on Military Affairs of the two Houses to meet with them and his 
successor, and present his views of the policy to be pursued by the State. 
Afterward a military bill, reported by Senator Connell, of the same committee, 
was sent to Colonel Hill for his suggestions. He gave it thorough attention, 
proposing a large number of amendments, including a change of name of the 
volunteer militia from " Ohio State Guard " to "National Guard." Most of his 
amendments were adopted verbatim by the Legislature. 

On the 9th of May, 1864, Colonel Hill assumed command of the troops at 
Sandusky and vicinity, with full authority over the lake frontier in that region, 
without regard to seniority of rank. Some of the work devolved upon him 
will be seen in the sketch of the One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth (Yol. II), 
the direct command of which he retained during the most of its service. In 
addition to his proper duties he was required, by orders from Washington, to 
receipt and be responsible for the current money of the Eebel prisoners, which 
averaged, from day to day, about twenty-five thousand dollars. He was banker 
for about three thousand depositors, having to supervise all their financial 
transactions, and to settle with and pay them on being discharged. In the time 
of general discharges of prisoners and of considerable exchanges, it was a 
common thing to settle with and pay off over three hundred depositors each 
day for several days in succession ; and scarcely any dissatisfaction was ever 
manifested by the prisoners in their settlements. 

Colonel Hill was mustered out with his regiment on the 17th of July, 1865. 
During his command at the Island several offers were made to ask a brevet for 
him, but he declined any kind offices in that direction until the War Depart- 
ment should get time to pass upon his services in West Virginia. That time 
came after he left the service, with a brevet commission of Brigadier-General, 
and following that a brevet commission of Major-General, with rank from 
March 13, 1865. 



816 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN C. TIDBALL. 



JOHN C. TIDBALL was born in Ohio County, Virginia, but at an 
early age he emigrated with his parents to Belmont County, Ohio. He 
was brought up as a farmer, and after receiving a common-school edu- 
cation he entered West Point in 1844. In 1848 he graduated, standing eleventh 
in a class of thirty-eight. He was appointed Brevet Second-Lieutenant in the 
Third United States Artillery, and in the fall he joined Sherman's battery of 
that regiment. In February, 1849, he was appointed Second-Lieutenant in the 
Second Artillery, and in the spring he joined his company at Savannah. In the 
summer of 1849, and until the winter of 1851, he was in Florida. He was then 
ordered to Charleston Harbor. In March, 1853, he was promoted to Fii-st-Lieu- 
tenant, and joined his company at Fort Defiance, New Mexico. At this post he 
only remained a few months, when he was detailed to accompany Cajjtain (sub- 
sequently General) Whipple in his explorations for a Pacific Eailroad route. 
This duty occupied the winter of 1853-4 and the ensuing spring. The next fall 
he was assigned to duty on the Coast Survey, and he continued on this duty 
until the fall of 1859, when he rejoined his company, then stationed at the Artil- 
lery School of Practice, at Fortress Monroe. After a short stay he was trans- 
ferred to company A, of his regiment, and ordered to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

Before the opening of the rebellion the company was ordered to Washing- 
ton, to form part of General Scott's force assisting at the first inauguration of 
President Lincoln. The battery, with horses and equij)ments, was then dis- 
patched on the secret expedition for the relief and re-enforcement of Fort 
Pickens. The battery assisted in putting that post in a defensible condition, 
and in July returned to New York, and was at once hurried to Washington to 
participate in the Manassas campaign. Lieutenant Tidball had, in the mean- 
time, been promoted to Captain, May 14, 1861, and in this campaign he com- 
manded the battery. Soon after the Manassas campaign Captain Tidball organ- 
ized his Light Battery into a Horse Battery, having all the cannoniers mounted. 
This was the first battery of the sort organized in the United States, and as it 
was new, there were many skeptical critics ; but as the war progressed the effi- 
ciency of horse-batteries became appax^ent, and others were organized. 

In the spring campaign of 1862 Captain Tidball, with his battery, accom- 
panied the Army of the Potomac to the peninsula, and assisted in the siege of 
Yorktown. Upon the evacuation of that place he joined in the pursuit, under 
Stoneman, and, near Williamsburg, participated in a skirmish which was the 
forerunner of the battle of the next day. Captain Tidball continued in the 



John C. Tidball. 817 

advance of the Army of the Potomac, and pressed the enemy closely, and in an 
action at Mechanicsville, May 23d and 24th, his battery played a conspicuous 
part. After the battle of Mechanicsville General Porter directed Captain Tid- 
ball to cover, with his battery, the withdrawal of the army to a new position, at 
Gaines's Hill. In this duty he was in no way assisted or supported by other 
troops, but by successively retiring as the Eebels advanced, and taking up new 
positions, he was able to hold them in check, and to rejoin the main force, which 
took up its new line of battle unmolested. In the battle of Gaines's Hill Cap- 
tain Tidball reported to General Sykes, on the right, where the enemy was 
pressing upon the flank of the National army. He placed his guns on the right 
of Weed's — already in position — and by their united efforts, six successive attacks 
were repulsed; and the flank was held against Jackson's efforts until the other 
portions of the line were forced so far back that the batteries were in danger of 
being captured. About dark they were withdrawn to the other side of the river. 
On the 1st of July the last of the seven days' battle took place at Malvern 
Hill. Captain Tidball's battery was held in reserve until near the close of the 
day, when a furious assault was made, and all the reserve batteries were thrown 
forward in mass, and by their fearful fire the enemy was checked. In this 
movement Captain Tidball's battery took most honorable part. On the 3d of 
July the enemy made a reconnoissance in force, at Harrison's Landing, and 
commenced shelling the National troops, who, on account of the rain and mud, 
had not yet taken up the line of defense fully, and now heard the enemy's guns 
with considerable consternation. Captain Tidball was ordered out immediately, 
and throwing his battery well to the front, he succeeded in driving off the 
enemy. When the Army of the Potomac withdrew from Harrison's Landing 
Captain Tidball remained with the cavalry to cover the rear, and consequently 
was prevented from participating in the second Manassas campaign. He joined 
the Army of the Potomac again on the march to Antietam, and at daylight on 
morning of September 15th, the day after the battle of South Mountain, he 
started with the cavalry, under General Pleasanton, in hot pursuit of the enemy. 
The Eebel rear-guard was overtaken a short distance beyond Boonsboro', and 
after a sharp skirmish the National cavalry was driven back in confusion; and 
it was not until Captain Tidball brought up his pieces that order was restored, 
and the enemy routed. Continuing the pursuit toward Hagerstown a circuitous 
march brought them to Antietam. General Eichardson, marching his infantry 
division by a shorter route, arrived at the same time, but without his artillery. 
His combative zeal led him to insist that Captain Tidball should place his guns 
on an eminence and open fire; which was no sooner done than the enem}^ con- 
centrated all his batteries upon Tidball, who maintained the unequal contest in 
a manner nowise unfavorable to himself About eight o'clock on the morning 
of the Antietam battle Captain Tidball was directed to cross the center bridge, 
on the turnpike leading from Boonsboro' to Sharpsburg. The Fourth Pennsyl- 
vania Cavalry preceded him, under Colonel Childs, but the Colonel was killed, 
and the regiment withdrawn, leaving the Captain to drive back the skirmishers 
with canister, and to establish his battery on an eminence well advanced toward 
YoL. I.— 52. 



818 Ohio in the War. 

Sliarj)sbui"g. Although suflFering considerably, he held his position until after 
dark, when, the battle having ceased, he was ordered to withdraw from such an 
exposed point. Captain Tidball moved with the cavalry in pursuit of the re- 
treating Eebels, and at the crossing of the Potomac he had a spirited artillery 
contest with the enemy's batteries, posted to cover the crossing. 

Unimportant marches and reconnoissances occupied the time until Novem- 
ber 1, 1862, when Captain Tidball was assigned to the cavalry division under 
General Averill, who, in conjunction with General Pleasanton, guarded the 
right flank of the army, as it moved from Harper's Ferry to Fredericksburg. 
The enemy was moving at the same time in a jDarallel direction, and a succession 
of flank collisions took place. The most important of these were at Piedmont, 
Markham, and Amissville ; in all of which Captain Tidball, with his battery 
was engaged. At the battle of Fredericksburg he had no opportunity of parti- 
cipating ; but he was held in readiness for any advantage that might arise. 

When the spring campaign of 1863 opened. Captain Tidball was selected to 
accompany General Stoneman on his raid, preparatory to the advance which 
resulted in the battle of Chancellorsville. Owing to heavy rains and swollen 
streams the expedition was much delayed, and consequently was not so fruitful 
of results as it otherwise would have been. Tidball's battery was attached im- 
mediately to Averill's command, which, passing through Culpepper, met the 
enemy May Ist in strong force, well intrenched, guarding the raih-oad bridge and 
ford across the Eapidan. The enemy were driven away sufficiently to destroy 
the bridge, and then the command, moving to Ely's Ford, crossed the river and 
entered the ISTational lines, at Chancellorsville, during the battle. After the 
battle of Chancellorsville the horse-batteries, eight in number, but afterward 
increased to twelve, were organized into two brigades ; one of them was under 
command of Captain Tidball, consisting of his own battery, with Graham's 
and Eandall's, of the First United States Artillery, and Fuller's, of the Third. 

In the Gettysburg campaign Tidball's artillery brigade was attached to 
Pleasanton's cavalry corps, and was engaged with the Eebel cavalry at Aldie's, 
Snicker's, Ashby's, and other gaps of the Blue Eidge. The batteries were al- 
most constantly engaged during the battle of Gettysburg, and in the pursuit 
they performed their duty with marked credit, particularly in the engagements 
at Boonsboro', Funkstown, Hagerstown, Falling Water, and Williamsport. In 
the month of August the Governor of New York appointed Captain Tidball 
Colonel of the Fourth Heavy Artillery, from that State. The regiment was 
stationed in the defenses of Washington, and though an old regiment, was some- 
what defective in discipline and instruction ; but by energetic labor these defi- 
ciencies were corrected, and in the following March Colonel Tidball moved with 
it, numbering over two thousand men, to the Army of the Potomac, where it 
was assigned to the Second Corps, under Hancock. Colonel Tidball was placed 
in command of the artillery brigade of that corps, consisting of thirteen bat- 
teries, in addition to his own regiment. In the battle of the Wilderness Colonel 
Tidball, on account of the nature of the ground, could place but three batteries 
in position. These rendered valuable service, particularly two of them, posted^ 



John C. Tidball. 819 

near the center of the Second Corps, where the enemy made a desperate assault 
and partly succeeded in breaking the National line. In the battles around 
Spottsylvania C. H., which soon foUoAved, Colonel Tidball's batteries again had 
ample opportunities for displaying their skill and hardihood. At the North 
Anna the enemy was strongly posted in redoubts^ on both sides of the river, for 
the protection of the bridges. General Hancock determined to assault, and as 
speedily as possible Colonel Tidball placed sixty guns in position, and com- 
menced playing on the enemy's works; and, without doubt, his artillery fire 
contributed greatly to the success of the assault. The Rebels did not have an 
opportunity to destroy the bridge, but their batteries, placed about twelve hun- 
dred yards from the bridge, commanded it completely, and prevented the 
National army from crossing. The batteries were so situated that Colonel Tid- 
ball could not silence them with his field-guns; but at night he placed six 
Cohorn mortars in position, and at daylight opened fire with them. This fire, 
at once strange and destructive to the enemy, had a magical efifect in suppress- 
ing his. This was the first occasion on which Cohorn mortars were used for 
field purposes in our service; but from this time onward they were in great 
demand for close fighting. Colonel Tidball continued to particij^ate with the 
Second Corps, and at Cold Harbor a portion of his batteries were posted on pre- 
cisely the same ground whicli had been occupied previously, in the battle of 
Gaines's Hill. After the crossing of the James Colonel Tidball placed his bat- 
teries close upon the skirmish-line, and at the "Hare House" he threw up a 
light work, whi_ch grew into the shapeless figure called Fort Steedman, historic 
from the fierce assault made upon it by the enem}^ March 25, 1865. During the 
severe fighting of the succeeding days his batteries occupied a position on the 
most advanced line, and sustained themselves with spirit and skill. 

After fifty days' campaigning, with almost continuous fighting. Colonel 
Tidball was appointed Commandant of Cadets at the Military Academy, and 
was ordered to repair to West Point without delay. Just as Colonel Tidball was 
becoming settled in his duties an incident occurred which caused him to be 
immediately ordered to the field. A cadet, the son of a former law-j5artner of 
the Secretary of "Wai*, committed an offense, the penalty of which he attempted 
to escape by falsehood. He was brought to trial before a court-martial, ujJon 
charges preferred by Colonel Tidball; but as soon as the Secretary heard of the 
proceedings he ordered the trial to be stopped. The Judge-Advocate having 
doubted whether this ought to be done till the examination was concluded, the 
court went on. When the Secretary heai-d of this neglect of his order he dis- 
missed the Judge-Advocate from the service, and ordered Colonel Tidball to the 
field. The Colonel was very soon reinstated in the good opinion of his superior 
officers, and was brevetted Brigadier-General, to date from August 1, 1864. He 
rejoined the Army of the Potomac in the early part of October, and was 
assigned to the command of the Artillery Brigade, of the Ninth Corps, then 
occup3'ing the extreme left of the line on the Petersburg front. On the 1st of 
December the Ninth Corps exchanged positions with the Second, and occupied 
the right of the line from the Appomattox Eiver to, and some distance beyond, 



k 



820 Ohio in the Wae. * 

the Jerusalem Plank Eoad. On this portion of the line General Tidball had 
ninety guns and forty mortars, of various calibers; the enemy had about an 
equal amount of artillery opposed. This state of affairs continued until the 25th 
of March, when, just before daylight, the enemy rushed from his works, and, 
with but little resistance, captured Fort Steedman. Strong columns swept along 
the works to the right and left, until, approaching the neighboring batteries, 
they were checked and driven back. General Tidball hastened to the spot, and 
placed several batteries in position on a crest commanding Fort Steedman. All 
organization among the captors was destroyed by the batteries. It was, also, 
impossible for them to escape, as the three hundi-ed yards between the lines were ;, 
exposed to a sweeping ci'oss-fire of artillery. All resistance was crushed by the : 
artillery alone; and a division of infantry marched into Fort Steedman without! 
opposition, and captured a large number of prisoners. 

On the 30th of March the grand move commenced. A large portion of the ; 
Army of the James had been united with the Army of the Potomac, and the 
latter, leaving the Ninth Corps to hold its position, swung off toward the left to 
Five Forks. An assault along the whole line, at that time extending about 
fifteen miles, was ordered to take place at four o'clock A. M., April 2d. To 
accompany the assaulting column General Tidball selected a hundred artillery- 
men, under spirited officers. These carried primers, lanyards, and other imjjle- 
ments, and were to take charge of any artillery that might be captured, and to 
turn it upon the enemy. Other parties carried tools to cut through the parapets, 
to remove obstructions, and to prepare a road for the artillery, which was held 
in readiness to move. The assault was intended to be a surprise, and General 
Tidball did not open fire until the enemy's guns announced that the head of the' 
column was approaching the works. Genei-al Tidball immediately opened along 
the whole line, and the enemy did the same; and probably a more terrific can- 
nonade was never heard. The assault was successful, and the works were held 
against all attempts to retake them. The other portions of the army were like-- 
wise successful, and the enemy was in full retreat toward Burksville. This 
position of affairs threw the Ninth Corps in the rear, and while the other corp& 
were pursuing the enemy, the Ninth was charged with keeping open communi- 
cations with Petersburg. 

General Tidball collected and forwarded to City Point all the surplus artil- 
lery and ammunition, and then proceeded, with the corps, to Burksville. After 
the suri'ender he accompanied the corps lo Washington City, and participated in 
the grand review. He was placed in command of an artillery brigade in the 
defenses of Washington, and for gallant and meritorious services at Forts Steed 
man and Sedgwick, was made Brevet Major-General of Volunteers, to date from 
April 2, 1865. On the 1st of October he accompanied his regiment to New 
York harbor, where it was mustered out. 

General Tidball has been brevetted successively Major, Lieutenant-Colonel 
,and Colonel, in the regular service. On returning to his grade in the regulai 
service he was placed in command of light company A, Second Artillery, sta^ 
tioned at the Preridio of San Francisco. ,<t 



Robert S. Geangee. 821 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL ROBERT S. GRANGER. 



TTvOBEET S. GEANGEE graduated at West Point and entered the 
r\ service of the United States on the Ist of July, 1838, and on the 28th 
.^ of the same month he joined his regiment, the Second Artillery, at 
i Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was transferred to the First Infantry in JSTovem- 
;ber, and was engaged in the Florida war until July, 1841. On the 13th of 
I January, 1847, he left Fort Snelling, Minnesota, under orders, "for Mexico; trar- 
■eled on the ice to Burlington, Iowa, and joined the army in Mexico on the 28th 
of March, 1847. He continued in Mexico until the close of the war, in July, 
■ 1848. 

When the rebellion broke out he was stationed in Texas, and, with other 
officers, was betrayed into the hands of the Eebels by the treachery of General 
Twiggs. Captain Granger earnestly opposed the surrender, and recommended 
the seizure of the vessels in the port, and with them to sail for Tampico, Mexico, or 
.the fortifying of Indianola, which could have been held until relieved by the 
United States navy. The captured officers were paroled, with permission to go 
north and to perform duty outside of the Confederacy. Captain Granger came 
back to his native State and assisted in organizing, drilling, and disciplining 
Sherman's brigade, at Mansfield, from October 16th to December 18, 1861. He 
was placed in command of the barracks at Cincinnati on the 27th of December, 
and was made disbursing officer for the State. In April, 1862, he was trans- 
ferred to Louisville, Kentucky, and placed in command of that post until Sep- 
tember. He was exchanged on the 28th of August, and on the 1st of September 
was appointed Brigadier-General of State troops, by the Governor of Kentucky; 
tut this appointment was given up immediately, as he was ordered to take 
command of a division of National forces at Shepherdsville. His services in 
Kentucky were specially acknowledged in a rej)ort to the War Department. 
He attacked and defeated a portion of Forrest's cavalry, at Lebanon Junction, 
killing and wounding thirty-nine, and taking thirty-one prisoners, with a loss 
of only thirteen men. Being ordered to Lawrenceburg with a brigade of 
infantry and one of cavalry, he drove the enemy from the vicinity of that 
place, after a short skirmish, on the 20th of September, and captured one hun- 
di'ed and fifty prisoners. 

He joined General Buell's army at Crab Orchard, and was assigned to the 
command of the Tenth Division. He was appointed Brigadier-General, for 
meritorious service in Kentucky, to date from the 20th of October, and on the 
31st of October he was ordered to the command of Bowling Green, and the dis- 



822 Ohio in the Wae. 

trict to the Tennessee line. General Granger joined the Arm}' of the Cumber- 
land at Murfreesboro', Tennessee, on the 10th of Januar}-, 1863, and was as- 
signed to the command of the First Division of the Fourteenth Corps. He was 
ordered to the command of Nashville in June, and of the district north of Duck 
Eiver, from September 5th to December 18th. During that time General 
Granger's command killed and wounded over three hundred Eebels, captured 
five hundred and twentj^-five prisoners, and completely cleared the country of 
guerrillas. General Granger's services while in command of Nashville were 
specially noticed in orders, by the Major-General commanding. 

On the 1st of June, 1864, General Granger was assigned to the command 
of the District of Northern Alabama. While at Decatur his troops were fre- 
quently engaged with the enemj^ under Roddy, and others, on the south side of 
the river, and were uniformly successful. The Rebel General Patterson's bri- 
gade was surprised at Courtland, and his train, entire camp, and a number of 
prisoners were captured. A raid made by the Rebels, under Roddy, on the 
railroad at Athens, Sulphur Trestle, and Elk River, was defeated effectually, and 
Roddy was driven across the Tennessee. In August the forces under Granger 
skirmished with Wheeler's cavalry at Linville, Tennessee, and afterward from 
Lawrenceburg to within five miles of Lexington, Tennessee. General Granger 
was in command at Huntsville when the garrison of that place was summoned, 
by General Forrest, to surrender. The demand was treated with contemjit, and 
after exchanging a few shots the Rebels withdrew. 

Hood's army invested Decatur on the 27th of October, and on the morning 
of the 28th the forces under General Granger attacked and carried the first line 
of rifle-pits, killing and wounding a large number, and caj^turing one hundred 
and twenty prisoners. On the same day a battery of eight guns was captured 
on the right of the line, but the enemy being heavily re-enforced the guns were 
spiked and abandoned. The enemy acknowledged a loss, during the siege, of 
fifteen hundred men, while the National loss was one hundred and six killed 
and wounded and seven captured. The importance of the defeat of Hood at 
Decatur will be appreciated when it is known that Decatur is one hundred and 
ten miles south of Nashville, and is connected with that city by a fine turnpike, 
leading through a country that afterward furnished su^jplies to Hood's army, i 
Had Hood captured Decatur on the 28th he .would have been before Nashville! 
with his whole arm}' by the 4th of November, with nothing of importance to 
impede his progress northward. 

Before the close of the war General Granger was brevetted Major-General 
of volunteers ; and at the close of 1866 was in command at Richmond, Virginia. 



John W. Fullek. 823 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN W. FULLER. 



JOHN W. FULLER was born in Cambridge, England, July, 1827. His 
father was a Baptist minister, and the nephew of Reverend Andrew 
Fuller, a distinguished Baptist divine of that day. John's father came 
to this country in 1833, and settled at Petersboro', New York, where, for several 
years, he filled a pulpit. John, then a lad five years of age, accompanied 
his father to America. The next call on Rev. Mr. Fuller Avas to Oneida County, 
New York, from whence he went to Oglethorpe, Georgia, where he died. 

John W. Fuller, while these events in his father's history were occurring, 
was attending school at Florence, New York. In 1840 he came west and settled 
in Utica, New York. His first occupation in L^tica was as a clerk in a book- 
store, and as clerk and partner he remained in the same store and same business 
for twenty j^ears. For some years he was prominent as a politician in that part 
of New York, and was elected by his part}^ for two successive terms as treasurer 
of the city of Utica. 

While a resident of Utica he took much interest in military matters, and 
was generally found at the head of all movements of that kind. A citizens' 
corps was formed, in which he served for several years as First-Lieutenant. He 
was known as one of the best tacticians in that part of the country. 

In the fall of 1858 he removed to Toledo, Ohio, and engaged in the pub- 
lishing business, under the firm name of Anderson & Co., the Toledo house 
being a branch of the house of John W. Fuller & Co., of Utica, New York. 
The two firms combined built up an extensive business. 

"When the rebellion commenced the militar}' knowledge possessed by Mr. 
Fuller became very valuable, not onl}" to himself, but to the State. His services 
were immediately secured, and he went to work industriously drilling and pre- 
paring the three months' levies for the field. 

Genex-al Chas. W. Hill (Governor Tod's Adjutant-General), of Toledo, being 
appointed by Governor Dennison a Brigadier-General, and ordered to Western 
Virginia, selected Mr. Fuller as his Chief-of-Staff. The appointment was 
accepted, and, leaving his business and a young family, he entered the service 
with the determination to remain in it until the cessation of hostilities. His 
first duty in the new position to which he had been called, was performed at 
Grafton, Virginia, a noted point in that earl}- period of the war. At this place 
he was busily emploj-ed in drilling the raw regiments and recruits which were 
then pouring across the Ohio River preparatory to an advance into the enemy's 
country. 



k 



824 Ohio in the Wae. 

While at Grafton he made the acquaintance of Captain T. J. Cram (now 
General), of the regular army, who, observing his proficiency in military mat- 
ters, wrote to the Adjutant-General of Ohio, General C. P. Buckingham, that 
"there was a young man at Grafton by the name of John W. Fuller who 
knew more about military matters, the drilling of men, etc., than any one he 
had yet met with in the service," and ".hoped he would recommend him to 
Governor Dennison as the Colonel of the next Ohio regiment sent to the field." 
This recommendation was made without the knowledge of Mr. Fuller, and the 
first intimation he had of its success was a telegram from Adjutant-General 
Buckingham, ordering him to repair to Columbus and assume the duties of his 
new position — that of Colonel of the Twenty-Seventh Ohio. •' 

Colonel Fuller promptl}^ reported at Columbus, and in less than two weeks' 
time had selected from a disorganized mass of two thousand troops, then in 
Camp Chase, a fine regiment of men, armed and equipped them, and was 
en route for St. Louis, Missouri. This was in August, 1861. After two weeks' 
constant drill Colonel Fuller's regiment was selected as a part of the force 
sent to the relief of Colonel Mulligan, then besieged by the Eebel forces under 
General Price, in the city of Lexington, Missouri. This expedition, it will be 
recollected, failed in its purpose, the Eebels having defeated Mulligan and cap- 
tured Lexington before re-enforcements could reach him. 

Colonel Fuller marched his regiment to Kansas City, and lay in camp at 
that place for some weeks. In October he received orders to repair to Spring- 
field, Missouri, with his regiment, and there join General Fremont's command. 
This junction was efi'ected near Springfield, and his regiment was a part of the 
force that entei-ed that place. ' 

When Fremont's army "fell back" from Springfield Colonel Fuller was so 
ill that it was impossible to remove him, and he was, therefore, left to the tender 
mercies of the enemy. On the evacuation the Eebel General Ben. McCullough 
moved his forces into the city. Colonel Fuller was soon discovered, and his 
case reported to McCullough. That noted personage immediately called upon 
the Colonel, and assured him that he need not feel uneasy — to make himself 
perfectly easy — that, under the circumstances, he would not even claim him as 
his prisoner. The result was, that on his recovery Colonel Fuller was provided 
with an escort and sent, unharmed, and not even paroled, into the National 
lines. j 

On February 1, 1862, Colonel Fuller commanded a column of troops, sev- 
eral thousand strong, which marched from Sedalia to St. Louis, Missouri, and 
there, taking steamers, sailed down the Mississippi to Commerce, Missouri. At 
this place a junction was formed with General Pope's forces, then moving on 
New Madrid. With his regiment Colonel Fuller participated in all the move- 
ments against New Madrid and Island No. 10, and was complimented in general 
orders for valuable and gallant services in that campaign. 

On May 1, 1862, Colonel Fuller, with his regiment, was transferred with 
General Pope's command to Hamburg, on the Tennessee Eiver, there forming a 



.'>vil 



John W. Fullek. 825 

junction with General Halleck's army. General Pope's command formed the 
left wing of that army in its advance on Corinth. 

In September, 1862, Colonel Fuller took part with his brigade (for thus 
early in his career he had been assigned to a brigade) in the well-contested 
battle of luka; but it was at Corinth, in October, 1862, that he won his greatest 
renown as a soldier and officer, in command of the " Ohio Brigade," as it was 
termed, composed of the Twenty-Seventh, Thirty-Ninth, Forty-Third, and 
Sixty-Third Ohio regiments. Eosecrans was here confronted with thirty-five 
thousand veteran Eebel soldiers, to oppose which he had only eighteen thousand 
men of all arms. The Eebel charging columns had swept through and over the 
National lines, had made their way deep into the town, and to within fifty yards 
of Fort Eobinett. They swept up in four columns, under storms of grape and 
canister, when the Ohio Brigade, commanded by Colonel Fuller, delivered a 
murderous volley, before which it reeled and retreated. Again they advanced, 
steadier, swifter than before, till they were pouring over the very edge of the 
ditch around the fort, when a deadly musketry-fire of the Ohio Brigade broke 
their formation. A moment later and, at the word, the Twenty-Seventh Ohio 
and Eleventh Missouri rose up from the ground, charged the disordered foe, and 
drove them again to the woods. In this charge fell the Texan Colonel Eogers, 
who had led his column literally to the mouths of the National guns. He fell 
almost at Colonel Fuller's feet. Colonel Fuller relates that he had a fair view 
of Colonel Eogers as he came on at the head of his column. He presented the 
appearance of a drunken man, pale as a corpse, but intent on his purpose. 
Three hundred National troops were lost in ten minutes in this murderous 
charge. The Eleventh Missouri lost eighty men out of three hundred engaged. 

In his official dispatches General Eosecrans stated that the charge which 
broke the Eebel onset on Battery Eobinett was made by the Twenty-Seventh 
Ohio and Eleventh Missouri, led by Colonel John W. Fuller. But the compli- 
ment which the command valued most was a less formal one. When the battle 
was ended, and before the dead had been removed, Genei-al Eosecrans rode up 
to the position occupied by the Ohio Brigade, and warmly addressed it, saying: 
"I take off my hat in the presence of men as brave as those around me." 

On the last day of 1862 three regiments of the Ohio Brigade met General 
Forrest's Eebel cavalry near Lexington, Tennessee, at Parker's Cross Eoads, 
and, in a skirmish, captured seven pieces of artillery, several baggage-wagons, 
over four hundred horses, and three hundred and sixty prisoners, including two 
officers of Forrest's staff. 

In April, 1863, the Ohio Brigade accompanied General Dodge's column 
toward Decatur, Alabama, as a cover to Straight's ill-fated raid through Georgia. 
It was then ordered to Memphis, as guard to that city during the Yicksburg 
campaign. In October, 1863, it marched with General Sherman across the 
country from Memphis to Chattanooga. During the winter of 1863-6'1 it 
guarded the Nashville and Decatur Eailroad from Prospect southward to the 
Tennessee Eiver. 

Early in March, 1864, Colonel Fuller crossed the Tennessee Eiver in pon- 



826 Ohio in the War. 

toons during the night and. captured Decatur, Alabama. He so strongly forti- 
fied the place that when Hood's Rebel army swept up the country toward Nash- 
ville it was prudent enough not to attack it. On May 1, 1864, the Ohio Brigade 
was divided, and Colonel Fuller was assigned to the command of the First 
Brigade, Fourth Division, Sixteenth Army Corps, and with it marched to Chat- 
tanooga to take part in the Atlanta campaign.* 

At Resaca his command distinguished itself, and at Dallas, where several 
fine officers were lost. At Kenesaw Mountain the regiments commanded by 
Colonel Fuller were the first to reach the summit of the mountain. On Jul}' 4th 
his command distinguished itself by a flank movement on the enemy's works at 
Nicojack Ci'eek, near the Chattahoochie River. In this bold and successful 
charge several gallant officers were killed and wounded. Among the wounded 
was Colonel Noyes, of the Thirty-Ninth Ohio, who lost a leg. A few days 
thei'cafter Colonel Fuller was assigned to the command of the Fourth Division 
of the Sixteenth Corps, vice General Yeatch, sick. 

After crossing the Chattahoochie River General McPherson's command 
formed the left of the National lines, and on the 21st of July the Sixteenth 
Corps was ordered to prolong the lines by moving to the extreme left. While 
executing this movement it was suddenly attacked from the rear by Hardee'a 
Rebel corps, which had, during the night, made a detour to the east, and to the 
rear of the National position. In the battle Avhich immediately ensued Colonel 
Fuller's command occupied a level field, without obstruction of any kind, and 
aff'ording a fine view of the conflict. Two splendid charges were made, when it 
became necessary to change front so as to meet a Rebel charge coming from the 
rear. While making this perilous and difl&cult movement under fire, the col- 
umn gave way. Colonel Fuller immediately grasped his regimental flag, and 
rushing with it toward the eneni}^, made motions with his saber indicating 
where he wished his line formed. The Twenty- Seventh Ohio gave a loud cheer, 
formed, and came up in line. Others immediately followed this splendid ex- 
ample, and the enemy was badly repulsed by a determined bayonet charge, led 
by Colonel Fuller. It was just after this brilliant charge that the gallant Gen- 
eral MoPherson was killed. 

For his brilliant and opportune sei-vices in this action Colonel Fuller re- 
ceived his promotion as Brigadier-General. 

On July 28, 1864, General Fuller was in the battle of Ezra Church, and on 
September 1st at Jonesboro', below Atlanta. In October, when General Hood 
made his movement to the rear of Atlanta, General Fuller's division fought him 
at Snake Creek Gap, and opened the way for pursuit through the mountains. 
After the fall of Atlanta Fuller's division was assigned to General Blair's corps, 
and was known thereafter as the First Division of the Seventeenth Army Corps, 
It accompanied General Sherman in his march to the sea, and when passing 
through the Carolinas distinguished itself at the crossing of the Salkahatchie, 

■••■For a completer view of the events of this campaign, in their regular order and conse- 
quence, see ante Life of Sherman. 



Manning F. Foece. 827 

at Eiver Bridge. Also, at the crossing of the Edisto, and at Cheraw, where it 
captured a large amount of stores and Eebel artillerj*. 

At Bentonville one of General Fuller's regiments captured a piece of the 
enemy's artillerj-, drove his cavalry from position, actually reaching General 
Joe. Johnston's head-quarters and capturing some of his staff horses. From 
Goldsboro' General Fuller's command marched with General Sherman in pur- 
suit of Joe. Johnston's army, and was present at the surrender of that General's 
Eebel forces. Then came the march through Eichmond to Washington, the 
grand review, and the final '• muster-out." 

General Fuller returned to Toledo and resumed the peaceful pursuits in 
midst of which the war had interrupted him. Before the close of the war he 
received the brevet of Major-General, which he had so richly earned. His ca- 
reer was singular in that the promotions which his gallant conduct always sug- 
gested came so slowly ; but this tardy appreciation never affected the zeal and 
devotion which he carried into the service. When, tit last, his official honors 
came, it was beyond the power of any to say he had not fairly won them. 



I 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL MANNING F. FORCE. 



M 



ANNING F. FOECE was born in Washington, District of Columbia, 
on the 17th of December, 1824. He completed a preparatory course at 
academies in Georgetown and Alexandria, and then entered tiie Har- 
vard University, and graduated with honor, both in the classical and law depart- 
ments. He removed to Cincinnati and entered the office of Judge Timothy 
Walker. In a few years he became a partner in the firm of Walker, Ivebler & 
Force, and was engaged in the successful practice of his profession when the 
rebellion broke out. 

He at once began to prepare for the crisis by assiduous drilling, and in July, 
18G1, he was appointed Major of the Twentieth Ohio Infantry. He reported at 
Camp Chase in August, and was promoted almost immediately to Lieutenant- 
Colonel. The Colonel of the regiment, an old engineer officer of the regular 
army, was placed in charge of the fortifications then constructing near Cincin- 
nati, and continued on detached service most of the time until he resigned. Thus 
the whole work of drilling and disciplining the regiment fell ujipn Lieutenant- 
Colonel Force; and the record of the regiment shows that it was well done. 
It filled up slowly, and was not sent into active service until the 11th of Febru- 
ary, 1862. It proceeded by way of Paducah to Fort Donelson, arriving at that 
point on Friday before the surrender. It was one of the regiments selected to 
guard the prisoners on their way North. It became separated into detachments, 



828 Ohio in the Wae. 

and was not united until the end of March, at Crunn)'8 Landing, on the 
Tennessee. 

On the first day of the battle of Pittsburg Landing Lieutenant-Colonel 
Force was not engaged, as the division (General Lew. Wallace's) to which he 
belonged did not arrive on the field until evening; but on the second day he 
participated in all the important movements. Soon after this battle the Colonel 
of the Twentieth resigned and Lieutenant-Colonel Force was promoted to the 
vacancy. The Twentieth was selected to guard the communications of the 
army, and it remained on this duty until the evacuation of Corinth, when it 
moved to Bolivar. Colonel Force passed through the Mississippi central cam- 
paign, and then moved to Memphis. From this point he sailed, with his regi- 
ment, down the Mississippi on the Vicksburg campaign. Colonel Force's regi- 
ment was actively engaged in the rear of Yicksburg, exhibiting special bravery 
in the battles of Eaymon^ and Champion Hills. It also bore its full share in 
the siege operations around Yicksburg. 

In June, 1863, Colonel Force was placed in coommand of the Second Bri- 
gade, Third Division, Seventeenth Corps ; and in August he was appointed Brig- 
adier-General for gallant service during the siege of Vicksburg. 

In JSTovember General Force was placed in command of the post at Big 
Black Bridge, then considered the most important outpost around Vicksbui-g. 
He remained here until March, 1861, with the exception of one month, during 
which he was engaged in Sherman's Meridian expedition. The Seventeenth 
Corps joined General Sherman on the Atlanta campaign at Acwoi-th, Georgia; 
and from that time until the 22d of July General Force shared all the hardships 
and dangers of the campaign. Early in the struggle in front of Atlanta, on 
the 22d of July, General Force received a bullet thi-ough his face, just below the 
eye. He was carried to the rear, and was at once sent North. 

Hardly waiting until his wound was healed, he hastened back to the field in 
Octobex-, and rejoined his brigade in time to lead it to Savannah. Just before 
starting on the march through the Carolinas General Leggett, commanding the 
Third Division, was taken sick, and General Force was assigned to the division, 
which he commanded so satisfactorily that, on the return of General Leggett, 
he was transferred to the First Division. Upon the recommendation of Gen- 
erals Blair, Slocum, and Howard, General Force was brevetted Major-General 
"for special gallantry before Atlanta, to date from March 13,1865." General 
Force has retuimed to private life, and resumed the practice of law in Cincinnati. 



Heney B. Banning. 829 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY B: BANNING. 



HENEY B. BANNING, the grandson of Eev. Anthony Banning, and 
son of James and Eliza Banning, was born at Banning's Mills, in Knox 
County, Ohio, November 10, 1834. 

His mother, an accomplished and Christian lady, superintended his early 
education. As he grew larger he attended the Clinton district school, the Mt. 
Vernon Academy, and Kenyon College. 

He remained at Kenyon but a short time, returned to his home, and entered 
the office of Hosmer, Curtis & Devin as a law student, and was admitted to the 
bar. At the time the war broke out in 1861 he had acquired a good reputation 
as a lawyer, and was doing a fine business in his native town of Mt. Yernon. In 
politics he was a Douglas Democrat. 

Upon the first call of the President for troops, he was one of the first to 
enlist. On the 16th day of April, 1861, two companies were organized in Mt. 
Vernon. He was elected Captain of one, which afterward became company B, 
Fourth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. In June, 1861, the regiment was reorganized, 
and Captain Banning was unanimously re-elected Captain of his company. 

At this time Governor Dennison offered him a Majority in another reo-i- 
ment, but he declined it, saying, "his experience and military knowledge would 
not justify him in accepting the promotion." He served with his company 
until the spring of 1862, taking part in the battles of Eich Mountain, Eomney, 
Blue Gap (where his company captured a stand of Eebel colors), Winchester, 
and Cross Keys. Upon the recommendation of General Shields, Governor 
Tod appointed him Major of the Fifty-Second Ohio. When he arrived at 
Columbus, the regiment had gone to the field, and he was placed in com- 
mand of the Eighty-Seventh Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a three months' regi- 
ment. At the expiration of the time of the Eighty-Seventh he was made Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth, with which he served 
until the spring of 1863. He was then ti-ansferrod to and made Colonel of the 
One Hundred and Twenty-First regiment, upon the petition of all the officers 
of the regiment. He spent about two months drilling and disciplining the One 
Hundred and Twenty-First, which had been taken into the battle of Perry ville, 
in the summer of 1862, without discipline or drill, and armed with unserviceable 
arms, and had won no enviable reputation. During this time he made it one of 
the best-drilled and disciplined regiments in the Eeserve Corps of the Army ot 
the Cumberland. He first led the One Hundred and Twenty-First to battle at 
Chickamauga. His regiment was the right of Steedman's division on the ter- 



830 Ohio in the War. 

rific Sunday afternoon charge. Their battle-crj' was, " Wipe out Perryville." 
With his regiment Colonel Banning held the right all that afternoon, aiul 
just at dark, when out of ammunition, in a hand-to-hand contest, the One Hun- 
dred and Twenty-First engaged the Twenty-Second Alabama, drove them, 
and captured their colors, the only Eehel colors taken in the battle of Chick- 
amauga. 

Colonel Banning remained in command of the One Hundred and Twenty- 
Pirst throughout the Atlanta campaign, being in Buzzard's Eoost, Eesaca, Eomo, 
Kenesaw Mountain, Dallas, Peachtree Creek, and Jonesboro', as well as in many 
hard skirmishes. After the fall of Atlanta, General Jeff. C. Davis, the com- 
mander of the Fourteenth Corps, in his otficial report, recommended Colonel 
Banning for promotion to a Brevet Brigadier-General for gallant and meritori- 
ous service during the Atlanta campaign. 

General George H. Thomas indorsed this recommendation, and the brevet 
was issued. 

In the battle of Nashville he served with his old commander. General Jas. 
B. Steedman, distinguished himself, and was brevetted Major-General. 

General Banning was placed in command of the One Hundred and ISTinety- 
Fifth Eegiment, and served in the Valley of Virginia in the spring and summer 
of 1865. He commanded the post of Alexandria, Virginia, until December, 
1865, when he was mustered out of the service, to take his seat as a member of 
the Ohio Legislature, to which he had been elected from Knox County. 

General Banning's promotions were all won upon the battle-field. On duty 
he was a rigid disciplinarian, and the very letter of his orders had to be obeyed. 
Off duty he rode, chatted, and smoked, wrestled, jumped, and ran foot-races, ate, 
and almost lived with his men; while his old white hat and velveteen pants 
gave him anything but a military appearance. His command was always sup- 
plied with the best the quartermaster and commissary departments afforded. 

His punishments were never severe. He never court-martialed or preferred 
charges against a soldier. On the march he would dismount, take some tired 
soldier's gun, and place him on his horse. At night he would not sleep until he 
had visited his men and seen that they were comfortable, and visited his pickets 
and seen they were well posted. 



EE;AStus JB. Tylek. 831 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL ERASTUS B. TYLER. 



GEXEEAL TYLEE was born in West Bloomfield, Ontario County, New 
York. Soon after his birth his parents removed to Ravenna, Ohio. 
The General Avas educated at G-ranville, Ohio; and at an early age en- 
gaged in active business, which required him to travel extensively in the States 
of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. He was 
a partner in the American Fur Company at the breaking out of the war, and 
was attending to the business of the companj', in the mountains of Virginia, 
when Fort Sumter was fired upon. Impelled by his sense of duly, as a loyal 
<;itizen, he retired from his lucrative employment, and, in obedience to a tele- 
gram from G-overnor Dennison, hastened to meet such requirements as his 
■country might impose upon him. Being Brigadier-General of Militia, and in 
oommand of the division formed by the Counties of Portage, Trumbull, and 
Mahoning, he repaired to his home in Ravenna. He opened a recruiting office 
on April 17, 1861, and on the 22d he was in Camp Taylor, near Cleveland, with 
two comj)anies. Here an election for Colonel was held by the thirty officers of 
the ten companies that constituted the Seventh Ohio, and General Tyler 
received twenty-nine votes. This choice was confirmed at Camp Dennison by 
a vote of the whole regiment. The Seventh Ohio was organized, at first, for 
three months; but after spending six weeks in instructing the men. Colonel 
Tyler, in one day, succeeded in re-enlisting seven hundred of them for three 
years; and. in a few days, he secured the requisite number for a full regiment. 
It being well-known that Colonel Tyler was intimatel}^ acquainted with the 
whole fegion of Western Virginia, he was ordered to Gi-afton to advise with 
General McClellan. He spent eight days in consultation with that officer, and 
gave him information as to the mountain passes, roads, streams, fords, and the 
general topogi'aphy of the entire section. About the 26th of June Colonel 
Tyler's regiment came forward to Grafton, where he took command and proceeded 
to Clarksburg. His first march was to Weston, where were forty thous- 
and dollars in gold, in danger of being captured by Wise. It was known that 
General McClellan was on his way to Clarksburg, where, upon his arrival. Colonel 
Tyler expected an order to march for Weston. Accordingly he anticipated the 
order b}' drawing up his men near the depot, directing them to watch his motions 
when the train arrived, for if the order was "march," he would wave his hand- 
kerchief, and they were to start immediatel3^ Upon the arrival of the train 
General McClellan asked him how soon he could march for Weston. "Look 
yonder and I will show you," Avas Colonel Tyler's replj- and waving his hand- 



832 Ohio in the Wak. 

kerchief, the regiment struck the double-quick and rapidly disappeared. The 
gold was saved, and turned over to the new State of West Virginia. 

General McClellan, upon leaving \Yestern Virginia, placed General Tyler 
in command of the Seventh, Tenth, Thirteenth, and Seventeenth Ohio Eegiments, 
the First Virginia Infantry, Captain Mack's Howitzer Battery, Captain Bagg's 
'•Snake Hunters," and a companj^ of Chicago Cavalry. The operations of Colonel 
Tyler in the valley of the Great Kanawha were conducted with marked 
efficiency. He was, however, unfortunate in having his own regiment surprised 
at Cross Lanes by Floyd's command, utterly broken, routed, and scattered iu 
every direction. General Rosecrans, then commanding the Department of West 
Virginia, was at first disposed to blame Colonel Tyler severely for this disaster, 
but investigation had the effect to mitigate, if not wholly to do away with, the 
censure. 

On the 10th of December Colonel Tyler was ordered to Romney, where he 
united his forces with those under General Lander, and was assigned to the com- 
mand of the Third Brigade of Lander's division. At the death of General Lander 
he joined General Shields in the Shenandoah Valley. He participated in the 
battle of Winchester, and for bravery upon that occasion, he was appointed a 
Brigadier-General of Volunteers on May 14, 1862. He was also engaged at Front, 
Eoyal and Port Eepublic. In the latter engagement General Tyler with three 
thousand troops resisted Stonewall Jackson with eight thousand for five hours, 
when Jackson received a re-enforcement of six thousand men. General Tylei\ 
however, retired in good order. 

At the battle of Antietam General Tyler commanded a brigade of Penn- 
sylvania troops that were enlisted for nine months. It was their first battle ; 
and though not brought into action xmtil the eleventh hour they did excellent 
service. He was with his brigade at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and 
soon afler this the brigade was mustered out, the term of enlistment having 
expired. 

Genei-al Tyler was now ordered to Baltimore, and placed in command 
of the noi-th-western defenses of the city. He assumed command at the time 
that General Lee was making his invasion into Maryland, and secessionigm was 
rampant throughout the city. General Tyler, with great industry, set about 
arming the Union citizens, and in three days he had ten thousand men at the 
barricades ready to repel the invaders. The administration of General Tyler in 
Baltimore received the unqualified approbation of the Union citizens. 

Soon after this General Tyler was stationed at the Eelay House, in charge 
of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the shores of Chesapeake Bay, forming 
a line of defense neariy two hundred miles long. It is sufficient to say thai no 
Rebel raid ever crossed this line, until the attempt which resulted in the battle 
of Monocacy. Genei'al Tyler, though not in chief command, may claim a large 
share both in planning and in fighting this battle; and though neither the 
result of long preparation, nor on so extensive a scale as many others, it was 
severe and decisive. Speaking of General Tyler's part in the Monocacy battle, 
President Lincoln is reported to have said to Mr. Fitzgerald, of Philadelphia, 



Eeastus B. Tylee. 833 

"The country is more indebted to General Tyler than to any other man for the 
salvation of Washington." From the Eelay House he was ordered to the com- 
mand of the Kanawha Valley, and he remained in this position until the close 
of the war. The rank of Major-General by Brevet was conferred upon him for 
meritorious service. 

Few have been more exposed to danger than General Tyler, and yet he has 
singularly escaped serious personal injury. At Winchester seven balls passed 
through his clothes; at Port Eepublic he was struck twice with ball and shell, 
and his hat was torn in pieces ; at Fredericksburg he was struck on the left 
breast by a ball ; at Chancellorsville he had a button shot off the left side of his 
coat; and in other battles he had similar escapes. He has been the recipient of 
many valuable presents; among the more notable of these, bestowed by those 
who knew him best, the officers and men of the First Brigade, Third Division, 
Army of the Potomac, are a magnificent sword, sash, belt, and spurs, and a 
valuable horse of fine action and high spirit. General Tyler had been for many 
years a temperate man, even to the extent of total abstinence. He maintained 
these principles in the army, and he succeeded by his example in suppressing, 
to a great extent, the use of intoxicating liquors among the men of his com- 
mand. Integrity, firmness, and kindness of heart have secured for him popu- 
larity in every department of the army in which he served, and the obedience, 
respect, and affection of his men. 
Vol. I.— 53. 



I 



834 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL THOMAS H. EWING. 



THOMAS H. EWIISTG, the third son of Hon. Thomas Ewing, the dis- 
tinguished statesman and politician, was born in Lancaster, Ohio, August 
11, 1829. He received a liberal education; was graduated at Brown 
University, Rhode Island ; and in March, 1855, at the Cincinnati Law School. 
At both institutions he ranked high, and he was generally believed to have in- 
herited a large share of his father's ability. 

In 1856 he removed from Ohio to Leavenworth, Kansas, where, with one 
of his brothers, and with his brother-in-law, then known as Captain Sherman, 
he began the practice of law. He was successful from the outset, and soon came 
to rank as the leading lawyer of the young State. He also became prominent 
in politics, and was accepted as one of the Eepublican leaders. He was chosen 
Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, and in this pofiition he served 
for a period of two years. 

On the 15th of September, 1862, he recruited and organized the Eleventh 
Regiment of Kansas Volunteer Infantry, of which he was appointed Colonel. 
He commanded his regiment in the battles of Poi't Wayne and Cane Hill. At 
Prairie Grove he had risen to the command of a brigade, and for his gallant serv- 
ices in this battle he was promoted to be Brigadier-General of volunteers on 
the 11th of March, 1863. 

In June, 1863, he was assigned to the command of the District of the Bor- 
der, comprising all of Kansas and the western tier of counties in Missouri. He 
now began the work of exterminating the guerrilla bands which infested the 
border counties, and repressed, with a strong hand, the thieving expeditions, 
which, through every month of the proceeding summer, had desolated with im- 
punity the villages of that unhappy region. 

In March, 1864, the District of the Border was abolished by the creation 
of the Department of Kansas. By request of Major-General Eosecrans, then: 
commanding the Department of Missouri, General Ewing was ordered to report 
to him, and was assigned to the command of the St. Louis District. 

On the 24th of September, it having been ascertained that General Price 
had entered the State with a large force, General Ewing was ordered to the post 
at Pilot Knob, with instructions to hold it if possible against any mere detach- 
ments of the enemy, but to evacuate it if menaced by Price's whole army, 
known to be fifteen or twenty thousand strong. 



Thomas H. Ewing. 835 

At dawn on the morning of the 27th of September, he commenced one of 
the most stubborn, and, for the number engaged, one of the most sanguinary 
conflicts of the war. The enemy had entered the valley at Shut-in Gap, a 
narrow gorge in the mountain, four and a half miles south-east of Pilot Knob. 
The whole available force, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, garrisoning the post 
-w^as one thousand and sixty effective men; six hundred of whom were raw 
troops scarcely organized. But the advantages of delaying the enemy a few 
days in his march northward, and of making a stubborn fight before retreating, 
seemed so great, even if the defense should be unsuccessful, that General Ewing 
resolved to stand fast and take the chances. 

With his meager forces he immediately attacked the advancing columns of 
Price, and disputed every inch of ground between the gap and the foi't. By 
two o'clock he had been forced into the works. By this time the enemy had 
massed two divisions on the mountain sides, with their artillery commanding 
the fort. The opening of the battery on the mountain was the signal for the 
assault, and with demoniac yells at least six thousand men precipitated them- 
selves upon the fort. They were met with grape and canister from seven guns 
and an incessant fire of musketry. The enemy wavered, broke, and fell back, 
leaving the ground strewn with their killed and wounded. 

General Ewing had lost one-fourth of his available force. He felt assured 
that the enemy would rally, and as the fort was untenable, he resolved, hazard- 
ous as it was, to attempt a retreat. Accoi'dingly at two o'clock in the morning 
he moved silently from the fort with his six field pieces, two hundred and fifty 
cavalry, and five hundred infantry. Two hours afterward the magazine ex- 
ploded, a slow match having been applied when the troops left. He was hotly 
pursued by Shelby's and Marmaduke's commands, but he succeeded in keeping 
them at bay until he reached the south-west branch of the Pacific Eailroad at 
Harrison — having marched sixty-six miles in thirty-nine hours, and maintained 
a spirited running fight for twent}" miles. 

At Harrison the General threw up rude defenses, got his guns in position 
during the night, and for three days kept at bay and repulsed several assaults 
made by an enemy ten times the number of his own. On the fourth day he 
was relieved by a force from Eolla, to which place he moved his diminished 
^nd exhausted command. 

Thus closed a campaign of a week of stubborn fighting, on a comparatively 
small scale, but still rarely excelled during the war. General Ewing lost com- 
paratively few men, and no guns nor munitions of war, save those destroyed 
-at Pilot Knob. The enemy lost over one thousand five hundred men, and, 
more than all, lost their last hope of taking St. Louis. 

In his official report of this campaign against Price in Missouri, Genei-al 
Eosecrane in expressing his thanks to his various subordinates, names General 
Ewing first, saying : 

" General Ewing deserves special mention for military judgment, courage, and gallantry, in 
holding Pilot Knob till he had a certainty of the enemy's force, as well as for the manner in 
which he withdrew his troops to Eolla." 



836 Ohio in the War 

And in the preceding part of the report, General Eosecrans thus describes 
General Ewing's share in the campaign: 

"General Ewing was sent to Pilot Knob with directions to use his utmost exertions to find 
out whether any more than Shelby's division of Price's army was in south-east Missouri, and to 
that end to hold Pilot Knob until he was certain. With a soldierly comprehension of the im- 
portance of his duties, while reporting the current rumors of the advance of Price with his whole 
force, he expressed his doubts, and held his position until the 27th, when he sustained a terrific 
assault in Fort Davidson, a small field-work in the valley, surrounded by hills within cannon 
range, Avhich he held with about one thousand men, one-half raw troops — establishing beyond 
question the presence of all Prices's command in that quarter. He gloriously repulsed them, 
killing and wounding some fifteen hundred of the enemy, and lost only twenty-eight killed, and I 
fifty-six wounded. . . . Finding Marmaduke's and Fagens's Eebel divisions before him, and 
his position commanded by a numerically superior artillery, he acted on suggestions made when 
I was discussing with him the possibilities of the position. On the night of the 27th he spiked" 1 
his heavy guns, blew up the magazine, ammunition, and supplies, and with the field battery and I 
remains of his command, retreated through the hills toward the Meramee Valley, hoping to reach i 
a point on the railroad whence he could move to St. Louis. But the enemy pursued him, ha- 
rassed his rear on the march (which he directed along a ridge where the enemy could not flank ^ 
him), and overtook him near Harrison's Station, where, seizing and extending the temporary 
defenses constructed by the militia, he displayed such vigor that, after harassing him for thirty- 
six hours, and making several attacks, on the approach of a detachment of Sanborn's cavalry, , 
the Eebels left him and he escaped with all his command to Eolla." 

General Ewing was brevetted Major-General for his conduct in this cam 
paign. The war being practically ended, and no further active duties being; 
required in that department, he resigned his commission on the 12th of March, 
1865. 



Emerson Opdycke. 837 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL EMERSON OPDYCKE. 



EMEESON OPDYCKE was born in Trumbull County, Ohio, January 
7th, 1830. He enlisted as a private on the 26th of July, 1861, in the 
Forty-First Ohio Infantry; but was made First-Lieutenant in August. 
He rapidly acquired a knowledge of military tactics, and in the winter of '61-2 
he was detailed to instruct the officers of Hascall's brigade. His success at- 
tracted favorable notice, and in January, 1862, he was promoted to Captain. He 
acted as Major of the regiment at the battle of Pittsburg Landing, and when a 
charge was ordered he seized the colors, which were Ij'ing on the ground, the 
color-bearer having been shot, advanced a short distance, and commanded: 
"Forty-First Ohio, follow your colors! " The charge was made gallantly, and 
though Captain Opdycke received two wounds, he remained with the command 
and on duty. 

He served in Nelson's division through the Corinth campaign, and until 
he was ordered by Grovernor Tod to organize the One Hundred and Twenty- 
Fifth Ohio Infantry. He was at home upon this duty when Kirby Smith 
threatened Cincinnati, and at the request of his friends he took command of 
twelve hundred "Squirrel Hunters," and reported them for duty at Covington. 
He left the State at the head of a regiment well drilled and disciplined on the 
3d of January, 1863. He moved southward through Nashville and Franklin, 
and was assigned to Harker's Brigade, "Wood's Division, Twenty-First Corps, 
just previous to the opening of Eosecrans's campaign of 1863. He entered 
Chattanooga on the 9th of September, and was furiously engaged in the two 
day's battle of Chickamauga. Upon one occasion during the battle General 
Thomas said to Colonel Opdycke, in regard to a position which the regiment 
occupied : " This point must be held ; " and the Colonel replied, more piously 
than is usual under such circumstances, " We will hold it, or go to Heaven from 
it." Colonel Opdycke Avas hit once, but was not seriously injured. 

At the battle of Mission Eidge he commanded five regiments, and in the 
assault he had two horses disabled. His command captured seven pieces of ar- 
tillery, a large number of small arms, and three hundred prisoners. He served 
next under General Sheridan in the East Tennessee campaign. On the 8th of 
May, 1864, he effected, by a feint, a lodgment upon Eocky Face Mountain. He 
planned and executed this movement himself On the 14th of May he was 



838 Ohio in the Wae. 

severely wounded at Eesaca, and was taken to the rear; but he soon returned, 
and only retired with the regiment. He continued to serve with the troops, 
though suffering severely from his wound. He commanded the five regiments 
again at ISTew Hope Church, Muddy Creek, Kenesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, 
and Atlanta, until August 6th, when he was assigned to the command of the 
First Brigade, Second Division, Fourth Corps. The brigade was engaged atj 
Jonesboro' and Lovejoy's, after which the division returned to Chattanooga. 
The time was occupied with minor operations about Bridgeport, Eesaca, Alpine, 
and Pulaski, until November 30th, when Opdycke's brigade was rear-guard for 
Schofield's army. 

In the battle of Franklin, the brigade was posted across the Columbia 
Pike near Carter's house. The Colonel's orders were to act upon his own judg- 
ment, and to fight when and where he might be most needed. The Rebels 
massed heavily in front of Carter's Hill, and in the afternoon they captured the 
fortifications; as soon as the Colonel saw this he shouted with all his power: 
" First brigade, forward to the works ! " The regiments charged grandly. Ba}'- 
onets were soon bloody, and muskets were clubbed in the furious encounter. 
Colonel Opdycke fired all the cartridges from his revolver, and broke the barrel 
by using it as a club. He then dismounted and fought with a musket like a 
common soldier. The contest was short ; the Rebels were driven back ; eight 
guns were retaken ; four hundred Rebels and ten battle-flags were captured. The 
Rebel General Carter fell, mortally wounded, less than a hundred yards from 
where he was born ; and General Pat. Cleburne fell dead, his horse resting on 
the National breastworks. At the battle of Nashville the brigade was again 
engaged, capturing three pieces of artillery, one battle-flag, and three hundred 
prisoners. 

Colonel Opdycke was brevetted Brigadier-General, to date from February 
7th, 1865. Some months later he received a brevet appointment as Major-Gen- 
eral, to date from November 20th, 1864. This unusual promotion — antedating 
his brevet as Brigadiei' — was given for " important and gallant services at the 
battle of Franklin," and was understood to have been mainly due to the recep- 
tion, from his immediate commander, of a recommendation for his appointment 
as Colonel in the regular service, bearing the following oflScial indorsement from 
the model soldier of the American Army : 

"Kespectly forwarded, strongly and earnestly recommended. I agree in every particular 
with what Major-General Wood has said concerning Brevet Brigadier-General Opdycke, and I 
consider him one of the most intelligent and competent officers in the service. He is brave and 
gallant, and has distinguished himself on many of the battle-fields of the West, and has, by his 
zeal both in the organization and discipline of his troops, as well as by his heroism on the field, 
contributed much to secure the success which has so signally rewarded the obstinate and per- 
sistent battlings of this army. Knowing General Opdycke personally, and being fully informed 
and convinced of his abilities, I do most earnestly request that this appointment may be con- 
ferred upon him for his meritorious and gallant conduct in the past, and that his services may not 
be lost to the army in the future. I believe that in the increase or reorganization of the army it 
is sound policy to select or appoint only such officers as are of known integrity and ability, and 
on these grounds I ask for General Opdycke's appointment in the Army of the United States, 



:^ii 



WiLLAED Waenee. 839 

feeling assured that he will do nothing but that which shall reflect credit both on himself and 
the army. 

[Signed] "GEORGE H. THOMAS, 

"Major-General United States Army commanding." 

Since his muster out General Opdycke has resided in New York. He is a 
man of rigidly temperate habits, having never drank half a glass of intoxica- 
ting liquors in his life, and having never used an ounce of tobacco in any form. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL WILLARD WARNER. 



WILLAED WAENEE was born in Granville, Licking County, 
Ohio, but upon the death of his mother, when he was five years old, 
he was placed under the care of an uncle in Muskingum County 
He was graduated at Marietta College in 1845. He devoted himself to agricul- 
ture until 1849, when he went with a company of gold seekers to California. 
In 1852 he returned successful, the sole survivor of the company. He engaged 
in the grocery and commission business in Cincinnati, but in 1854 became secre- 
tary, treasurer, and manager of the Newark Machine Works. 

At the commencement of the war he was active in raising recruits, and in 
December, 1861, he accepted a commission as Major of the SeveLHy-Sixth Ohio 
Infantry, having previously refused a higher position on the ground of inexpe- 
rience. On the 9th of February, 1862, he left the State with his regiment for 
Fort Donelson, arriving in time for Saturday's fight and Sunday's surrender. 
He was with the regiment at Pittsburg Landing, siege of Corinth, Yicksburg, 
and Jackson campaigns, and at the capture of the steamer Fairplay. He led 
the regiment from Vicksburg to Chattanooga, and through the battles of Look- 
out Mountain, Mission Eidge, and Einggold. At the latter place, with two hun- 
dred men, he broke General Pat. Cleburne's lines strongly posted. In this bat- 
tle Major Warner lost, in thirty minutes, one-third of his men, killed and 
wounded. He himself, though constantly exposed, escaped unhurt, but all be- 
spattered with the blood of his fallen comrades. He received orders prior to 
these battles to go home on recruiting service, that he might be with his wife, 
who was, as the sequel proved, on her death-bed, but he refused to avail himself 
of his privileges until he had commanded the regiment through them all. He 
was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel on the 14th of December, 1863, and in 
April, 1864, was appointed by General Sherman Inspector-General on his 



"840 Ohio in the Wae. 

staff. He served in this capacity through the Atlanta campaign, and on the 
pursuit of Hood until AUatoona was reached, when he accepted the Co- 
lonelcy of one of the new regiments. General Sherman, upon relieving him 
from duty, thanked him in special ordei-s for his zealous and intelligent service, 
and complimented him " on his good sense in preferring service with troops to 
staff- duty." 

Colonel "Warner joined his new regiment at Decherd, Tennessee, and in 
January, 1865 was ordered to North Carolina. After the capture of Fort Fisher 
he participated in the engagement at Kingston, and upon the occupation of the 
capital of the "old North State" he was ijiade Provost-Marshal of the city. 
After the suri-ender of Johnston's army he was'placed in command of the post 
of Charlotte, North Carolina, and he continued in that position during the re- 
mainder of his term of service. Upon the recommendation of Generals Cox 
and Schofield, his corps and department commanders, he was brevetted Briga- 
dier-General in July, 1865. Shortly after this he was mustered out of service, 
with the additional honor of Brevet Major-General, for " gallant and merito- 
rious conduct during the war," to rank from March 13, 1865. 

In the fall of 1865 he was chosen State Senator from the Sixteenth Senato- 
rial District, and he soon proved himself as efiScient in the council as in the 
field. He resumed his old residence at Newark. 



J 



Chakles R. Woods. 841 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES R. WOODS. 



CHAELES E. WOODS is a native of Licking County, Ohio, and a 
graduate of West Point. On bis completion of the regular course in 
that institution in July, 1852, he was appointed brevet Second-Lieuten- 
ant in the First Eegiment Infantry. 

At the opening of the rebellion he was assigned to duty as Quartermaster 
on General Patterson's staff. He was afterward assigned to General Banks's 
staff, and he continued to serve as Quartermaster until August, 1861, when he 
was assigned to the recruiting service at St. Louis. He remained there until 
the 3d of October, when he obtained a leave of absence witb permission to raise 
a three years' regiment in Ohio. 

On the 7th of October Governor Dennison appointed him Colonel of the 
Seventy-Sixth Infantry. The Forty-Fourth had then its complement of men, 
and was lying in camp at Springfield. The Governor ordered Colonel Woods to 
take that regiment to the field. Accordingly he left Springfield October 14th, 
in command of the Forty-Fourth, and on the 18th he reached Camp Piatt in the 
Kanawha Yalley. He was relieved of the Forty-Fourth by Colonel Gilbert, and 
was ordered by General Eoseci-ans to take command of the Tenth Ohio Infantry, 
then without a field officer present. Under General Benham he participated in 
a chase after General Floyd, and on the 20th of November he returned to New- 
ark to complete the organization of the Seventy-Sixth. 

On the 9th of Februai-y, 1862, he proceeded with his regiment, by way of 
Cincinnati, Paducah, and Smithland to Fort Donelson. He landed on the 14th, 
and Avas assigned to Colonel Thayer's brigade of General Lew. Wallace's divis- 
ion. Colonel Woods was actively engaged on the 15th, the regiment losing 
sixteen men killed and wounded. On the 21st Colonel Wood was assigned to 
the command of a brigade consisting of the Fifty-Sixth, the Seventy-Sixth, and 
the Seventy -Eighth Ohio Eegiments ; the Twentieth Ohio was subsequently 
added to the brigade. On the Ist of March the brigade moved across the 
country to Metal Landing, on the Tennessee, and thence up the river to Crump's 
Landing. During the battle of Pittsburg Landing Colonel Whittlesey of the 
Twentieth Ohio, by virtue of seniority, commanded the brigade, and Colonel 
Woods was with this regiment. The brigade did not reach the field until the 
evening of the 6th of April, but on the morning of the 7th it went into action, 
and, though not closely engaged, it was exposed to a galling fire for nine hours. 
On the 25th of April Colonel Woods again assumed command of the brigade, 
and participated in the advance on Corinth. About the Ist of June he moved 
to Memphis ; and on the 24th of July he left Memphis for Helena, to join the 
Army of the South-West. 



842 Ohio in the Wae. 

On the 16tli of August he moved down the Mississippi, in command of the 
Second Brigade of Osterhaus's division. At JViilliken's Bend the gunboats cap- 
tured a Eebel steamer loaded with arms and ammunition, and information was 
received that a Eebel regiment was encamped on shore Colonel Woods landed 
his command, but the enemy fled. Pursuit was made, and fifty prisoners and 
one hundred and fifty guns were captured ; in addition the telegraph line was 
destroyed, and a depot, containing a large amount of sugar and bacon, was 
burned. In October Colonel Woods was engaged in an expedition from Helena to 
Pilot Knob, and in December he moved with Sherman's forces against Yicksburg. 
He was present at the battle of Chickasaw Bayou, but was not actively engaged. 
In the engagement at Arkansas Post Colonel Woods's regiment sufi'ered severely,. 
losing sixty men in less than forty seconds. For gallant conduct in this action 
he was recommended by General Sherman for promotion to the rank of Briga- 
dier-General. 

On the 15th of January, 1863, Colonel Woods embarked his command on 
transports, and on the 23d arrived at Young's Point opposite Yicksburg. Here 
he remained until the 2d of April, when he moved up the river, and on the 2d 
of May commenced the march across the country to Grand Gulf, He was en- 
gaged in all the battles in the rear of Yicksburg, and from the time the brigade 
left Grand Gulf until the 23d of May it lost two hundred men, one hundred and 
eighty-five of whom were killed or wounded on the 22d of May. During the. 
siege the brigade was posted on the extreme right of General Grant's army, 
near the river above Yicksburg. Colonel Woods laid out the trenches in hia 
part of the line himself, having no engineer officer under his command. 

On the 5th of July the Colonel moved his command toward Jackson, on the 
Bridgeport Eoad, by way of Bolton and Clinton. Upon reaching Jackson he 
took position in the second line of the Fifteenth Army Corps, and there re- 
mained for some days, sustaining slight loss. From Jackson the brigade made 
several expeditions ; to Canton, to Messenger's Plantation, and again to Canton^ 
finally going into camp for the summer at Big Black Bi'idge. 

On the 22d of August Colonel Woods received his appointment as Brigadier- 
General, and his brigade was denominated the First Brigade, First Division^ . 
Fifteenth Army Corps. On the 23d of September the corps moved for Chatta- • 
nooga. General Woods accompanying it. Upon reaching Chickasaw on the 
Tennessee Eiver, the General assumed command of the division. Leaving this- 
point the division, with a large ammunition and supply-train, averaged eighteen 
miles a day, and ai-rived at Brown's Ferry on the 23d of JSTovember. The pon- 
toon bridge being broken down, the division reported to General Hooker, and 
was placed in his column. 

General Woods commanded his brigade in the battle of Lookout Mountain, 
and its conduct was unexceptionable. It moved forward to the attack with an' 
irresistible energy, and held every inch of ground with a bravery which foiledj 
the enemy in all its attempts to dislodge it. It was also engaged at Mission 
Eidge, making captures of men, arms, and ammunition. The brigade held the 
advance in General Hooker's movement on Einggold, and was hotly engaged 



Charles R. Woods. 843 

with the enemy posted in one of the mountain gaps. Some of the regiments 
fired one hundred cartridges per man, besides rifling the boxes of the killed and 
wounded. General Wood's brigade returned to Chattanooga on the Ist of De- 
cember, and on the 3d it marched to Bridgeport; the march was continued to 
Woodville, where, in connection with the First Division of the Fifteenth Corj^s, 
the brigade acted as guard to the line of the Memphis and Charleston Eailroad. 

On the 1st of May, 1864, General Woods's command left Woodville, and 
marched by way of Bridgeport to Chattanooga. The troops pi-essed on through 
Snake Creek Gap, and about the 12th of May arrived near to Eesaca. In the 
battle at that place General Woods handled his brigade with rare skill, and was 
highly complimented by his superior officers. He was next engaged at Dallas, 
and then again at K.enesaw; after which there was a series of fightings and 
flankings in which the General participated, until the occupation of Atlanta. 

General Woods led his brigade through the Georgia campaign, and also the 
campaign of the Carolinas. At the close of the war he accompanied the army 
to Washington City, and participated in the grand review. On the 1st of July, 
1865, by telegram from General Thomas, commanding at Nashville, he was as- 
signed to the command of the Department of Alabama, with head-quarters at 
Mobile ; where he remained through that and the ensuing year. 

General Woods has participated in the following campaigns, skirmishes, 
sieges, and battles: Campaign of the Virginia Valley April, May, June, July, 
1861 ; pursuit of Eebel forces in Kanawha Valley, November, 1861 ; battle of 
Fort Donelson ; battle of Pittsburg Landing; siege of Corinth ; expedition down 
the Mississippi, August, 1862; battle of Chickasaw Bayou; battle of Arkansas 
Post; Jackson, May 15, 1863; siege of Vicksburg and assault. May 22. 1863; 
siege of Jackson, July, 1863; skirmish at Canton, July, 1863; skirmish at Can- 
ton, July 17, 1863; skirmishes on Memphis and Charleston Eailroad, near Chero- 
kee Station and Tuscumbia, October, 1863 ; battle of Lookout Mountain ; battle 
of Mission Eidge; battle of Einggold. In the Atlanta campaign: Battle of 
Eesaca; battle of Dallas; skirmishes near Kenesaw; siege of Atlanta and bat- 
tles, 22d and 28th of July, 1864; battle of Jonesboro'; skirmish at Lovejoy's 
Station. In pursuit of Hood: Skirmishes at mouth of Octoba; Ship's Gaj); Lit- 
tle Elver ; and Turkey town. Georgia campaign : Battle of Griswoldville ; skir- 
mish at Wright's Bridge ; siege of Savannah. Campaign of the Carolinas: Skir- 
mish at the Little Congaree; skirmish and capture of Columbia; and battle of 
Bentonville. During nearly five years of service General Woods was absent 
forty-seven days on leave ; he was excused from duty on account of sickness ten 
days; and these constitute the sum of his absence. His command was never 
engaged in a skirmish or battle in which he also did not participate. 

General Woods is portly in appearance, rather slow in movements and in 
conversation. He gives those who meet him the impression of a steady, solid, 
judicious, and trustworthy person, rather than one of special brilliancy. Gen- 
eral Sherman once spoke of him as a " magnificent officer." Before the war his 
political sympathies were conservative and democratic. 



844 Ohio in the Wae. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL AUGUST V. KAUTZ. 



GENEEAL KAUTZ was born on the 5th of January, 1828, in the 
valley of Ispringen, near Potzheim, Grand Duch}" of Baden, Germany. 
Six months after his birth his father emigrated to the United States, 
and after a residence of several years in Baltimore, Maryland, moved to George- 
town, Brown County, Ohio, and in 1844 to the Ohio Eiver, near Eipley, where 
he still resides. The General is the oldest of a family of seven children. His 
father was a carpenter, and sustained his family by his trade until his removal 
from Georgetown, when he commenced the production of Catawba wine. From 
his eleventh to his fourteenth year the General was emj)loyed principally in the 
jDrinting offices in Georgetown, and from his fifteenth to his eighteenth year he 
assisted his father at his trade and at farming. 

In June, 1846, young Kautz enlisted as a jDrivate in companj^ G, First Ohio 
Volunteers, Colonel Alex. M. Mitchell commanding. The company was raised 
under the patronage of Thomas L. Hanier, afterward Brigadier- General, and 
went to Mexico. The regiment was assigned to the First Yolunteer Field 
Brigade, Genei-al Hamer commanding. Kautz, then only eighteen years old, 
served out his enlistment of twelve months, and was with his regiment at the 
battle of Monterey. In 1848 he was appointed a cadet at the West Point 
Military Academy by Jonathan D. Morris, then member of Congress from the 
Sixth Congressional District. In 1852 he graduated, and was appointed Brevet 
Second -Lieutenant in the Fourth United States Infantiy. He joined the regi- 
ment at Fort Vancouver, Oregon, in December, 1852, and served with it until 
the commencement of the rebellion. In the spring of 1853 he was ordered to 
Fort Steilacoom, on Puget Sound. In May of the same year he was sent down 
the sound in a boat to visit the Indians. After a month's absence, he returned 
and found that he had been promoted to be a full Second-Lieutenant, and had 
been ordered to join his company at Humboldt Bay, California. 

He set out b}- land, in July, with a saddle-horse and a pack-horse. He 
crossed the mountains through the .N'achess Pass, and was joined by two men 
who accompanied him to trade with the Indians. The greater poi-tion of the 
distance to the Dalles, on the Columbia Eiver, was made on foot, as one of the 
horses had given out and had to be abandoned. This region was at that time 
unexplored. At the Dalles he procured another horse, recrossed the mountains ; 
by the Emigrant Eoad, and came into Fort Vancouver at the time that an out- 
break among the Eogue Eiver Indians occurred, and a piece of artillery was 
called for by Captain Aldens. The distance was nearly four hundred miles, but 



August V. Kautz. 845 

Kautz was dispatched with a sergeant and a twelve-pounder brass field how- 
itzer and caisson. The march was made in thirteen days, which was a remark- 
ably short time, considering the condition of the roads and the mountainous 
country over which he passed. When he reached Eogue Eiver an engagement 
Had taken place, and the Indians had agreed to treat. Lieutenant Kautz re- 
mained a few weeks, and then continued his journey to San Francisco, where 
he arrived in October. 

At San Francisco he received orders to report to Fort Oxford, which is 
situated on the Oregon coast near the California lino, and he remained in com- 
mand of this post until January, 1856. Lieutenant Kautz's term of service at 
this post was a continuous series of interesting adventures. On the 25th of 
October, 1855, while making a reconuoissance through the Coast Eange of mount- 
ains, from Fort Oxford to Fort Lane with forty men, he encountered a large 
force of hostile Indians. In an engagement with these Indians, Kautz lost two 
men and all his equipments, and narrowly escaped with his life. He was hit 
with a heav}" rifle ball in his right side, and it was only prevented from proving 
fatal by striking a memorandum book in his breast pocket. 

In December, 1855, he was promoted to a First-Lieutenant, and joined his 
company at Fort Steilacoom in the latter part of February, 1856, in time to 
take part in an expedition against the Indians, under Lieutenant-Colonel Casey, 
Ninth Infantry, in which he was wounded again in an engagement on White 
Eiver, Washington Territory. He served as Quartermaster at Fort Steilacoom 
until October, 1858, when he was ordered to the North -Western Boundary Com- 
mission, In the spring of 1859 Lieutenant Kautz received a leave of absence, 
which was extended for a year, and during that time he visited Europe and 
spent the most of his leave on the Continent. Upon his return to the United 
'States he was ordered immediately to accompany an expedition to convey re- 
cruits to Washington Territory. He joined his company at Fort Cheholis, on 
Gi'ay's Harbor, Washington Territory, in December, 1860. 

In May, 1861, he was detailed on recruiting service for his regiment, and 
arrived in New York a week after the battle of Bull Eun. In the meantime 
be had been appointed Captain in the Sixth Cavalry, and he joined the regi- 
ment at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. The organization of the regiment was com- 
pleted at Washington City during the winter of 1861-2, and it made the cam- 
paign with the Army of the Potomac on the peninsula. Just before the seven 
days' fightinsr Kautz succeeded to the command of the regiment, and continued 
in command of it until the following September, when he was appointed Colonel 
of the Second Ohio Cavalry. He joined the regiment at Fort Scott, Kansas in 
October, and soon after his arrival procured an order for the regiment to return 
to Ohio to refit and remount. The winter of 1862-3 was spent in reorganizing, 
and in April, 1863, Kautz proceeded with the regiment to Kentucky. During 
the spring and summer he participated in several sharp engagements at and 
near Monticello, and a part of the time commanded a brigade composed of the 
Second and Seventh Ohio Cavalry. He was in the pursuit of John Morgan 
through Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio and Morgan's defeat at BuflSngton Island 



k 



846 Ohio in the Wae 

was due, in a great measure, to his judicious attack. Upon returning to Ken- 
tucky, Kautz was appointed Chief of Cavalry of the Twenty-Third Corps, and 
served in that capacity through Burnside's campaign in East Tennessee and 
through the siege of Knoxville. In January, 1864, he was ordered to take 
charge of the organization of the East Tennessee recruits at Camp Nelson. Ken- 
tucky; but, before he could enter upon his work at Camp l^elson, he was ordered 
to "Washington City for duty in the Cavalry Bureau, where he remained until 
just previous to the great campaign of that year against Eichmond, when he 
was commissioned a Brigadier-General and ordered to the Army of the James. 

He took command of the cavalry of that army at Portsmouth, Virginia, in 
the latter part of April. His force consisted of about two thousand eight 
hundred men. On the 5th of May he set out to cut the Weldon and Petersburg 
Eailroad, and on the 7th he struck the road at Stony Creek Station, captured 
the guard and burned the bridge, water-tank and buildings. The next daj^ he 
burned the Notaway Bridge, destroyed the next station south and cajDtured 
more jDrisoners; amounting, with those taken the day previous, to one hundred 
and forty. He arrived with his prisoners at City Point on the 10th, his expedi- 
tion having proved entirely successful. On the 11th of May he crossed over to 
Bermuda Hundred, and on the 12th started again and struck the Eichmond 
and Danville Eoad at Coal Fields, ten miles west of Eichmond ; he destroyed 
the station, and also Powhatan and Chula stations. He then crossed over to 
the South Side Eoad and destroyed Wilson, Mellville, and Black's and White's 
Stations, and returned to City Point by way of Jarratt's Station. This expedi- 
tion was as successful as the first. On the 9th of June General Butler planned 
an expedition to surprise Petersburg. General Gillmore, commanding the prin- 
cipal force, was to make a demonstration and occupy the enemy while General 
Kautz, with his cavalry force, about thirteen hundred strong, was to force the' 
intrenchment at some undefended point. General Kautz succeeded in carrying 
the fortifications on the Jerusalem Plank Eoad, and penetrated to the town ; but 
for want of proper support he found it necessary to withdraw. On the 15th 
of June General W. F. Smith made a similar co-ojierative movement with 
Kautz, with the difference that Smith was to make the actual attack and Kautz 
the demonstration. The result was the capture of two miles of the Eebel 
works by General Smith. On the 21st of June an expedition under General 
Wilson, composed of his own and Kautz's division, started to destroy the Peters- 
burg and Lynchburg, and the Eichmond and Danville Eailroads. The expedi- 
tion was successful in destroying the railroads, but in returning it narrowly 
escaped capture at Eeam's Station. The main part of the force escaped, but 
the artillery and a few baggage wagons and ambulances, with the sick and 
wounded, fell into the hands of the enemy. Kautz, trusting to his woodcraft, 
struck across the country, ignoring roads, and slept within the National lines 
that night. Wilson, taking a more circuitous route, did not get in until the 
third day. During this raid General Kautz was engaged, sharply, at Eoanoke 
Bridge and at Eeam's Station. 

During the summer of 1864 General Kautz served alternately with the 



August V. Kautz. 847 

A.rmy of the James and the Arm}' of the Potomac. He participated in the 
movement by the right under General Hancock, and during August and the 
Qjreater portion of September he picketed the rear of the Army of the Potomac, 
from the James Eiver to the left. On the 29th of September he joined in the 
movement that resulted in the capture of Fort Harrison, at Chapin's Farm. He 
made a demonstration along the interior line of the enemy's intrenchments in 
front of Eichmond, and penetrated nearer to the city than any National troops 
had ever gone, except as prisoners. After the cajDture of Chapin's Farm, General 
Kautz, with his cavahy, was intrusted with the protection of the right flank of 
the Army of the James. His head-quarters were at Darleytown, and his pickets 
extended to the Charles City Eoad. The position was an unfortunate one, as 
there was a swamp in the rear of the command, and only one indifferent road 
through it. General Kautz reported to his superior the error in the position, 
but received no authority to change it; he therefore strengthened himself as 
best he could. On the night of the 6th of October two refugees from Eichmond 
brought him intelligence which convinced him that he would be attacked in 
the morning. He reported the facts to superior head-quarters, and prepared his 
own command for battle. Before daylight, on the morning of the 7th, the 
enemy appeared in force. In the meantime Kautz had received no instructions. 
Two divisions of infantry, perhaps numbering six thousand men, attacked his 
extended line, imperfectly protected and only fifteen hundred strong; and one- 
fourth of these were required to hold the horses, while the remaining three- 
fourths dismounted and fought with carbines. The Eebel cavalry, quite as 
strong as his own, turned his right flank and placed themselves between Kautz 
and the Army of the James, only two miles away. General Kautz held his 
ground until eight o'clock, A. M., and then fell back through the Eebel cavalry. 
This obstinate resistance gave the Army of the James time to prepare for de- 
fense, and the Eebels were repulsed with heavy loss. A few days after this 
General Kautz was brevetted a Major-General of Volunteers. 

On the 13th of October General Kautz participated in a reconnoissance, 
under General Terry, in which the forces engaged sustained a heavy loss. 
During the winter General Kautz, with his cavalry division, guarded the right 
flank of the Armj' of the James. On the 10th of December the enemy made a 
reconnoissance down the Darleytown Eoad, but the position taken by the cavalrv 
was fortified so strongly that the Eebels did not reach the intrenchments occu- 
pied by the infantry. General Kautz devoted himself to the jDreparation of 
his cavalry for the spring campaign; and, notwithstanding the scarcity of forage, 
the command was rejjorted by the Inspectoi'S to be in fine condition; but in 
March, 1865, he was relieved from the cavalry division, and assigned the com- 
mand of the First Division of the Twenty -Fifth Corps. Th' division wan 
composed entirely of colored troops, and had an actual strength of about seven 
thousand men. On the 3d of April Kautz marched into Richmond under 
Weitzel, and remained, in command of his division, in the T-cinity of Eichmond 
i and Petersburg until May, when he was ordered to Washin'^o^ CJitj^, as a member 
{of the Military Commission that convened for the trial r- the assassins of Presi- 



848 Ohio in the War. 

dent Lincoln. When the commission was dissolved he proceeded to his home, 
and remained until an order was issued in January, 1866, mustering out all 
general officers of the volunteer service. He subsequently served on General 
Sheridan's staff as Acting Judge.- Advocate of the Military Division of the Gulf. 
Among General Kautz's classmates from Ohio were Generals Sheridan, 
Crook, Stanley, C. E. Woods, and McCook. These were all the Ohioans of the 
class that were alive at the time of the rebellion, and all were Major-Generals 
or Brevet Major-Generals in the National army. General Kautz was married 
on September 14, 1865, to Miss Charlotte Tod, eldest daughter of ex-Governor 
Tod. During the war he prepared the following works on militarj^ adminis- 
tration : The Company Clerk ; Customs of Service for Non-commissioned Of- 
ficers and Soldiers, and Customs of Service for Officers of the Army. The first 
was very successful, the second was issued near the close of the war, and the 
latter has been issued since the war has closed. 



I 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 



~pv UTHBEFOKD B. HAYES was born at Delaware. Ohio, on the 4th 
pv of October, 1822. After a good preliminary education, he began the 
-*-^ study of law in the office of Thomas Sparrow, Esq., of Columbus. With 
the liberal preparation here received he entered the Law School of Harvard 
College, where he completed the regular course and graduated with credit. 

For some years prior to the outbreak of the rebellion he had been practic- 
ing his profession in Cincinnati. His genial manners and his fine capacities as 
a public speaker had commended him to popular favor, and he had more than 
once been elevated to responsible official positions. As city solicitor he had 
enlarged his reputation as a lawyer, and established himself in the confidence 
both of the profession and of his increasing numbers of clients. 

At the first call for volunteers in 1861 he was in the prime of life (entered 
upon his thirty-ninth year) and in the height of a successful practice. He prof- 
fired his services, however, at once, and was appointed Major of the Twenty- 
T\iird Ohio Infantry on the 7th of June, 1861. He served under General Eose- 
ci-ans in Wesit Virginia during the summer and fall of 1861, and for a short time 
wj\s Judge-Advocate on the General's staff. He was promoted to Lieutenant- 
Colonel on tht4th of November, 1861. He took command of the Twenty-Third 
Eegiment, and continued to command it during the spring campaign in West 
Virginia, and the^iutumn campaign under General McClellan, until he was dis- 
abled at the battle vf South Mountain. He was appointed Colonel of the Sev- 
enty-Ninth Ohio in 1>62, but was prevented by the South-Mountain wound from 
joining the regiment ; ^^^^ on the 15th of October, of the same year, he was pro- 
moted to the Colonelcy o ^^e Twenty-Third. On the 25th of December, 1862, 



RuTHEEFOED B. Hayes. 849 

Colonel Hayes was placed in command of the First Brigade of the Kanawha 
division, and he continued in this position until Sheridan's victory at "Winches- 
ter, in September, 1864, when he took command of the Kanawha division, and 
led it through the remainder of the active campaigning in that year. 

In the battle of Winchester Colonel Hayes was leading his brigade in a 
chai'ge, when suddenly they came upon a morass some sixty yards wide ; the 
water was waist deep, and in some places overgrown with heavy moss almost 
strong enough to bear the weight of a man, while the bottom was soft and 
miry. This seemed an imiiassable obstacle, and the whole line hesitated. But 
there was no hesitation on the part of Colonel Hayes. He immediately spurred 
his horse into the slough under a brisk fire of artillery and musketry. When 
about half way across the horse mired hopelessly, and then the Colonel dis- 
mounted and waded out, being the first man across. All through the action he 
was exposed continually; men fell all around him; and his Adjutant- General 
was shot at his very side.* 

In October, 1864, Colonel Hayes was appointed Brigadier-G-eneral, "for 
gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Winchester, Fisher's Hill, and 
Cedar Creek," to take rank from the 19th of October — the date of the battle of 
Cedar Creek. In the spring of 1865 he was given the command of an expedi- 
tion against Lynchburg, by way of the mountains of West Yirginia, and was 
engaged in prepai-ations for that campaign when the war closed. 

General Hayes was brevetted Major-General at the close of the war for gal- 
lant and distinguished services during the campaign of 1864, in West Yirginia, 
particularly at the battles of Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek, to date from March 
13, 1865. He was engaged in much severe service, and he participated in many 
battles. He had three horses shot under him, and was wounded four times, 
once very severely. 

K Before the close of the war he had been elected to Congress from the Second 
Cincinnati District by a handsome majority, and in 1866 he was re-elected. 
Although a fine speaker, he preferred not to add to the multitude of words 
which in Congress so often darken counsel, and in three sessions he did not 
make a single elaborate speech. His action, however, was uniformly in the line 
of policy of the Eepublican party, by which he had been elected; and his fidel- 
ity and sound judgment were greatly relied on by his fellow-members. 

At the Eepublican State Convention, in 1867, he was nominated by a hand- 
some majority — almost indeed, spontaneously, — for the Governorship of the 
State, to succeed Governor Cox. He thereupon resigned his seat in Congress, 
and entered actively upon the canvass. The contest was complicated by the 
negro-suffrage question, the bond question, and other matters, which loaded 
down the ticket with an unpopular platform. General Hayes was, however, 
elected by a majority of about three thousand; and was all the more highly es- 
teemed at the close of the campaign, by reason of his handsome bearing through- 
out it. 

* For a fuller account of his brilliant conduct in this and the other Shenandoah battles, see 
the sketch of his regiment, Twenty-Third Infantry, in Vol. II. 
YoL. I.— 54. 



850 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES C. WALCUTT. 



CIIAELES C. WALCUTT was born in Columbus, Ohio, February 
12th, 1838. He attended the public schools of his native city until 
1854, when he was sent to the Kentucky Military Institute, near Frank- 
fort, Kentucky, where he graduated in 1858. Before the opening of the rebell- 
ion he took much interest in the State militia, and commanded a volunteer 
company in Columbus, called the Yidettes. This company subsequently fur- 
nished several valuable officers to the army. After graduating, his intention was 
to become a civil engineer; but, on the 15th of Aj^ril, 1861, three days after the 
fire on Fort Sumter, he commenced recruiting a company, and on the 17th its 
organization was complete. Governor Dennison being aware of young Wal- 
cutt's military knowledge, appointed him Inspector, with the rank of Major, and 
assigned him to duty with Brigadier-G-eneral Chas. W. Hill, in West Virginia. 

On the 8th of August, 1861, he was appointed Major of the Forty-Sixth 
Ohio ; but, before the regiment was ready for the field, he was made Lieutenant- 
Colonel. In February, 1862, he joined General Sherman at Paducah, and in 
March he moved with the fleet up the Tennessee. On the first day of the battle 
of Pittsburg Landing Lieutenant-Colonel Walcutt was wounded severely by a 
ball in the left shoulder. He was disabled for sixty days, and the ball still 
remains in his shoulder. 

On the 16th of September, 1862, he was made Colonel of the regiment. 
He participated in the campaign under General Grant into Central Mississippi, 
and was engaged frequently in raiding in Northern Mississippi, his command 
being mounted. He was ordered to Vicksburg on the Ist of June, 1863, but 
at the time of the surrender he was operating against General Johnston, and 
he subsequently participated in the capture of Jackson. Colonel Walcutt's 
regiment was attached to the Second Brigade, Fourth Division, Fifteenth Army 
Corps, and in September he moved with the corps to the relief of Chattanooga. 
At the battle of Mission Eidge the brigade, under General Corse, assaulted the 
enemy's works on the 24th and 25th of November. The most severe assault 
was on the 25th, in which General Corse was wounded, and the command of the 
brigade fell into the hands of Colonel Walcutt. In his official report General 
Sherman said: "The fight raged furiously about ten A. M., when Genei'al Corse 
received a severe wound and was brought ofl" the field, and the command of the 
brigade, and of the assault at that key-point, devolved upon that fine, young, 
gallant officer. Colonel Walcutt, of the Forty-Sixth Ohio, who filled his part 
manfully. He continued the contest, pressing forward at all points." Colonel 
Walciitt's brigade shared in the pursuit of the Eebels from Mission Eidge, and 
then marched for the relief of Knoxville. Upon its return it went into winter- 
quarters in Northern Alabama. 

On the 5th of January, 1864, the entire brigade re-enlisted. This action 



Chaeles C. Walcutt. 851 

was owing largely to the influence of Colonel Walcutt, and he looks upon it 
with more pride than upon any battle in which he was ever engaged. Upon 
the expiration of the veteran furlough the brigade entered upon the Atlanta 
campaign. It participated in all the general engagements, and, in addition, had 
several affairs of its own— at Eesaca and Dallas, and at New Hope Church on 
the 15th of June, where it captured four hundred prisoners. On the 27th of 
June, though almost worn out with incessant marching, digging, and fighting, 
it was one of the brigades specially detailed to make the assault on Kenesaw.' 
On the 22d of July, before Atlanta, the day upon which General McPherson 
was killed, the brigade performed most gallant service. Not once during that 
terrific struggle did it become disorganized, and Colonel Walcutt was assured 
that his pertinacious fighting did much toward preventing disaster. The men 
fought to the front, flank, and rear; and at one time Colonel Walcutt was 
•ordered to retire, as he was almost completely surrounded ; but, feeling con- 
fident of holding his position, he disobeyed the order, and, as he was successful 
in his efforts, his disobedience cost him nothing. On the 28th the brigade was 
again engaged, if possible, more severely than on the 22d ; and on the 30th 
Colonel Walcutt was appointed Brigadier-General. The brigade was engaged 
at Jonesboro' and Lovejoy ; and thus ended the Atlanta campaign, which had 
l)een to Walcutt's brigade a continuous battle. 

The brigade was next engaged in the chase after Hood, whom it followed 
into Northern Alabama, and then returned to Atlanta in time to join "the 
march to the sea." On this campaign General Walcutt's brigade fought the 
Dnly considerable battle that occurred. General Wood's division, to which the 
brigade belonged, was lying midway between Gordon's and Gris wold's Stations, 
on the Georgia Central Eailroad. General Walcutt was ordered to make a dem- 
onstration toward Macon. During the morning he engaged Wheeler's cavalry 
and routed them ; but about noon he was attacked by the Georgia militia, under 
General Phillips, the force consisting of three brigades, two independent bat- 
talions, and a full battery of artillery, in all from eight to ten thousand men. 
General Walcutt had thirteen hundred muskets and two pieces of artillery ; but, 
nothing daunted, he stood his ground and made it a daylong to be remembered hy 
the Georgia militia. General Howard, in his congratulatory letter, estimated the 
Rt'1»el loss at from fifteen hundred to two thousand ; the National loss did not 
exceed eighty. In this affair General Walcutt was disabled by a shell-wound 
in the right leg, and, upon reaching Savannah, he left for his home in Ohio. 

"For special gallantry at the battle of Griswoldsville," Brigadier-General 
Walcutt was made Major-General by brevet; and, upon recovering from his 
wound, he reported for duty, and was assigned to the command of the First 
Division, Fourteenth Army Corps. He participated in the subsequent move- 
ments df Sherman's army, and in the review at Washington City; after which 
he took the Western regiments in his division to Louisville, Kentucky. By the 
Ist of August, 1865, they were all mustered out, and General Walcutt was then 
transferred to the Department of the Missouri. He was mustered out of the 
service January 15, 1866, having served four years and nine months. 



852 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL KENNER GARRARD. 



KENNEE GAEEAEDis grandson, on the maternal side, of Israel 
Ludlow, of New Jersey, one of the founders and original proprietors 
of Cincinnati. His mother — Miss Sarah Bella Ludlow — first married I 
the father of the present sketch, Jeptha Garrard, Esq., long since deceased. 
After remaining some time a widow, Mrs. Garrard married, about twenty years 
ago, the late Judge McLean, of the United States Supreme Court. Kenner 
Garrard was born in Kentucky, during a temporary visit of his mother to that I 
State. He entered West Point Military Academy as cadet from Cincinnati in \ 
the year 1847. In July, 1851, he graduated, and was enrolled in the United \ 
States service as Brevet Second-Lieutenant, Fourth Artillery. 

At the commencement of the rebellion he was a Captain in the Second ; 
United States Cavalry. He was on duty in Texas, and, with a number of other i 
officers stationed in San Antonio, was seized and held as a prisoner of war by > 
the Eebels. He was released and allowed to go North on a parole, which per- 
mitted him to perform military duty out of the field. He was accordingly on ' 
duty, first in the "War Department, and afterward as commandant of the Corps 
of Cadets at the Military Academy. He was exchanged in September, 1862. 

He was immediately appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Forty- 
Sixth New York, and he served with that regiment in the Second Division, 
Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac ; participating in the battles of Fredericks- 
burg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. For gallantry in the battle of Gettys- 
burg he was made Brigadier-General of Yolunteers on the 23d of July, 1863. 
He still continued to serve with the Fifth Corps, and was engaged in the battles 
of Eappahannock Station and Mine Eiver. In January, 1864, General Garrard 
was placed in charge of the Cavalry Bureau of the War Department ; but in 
the same month, at his own request, he was relieved and ordered to the field. 

In February General Garrard was assigned to the command of the Second' 
Cavalry Division, Army of the Cumberland. He commanded this division on 
the Atlanta campaign, having the entire care of one of the fianks of General 
Sherman's army, and performing much other duty pertaining to the cavalry 
arm. He thus rendered very signal service during the operations which re 
suited in the capture of Atlanta. In November, at his own request, he wasi 
relieved from the cavalry service and assigned to the command of the Second 
Division, Sixteenth Army Corps. He commanded the division in the battle of 
Nashville, and was brevetted a Major-General "for conspicuous efficiency and^ 
gallantry on the field of battle before Nashville, December 15th and 16th, 1864 

General Garrard was engaged in the Mobile campaign, and his division waej 
especially distinguished in the assault on Fort Blakely. He remained in com^j 
mand of his division until he was mustered out of the volunteer service. 



Hugh Ewing. 853 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL HUGH EWING. 



HUGtH ewing is the son of the Hon. Thomas Ewing, of Lancaster, 
Ohio, brother to General Thomas H. Ewing, and brother-in-law to 
General W. T. Sherman. He fitted himself for the practice of the law, 
ind was engaged in that profession upon the breaking out of the rebellion. On 
the 6th of May, 1861, he received from Governor Dennison the appointment of 
■' Brigade Inspector of the Third Brigade, Ohio militia," with the rank of Major, 
and was engaged at Camp Dennison in drilling the troops, instructing officers 
and men in guard, patrol, and police duties, inspection of companies, regiments, 
hospitals, commissary and quartermaster departments, and in re-enlisting troops 
for the three years' service, until the 21st of June, when he moved with General 
Schleich's brigade to join General McCiellan's army at Buckhannon, West Yir- 
nnia. He participated in the battle of Rich Mountain ; after which, on the 13th 
Df August, he was mustered out as Brigade Inspector on the expiration of his 
term of service. On the following day he was aj)pointed Colonel of the Thirti- 
3th Ohio Infantry, of which he assumed command on the 15th. Soon after he 
moved with his regiment to West Virginia, where he joined the army of Gen- 
eral Eosecrans at Sutton on the 5th of September. On the night of the 10th, 
after a brisk engagement with the enemy at Carnifex Ferry, Colonel Ewing was 
ordered to picket the front. He did so, and in the morning, hearing that the 
enemy had evacuated, he was ordered by General Eosecrans to verify the report. 
He went with a company into the enemy's works and captured a picket-guard 
of fifteen men, together with the colors of Floyd's brigade. After some marches 
to Sewell and Cotton Mountains in pursuit of the enemy. Colonel Ewing was 
placed in command of the post at Fayette. 

During the winter of 1861-62 he was ordered to Washington to procure arms 
and to effect other arrangements for the good of the service in General Eose- 
crans's Department. While there he was appointed by General McClellan Pres- 
ident of an Examining Board to pass on the qualifications of army officers. At 
his request he was relieved in February and returned to Fayette, where he was 
detailed as Pi-esident of a Court-Martial and also of a Military Commission 
which convened at Charleston. In March following he moved under General 
Cox's command toward Dublin Depot, but was obliged to fall back, with the loss 
of baggage and trains, to Flat Top Mountain, where he remained until the 15th 
of August, when the troops of General Cox's division were hui'ried to Washing- 
ton, via Parkersburg. Moving through Washington and out to New Market, 
thence to Frederick an*d to Middleton, where he reached the enemy's position. 



854 Ohio in the Wae. 

On tho 14th of September he commanded his regiment in the battle of South 
Mountain, where he was engaged at the point where Major-General Reno, com- 
manding the Ninth Army Corps, fell. Here he executed the difficult maneuver,! 
under fire, of changing front forward on tenth company to charge a battery on 
his left, and then, finding a large force on his right, he reversed his position by. 
changing front to rear on the same company, and presented his front before the 
enemy delivered fire. In the final charge on that day his regiment was in the 
front line. At midnight, after the battle, he received an order assigning him toi 
the command of the First Brigade, and here his connection with his regiment 
ended. 

At the battle of Antietam he commanded a brigade at the extreme left.l 
which, according to General Burnside's report, after General Rodman had beeni 
driven back "by a change of front and rear on his right flank, saved the^ 
left from being completely driven in." In General Cox's order, issued after 
this battle, Colonel Ewing was favorably mentioned "for energy and skillful 
bravery. 

Colonel Ewing took his first "sick leave " after this battle, and on the 23d( 
of October following, the Kanawha division having been ordered back to West 
Virginia, he re-assumed command of his brigade. In November he placed his 
command in winter-quarters. On the 29th of the same month he received thei 
appointment of Brigadier-General of volunteers, having been recommended for 
promotion by Generals Schenck and Roseci^ans in January, and by General 
Burnside after the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. A month after he 
was ordered to report at Cincinnati in command of the Thirtieth, Thirty-Seventh, 
and Forty-Seventh Ohio, 'and the Fourth Virginia Infantry. Subsequently he 
received orders assigning him to General Sherman's command, which he joined 
as it was coming back from the capture of Arkansas Post. He returned to 
Vicksburg and aided in the widening of one of the canals undertaken about 
that city. 

General Ewing, while lying in front of Vicksburg, combated the influence 
of disloyal newspapers which were sent to his camp, by causing them to be 
taken from the venders and burned. He also broke up the sale of bad whisky 
to the soldiers, by confiscating the liquor and arresting the dealers. The vend- 
ing of cigars and groceries by the soldiers, which he considered a demoralizing 
custom, he cured in like manner, but he acknowledged his inability to check the 
vice of gambling. In spite of the confiscation of money and the tying up of 
the offenders, it always happened that hundreds of soldiers wei-e foolish enough 
to be swindled out of the money which they should have remitted to their 
friends at home. 

After the successful running of the batteries, and the passage of a portion! 
of the troops below Vicksburg, General Ewing was employed in forwarding sup-j 
plies. He participated in the demonstration on Haines's Bluff, and after the! 
march to the rear of Vicksburg, joined the main body on the 18th of May, hav- 
ing had in his charge the supplies, which he safely conveyed a distance of ninety 
miles in three days. 



Hugh Ewing. 855 

His command was engaged in an unsuccessful assault on the enemy's works 
on the 19th, and again on the 22d of May. After this he held the advanced 
position gained on the 22d, called Battery Sherman, and was engaged in con- 
structing such works as the nature of the siege operations required. Every- 
thing was in readiness for the final assault when the welcome news of the sur- 
render of Vicksburg came, and the troops were permitted to celebrate the 4th 
of July within the enemy's captured stronghold. 

Gi-eneral Ewing moved with the army in the pursuit of Johnston, and par- 
ticipated in the attack on the enemy at Jackson, Mississippi. After the evacu- 
ation he was placed in command of the Capital, and made efforts, not altogether 
'successful, to stop the pillaging of the soldiers among the State records. On 
the 21st of July he relinquished the command of his brigade by order of Gen- 
eral Sherman, and was assigned to the command of the Fourth Division of the 
Fifteenth Army Corps, composed of four brigades, then commanded by Colonels 
Hicks, Cockerill, Loomis, and Sanford. With this command he returned to the 
vicinity of Vicksburg on the 25th of July. On the 11th of August he was 
appointed president of a board to award inscriptions on banners in the Fifteenth 
Army Corps. At the close of this duty, on the 1st of September, he received a 
a second leave of absence for twenty days. In October following he moved 
with his command via Memphis and Corinth, to Florence, Alabama, and thence 
to join the forces at Chattanooga. On the 11th of October General Ewing was 
with General Sherman when he was attacked at Colliersville, on the Memphis 
and Charleston Railroad, by a heavy force of infantry and artillery under the 
Rebel General Chalmers, and where, by the splendid action of the troops under 
Colonel Anthony, of the Sixty-Sixth Indiana, and of General Sherman's body- 
guard of two hundred men from the Fifteenth United States Infantry, this for- 
midable body was put to flight. 

After reaching the vicinity of Chattanooga, he made a demonstration on 
Bragg's left by way of the Lookout Yalley. Afterward he returned, and in 
the final movement resulting in the victory of Mission Ridge, his command par- 
ticipated with General Sherman's forces, operating against the enemy's right. 
The loss of ills division in this battle was eight hundred in killed and wounded. 

General Ewing went in pursuit of Bragg as far as Greyville, Georgia, and 
then turned on the march to the relief of Knoxville. In this memorable move- 
ment the men of his command re-enacted the often-mentioned blood-tracked 
march of the Revolutionary army. At Mission Ridge the}' had been compelled 
to cast away overcoats and blankets, and as the quartermasters' stores could not 
replace them, nor furnish shoes, many of the men left on the frozen ground the 
stains of blood from their shoeless feet; and then, at night, unable to lie down 
and sleep, stood or walked about their fires to keep warm. 

Returning to Scottsboro', Alabama, after this extraordinary march, the 
command went into winter-quarters. Here General Ewing had the satisfaction 
of seeing his command, notwithstanding the hardships they had just endured, 
roused to the utmost pitch of enthusiasm on the subject of re- enlisting as vet- 
erans under the order of the War Department. Nearly every man in his com- 



S56 Ohio in the Wae. 

mand re-enlisted. The mustering in and furloughing of these men occupied 
the month of January, 1864, and on the 5th of February General Swing received 
another leave of absence. This severed his connection with his division, for at 
the same time he was tendered the command of the District of Louisville, which 
he accepted. 

This position he retained until February, 1865, when he applied for assign- 
ment to dutj^ in the field. His request was granted, and he was assigned to a 
command in the army of General Sherman, but before he could join the army 
the war ended. He was then appointed President of a Court-Martial in Wash- 
ington City, in which service he continued until in the latter part of 1865. He 
was brevetted Major-General " for meritorious services during the war," to date 
from March 13, 1865. On the 15th of January, 1866, he was mustered out of 
the service. 

General Ewing then received the appointment of American Minister resi- 
dent at the Hague, and shortly afterward entei-ed upon the duties of that oflSce. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL SAMUEL BEATTY. 



SAMUEL BEATTY was chosen Colonel of the Nineteenth Ohio Three 
Months' Eegiment, one of the foremost of the State militia regiments to 
enter upon active service in West Virginia. At the battle of Eich 
Mountain, under the eye of General Eosecrans, he led his raw command so sat- 
isfactorily as to secure for it, in the official report, the remark that "the Nine- 
teenth distinguished itself for the cool and handsome manner in which it held 
its post against a flank attack, and for the manner in which it came into line 
and delivered its fire near the close of the action." 

Under his auspices the regiment re-enlisted for three years, and by the 
middle of November he led it into the field in Kentucky. In the battle of 
Pittsburg Landing he again behaved so as to secure complimentary mention in 
the ofiicial reports. By the close of November, 1862, he had so risen in the con- 
fidence of his superiors as to secure through their aid a commission as Briga- 
dier-General. At the battle of Stone Eiver his brigade was to have formed part 
of the turning column that was to cross Stone Eiver and enter Murfreesboro' ; 
but the disaster to the right recalled it, and General Beatty got his men into 
position in time to be led in a charge by Eosecrans himself Beatty was here 
again commended for handsome conduct. He passed through Chickamauga, 
and the march to the relief of Knoxville, and the advance on Atlanta; and, 
finally, returning in the old Army of the Cumberland to confront Hood, he so 
bore himself in the actions that ensued as to receive (on 13th March, 1865) the 
brevet of " Major-General for gallant and meritorious services in the battles 
before Nashville, Tennessee." 



James S. Robinson. * 857 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL JAMES S. ROBINSON. 



JAMES S. EOBINSONwas born near Mansfield, Ohio, on the 14th 
of October, 1828. At the breaking out of the rebellion he entered the 
service as a private in the Fourth Ohio Infantry. He was chosen 
First Lieutenant of his company, and was soon after promoted to Captain. He 
accompanied his regiment to West Virginia in June, 1861, and participated in 
the Eich Mountain campaign. In October Captain Eobinson was appointed 
Major of the Eighty-Second Ohio. He assisted in organizing the regiment at 
Camp Simon Kenton, at the town of Kenton, and in February, 1862, he moved 
with it into West Virginia. He served in the Shenandoah Valley campaign 
under Fremont ; in General Pope's campaign, including the second battle of 
Bull Eun ; in the Chancellorsville campaign ; in the Gettysburg campaign ; in 
the Atlanta campaign ; in the Georgia campaign ; and in the campaign of the 
Carolinas; terminating in the march to Washington City, and the grand review. 
He has participated in the following battles : Eich Mountain, Cross Keys, sec- 
ond Bull Eun, Chancellorsvill-e, Gettysburg (in which he was severely wounded), 
Eesaca, Dallas, New Hope Church, Gulp's Farm, Peach tree Creek, Averyboro', 
and Bentonville. 

He commanded the Third Brigade, First Division, Twentieth Corps, from 
the 1st of May, 1864, until the dissolution of the corps at Washington City in 
June, 1865, He was recommended for promotion while a Colonel, for the man- 
ner in which he handled his brigade at Eesaca, New Hope Church, and Peach- 
tree Creek, At the place first mentioned, when one division of the Fourth 
Corps had been routed, Colonel Eobinson brought up his brigade on the double- 
quick, and by a few well-directed volleys checked the enemy and prevented the 
capture of an Indiana battery. When the Secretary of War visited the army 
after the capture of Savannah, it was decided to appoint one Brigadier-General 
from each of the corps, and Colonel Eobinson was appointed from the Twentieth, 

General Eobinson was a private, April 17, 1861 ; First Lieutenant, April 
18, 1861; a Captain, April 27, 1861; a Major, October 26, 1861; a Lieutenant- 
Colonel, April, 1862 ; a Colonel, August 29, 1862 ; a brevet Brigadier-General, 
December 12, 1864; a Brigadier-General, January 12, 1865 ; and a brevet Major- 
General, March 13, 1865. 






858 ' Ohio in the War. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL JOSEPH WARREN KEIFER. 



JOSEPH WAEEEN KEIFER was born in Clark County, Ohio, on tha . 
30th of January, 1826. For more than twenty years he labored upoa 
a farm, within a few miles of Springfield, and, with a fair common- 
school education, and one term at Antioch College for a basis, he commenced 
the study of law in the office of Charles Anthony, Esq., on the 2d of October, 
1856. He was not a brilliant, but he was a diligent student; and, having mas- 
tered well his profession, he was admitted to the bar on the 3d of January, 
1858. He opened an office in Springfield and, though brought into competition 
with such men as Samuel Shellabarger, Sampson Mason, and Charles Anthony, 
from the very first week he entered upon a paying practice. 

President Lincoln's first call for troops found the young lawyer enjoying a 
lucrative practice ; but he closed his office, hastened to Columbus, and, just twelve 
days after the issuing of the call, was chosen Major of the Third Ohio Infantry. 
The Third was organized, originally, as a three months' regiment; but it was i 
reorganized at Camp Dennison, on the 12th of June, 1861, for three years, and 
Keifer was again chosen Major. The regiment was ordered to West Virginia, 
and participated in the series of operations culminating in the victory at Eich 
Mountain. For his conduct at Eich Mountain, on the 11th of July, and at Cheat 
Mountain and Elkwater, on the 12th and 13th of September, Major Keifer re- 
ceived the commendations of his superior officers. His energy and practical 
good sense recommended him to the General commanding. General Eeynolds 
said of him, that " there was not a cow-path in all that region with which he i 
was not thoroughly acquainted." 

On the 19th of November the Third Ohio was ordered to Kentucky to 
form part of the Army of the Ohio, then organizing under General Buell. It 
was assigned to the Third Division, commanded by General 0. M. Mitchel. On 
ihe 12th of Februai-y, 1862, while on the march from Bacon Creek, Major Keifer 
was promoted to the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of his regiment. He moved with the 
8rmy to Nashville, and in General Mitchel's brilliant campaign to Huntsviile, 
and along the Memphis and Charleston Eailroad he bore a conspicuous j^art. 
On the 1st of May he led a small party of soldiers across the Tennessee from ■ 
Bridgeport, marched up the Nashville and Chattanooga Eailroad, cajjtured a i 
quantity of provisions, burned a number of cars at Shell Mound, destroyed the 
saltpeter works at Nicojack, and returned safely, although the Eebel General 
Leadbetter was then in Chattanooga with three thousand five hundred men. 
Lieutenant-Colonel Keifer continued with his regiment until Biiell's army 

i 



Joseph Wakeen Keifer. 859 

returned to Louisville. He had been selected, however, by the Military Com- 
mittee of the Seventh Congressional District, as Colonel of the One Hundred 
and Tenth Ohio, and on the 30th of September he was commissioned to this 
oflice. 

He immediately assumed command of his regiment, then at Camp Piqua, 
and on the 19th of October moved with it to West "Virginia, the same region in 
which he first drew his sword. For some months the regiment was garrisoning, 
marching, and bivouacking. During a portion of this time Colonel Keifer ^Vas 
in command of the post of Moorefield. In January, 1863, the One Hundred and 
Tenth proceeded to Winchester, and during the winter and spring continued 
its wearisome round of post and garrison-duty, until some of the men began to 
think that they would never participate in a battle. But at last the battle of 
Winchester came ; and one feeble division contended hopelessly, for three days, 
against Ewell's entire corps. It forms a sad chapter in the history of the war, 
but a brilliant event in the life of Colonel Keifer. On the 13th of June he 
advanced with his own regiment, the Twelfth Pennsj-lvania Cavalry, and two 
pieces of artillery, up the Strasburg Eoad, encountered and repulsed a heavy 
force of the enemy at Union Mills, and retired without serious loss. On the 
14th, with the One Hundred and Tenth Ohio, one company of the One Hun- 
dred and Sixteenth Ohio, and one battery of the Fifth United States Artillery, 
he held the outworks between the Romney and Pughtown Eoads, against a 
large force of Eebels with sixteen pieces of artillery, until his command, liter- 
ally overwhelmed, was driven out of the works at the point of the baj-onet. 
General Milroy, in his official report, estimates the Rebel column, so stubbornly 
resisted by Colonel Keifer, as " at least ten thousand strong." On the morning 
of the 15th, while the National troops under cover of darkness were seeking to 
escape. Colonel Keifer, at the head of his regiment, executed a series of charges 
which broke the lines of the famous Stonewall Brigade, and enabled the broken 
battalions of Milroy's division to pass to a place of safety. Colonel Keifer was 
wounded, slightly, in the leg during the first day's battle, and again in the ankle 
on the 14th ; but neither wound kept him out of the saddle for an hour. 

After a brief rest at Harper's Ferry, the One Hundred and Tenth was hur- 
ried to the Army of the Potomac, and Colonel Keifer was assigned to the com- 
mand of a brigade in the Third Corps, composed of his own regiment, the One 
Hundred and Twenty-Second Ohio, the Sixth Marj'land, and the One Hundred 
and Thirty-Eighth Pennsylvania. This command participated in all the opera- 
tions of the grand army, up to the time when Lee was driven into the intrench- 
ments beyond the Rapidan. On the 15th of August Colonel Keifer, with a portion 
of his brigade, was sent to New York City to maintain the authority of the Ctov- 
ernment, and, if necessary, to assist in enforcing the draft. While there his pru- 
dence, in the discharge of his delicate duties, was universally remarked. On the 
14th of September he rejoined the Army of the Potomac, and participated m 
the advance to Culpepper, and in the retrograde movement to Centreville. On 
the 8th of November Colonel Keifer's command distinguished itself at Brandy 
Station, and on the 27th, at Orange Grove, it carried by storm the key to the 






860 Ohio in the Wae. 

enemy's position. Colonel Keifer, for his skill and gallantry, received the 
thanks of his corps comniauder, Major- General French. 

On the 2d of March, 1864, the Third Army Corps was discontinued, and 
Colonel Keifer's brigade was assigned to the Sixth Corps. On the 4th of May 
the Army of the Potomac crossed the Eapidan, and engaged in the battle of the 
Wilderness. Colonel Keifer's regiment, alone, lost one hundred and twenty-five 
men ; and, late in the day, he himself was severely wounded ; both bones of 
the left fore-arm being shattered by a musket ball. But not until the conflict 
was ended did he relinquish command and retire from the field. The Colonel's 
wound was both painful and dangerous, and he was compelled to spend a short 
time at home ; but on the 26th of August, against the advice of his physicians 
and the remonstrance of his friends, he set out to join the army. 

The Sixth Corps was then with Sheridan in the Valley of the Shenandoah; 
and, upon arriving. Colonel Keifer was assigned immediately to the command of 
his old brigade. At Opequan he fought with obstinate courage, participated in 
the grand charge in the afternoon, and, with his command, was among the first 
to enter Winchester at the heels of the flying foe. At Fisher's Hill General 
Eicketts, commanding the division, sent a staff-oflficer with orders for Colonel 
Keifer to assault a fortification on the left of the enemy's line ; but the Colonel, 
perceiving the necessity, had ordered the assault himself, and the fortification 
was captured before the order was received. In the battle of Cedar Creek the 
command of the Third Division devolved upon Colonel Keifer. During the 
whole of that memorable day it was in the thickest of the fight ; and, in the 
advance, in the afternoon it broke the center of the Rebel line, and was the first 
to plant the colors on the works from which it had been driven in the morning. 
The services of Colonel Keifer in these battles were not overlooked, and he was 
brevetted Brigadier-General, to date from the battle of Cedar Creek. 

In December the Sixth Corps returned to the Army of the Potomac ; and 
until the spring of 1865 it maintained, in front of Petersburg, an almost contin- 
uous struggle with the enemy. On the morning of the 2d of April the Sixth 
Corps broke through the Rebel lines, capturing whole brigades of Rebels. In 
this assault, which General Meade pronounces " the decisive movement of the 
campaign," it is claimed that General Keifer's brigade was the first to enter 
the enemy's works. On the 6th of April, at Sailor's Creek, General Keifer led 
his command against the heaviest columns of the enemy, routed them wherever 
they opposed him, and captured the naval brigade entire, commanded by Com- 
modore Tucker. For gallant and meritorious services in this campaign General 
Keifer was brevetted Major-General, to date from the 9th of April, the day of 
Lee's surrender. 

On the 27th of June, 1865, General Keifer was mustered out of the service. 
He returned to Springfield, and resumed the practice of law in the same office 
which he occupied before the war. 



Eli Long. 861 



BREYET MAJOR-GENERAL ELI LONG. 



THE subject of this sketch graduated at the Kentucky Military Institute 
in June, 1855. He then went to Washington City, and was employed in 
the Treasury Department, in the Bureau of Construction, until he was 
appointed Second-Lieutenant in the First United States Cavalry. He joined 
his regiment at Lecompton, Kansas, and remained on frontier duty — with the 
exception of a five months' leave of absence in 1859-60 — until the outbreak 
of the rebellion. 

Lieutenant Long was promoted to First-Lieutenant March 21st, and to 
Captain M&y 24, 1861. In August, 1861, he surprised and captured, without 
firing a shot, a well-armed and equipped company of thirty-eight men, wi{h 
fifty or sixty animals, en route from Denver City to join Price in Missouri. On 
this expedition Captain Long, with forty-eight mounted men, marched one 
hundred and twenty miles in thirty-two hours. He went with one squadron 
of his regiment to Fort Leavenworth in December, 1861, and in February, 

1862, he reported for duty, with the same squadron, to General Buell, at Louis- 
ville, Kentucky. He was on duty, as escort to General Buell, until Buell was 
relieved by General Eosecrans, and ho continued to act as escort to that officer 
until the battle of Stone River, where he was wounded by a ball in the left 
shoulder. 

Upon the recommendation of Generals Eosecrans and Stanley, Captain 
Long was appointed Colonel of the Fourth Ohio Cavalry. On the 9th of June, 

1863, he was placed in command of a cavalry brigade, which he led through the 
Tullahoma campaign, and in the pursuit south, having a severe engagement 
with the Eebel cavalry at Elk Eiver, in Avhich the latter was defeated. He par- 
ticipated in the subsequent cavalry operations until the battle of Chickamauga, 
where the brigade suffered severely, losing, out of nine hundred men, one hun- 
dred and thirty-four killed, wounded, and missing. He commanded the brigade 
in the pursuit of the Eebel General Wheeler from the Tennessee Eiver at Wash- 
ington, East Tennessee, to the Tennessee Eiver at Lamb's Ferry. Colonel Long 
led his brigade in a charge at McMinnville and at Farmington. At the former 
phice his horse was hit, and at the latter place both horse and rider were hit. 
He was mentioned in official reports for gallant conduct at both these places. 
During the battle of Mission Eidge Colonel Long, with fifteen hundred cavahy, 
marched to Cleveland, East Tennessee, destroyed thirty miles of the Knoxville 
and Chattanooga Eailroad, burned a cap-factory and rolling-mill, destroyed a 
wagon-train of eighty-two wagons, captured two hundred and twenty-three 
prisoners, and returned to Chattanooga, after an absence of three days. For 



862 Ohio in the War. 

this expedition he i-eceived favorable mention from General Grant. Soon after, 
with the same command, he reported to General Sherman, and marched two 
days in advance of the General's infantry column into Knoxville. From there 
he moved through the western part of North Cai-olina into Northern Georgia, 
marching four hundred and sixty-three miles in seventeen days, with but little 
food for the stock and less for the men. For this expedition Colonel Long was 
complimented hy General Sherman in an autograph letter. 

Colonel Long returned to Calhoun, and had a sharp engagement witb Gen- 
eral Wheeler, capturing nearly five hundred stand of arms and one hundred and 
twenty-seven prisoners. In February, 1864, he participated in a reconnoissanoe 
on Dalton, having several sharp skirmishes. Soon after this he went with his 
command to Cleveland, and thence to Einggold. In March he received leave 
for a month, and, upon returning to the field, rejoined his brigade at Columbia, 
Tennessee, where it had been ordered to refit. He joined General Sherman's 
main army at Kingston, and participated in all the movements of the Atlanta 
campaign, until the 21st of August, when he was wounded in i.. j right leg and 
arm; his horse was shot in the head at the same time. He had been appointed 
Brigadier-General on the 18th of August, 1864, and, upon recovering from his 
wound, he was placed in command of a cavalry division. He moved with his 
division to Louisville, Kentucky, where it was thoroughly equipped, and on 
the 28th of December he set out with it for Gravelly Springs, Alabama. He 
moved with Brevet Major-General Wilson through Alabama and Georgia, and 
participated in the assault and capture of Selma. In this engagement General 
Long was wounded by a bullet on the top and right side of the head, indenting 
the skull and paralyzing the tongue and right side of the face, and the right 
arm. He still suffers from the effects of this wound, and the recovery of the 
use of his hand is extremely doubtful. 

The War Department has shown its appreciation of General Long's serv- 
ices by making him Brevet Major-General of volunteers and Brevet Colonel 
United States Army, from March 30, 1865. 



I 



William B. Woods. 863 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM B. WOODS. 



WILLIAM B. WOODS is a native of Newark, Licking County, Ohio. 
He studied law and soon became a successful practitioner. His fine 
appearance and handsome performance as a public speaker commended 
bim to the Democratic party, of which he was a member, and he was several 
jtimes elected to the lower branch of the State Legislature. Here he speedily 
became a leader, and in 1858-9 he was Speaker of the House of Eepresenta- 
tives. In this position his quickness, familiarity with the rules, and fairness 
gave great satisfaction. He was returned to the next Legislature, but his party 
was now in a minority, and so he became the leader of the opposition. In all 
the political discussions which raged in the Ohio Legislature through the spring 
of 1861, he was noted for the virulence of his opposition to every measure 
of Mr. Lincoln's administration and of his party. Even after the firing on 
Sumter he strenuously resisted the Million Loan Bill, by the aid of which it 
was proposed to place Ohio in a posture of defense and to assist the General 
•Government in its emergency. Presently, however, the uprising in the State 
reached the Capital. Under Mr. Woods's leadership the party still delayed the 
Loan Bill in the House, but in its private caucus discussions he earnestly urged 
a change of policy, while with the Eepublican leaders he plead that, by a little 
delay, they might be able to gain the great moral triumph of a unanimous 
vote in favor of the bill. His efforts were successful, and on the 18th of April, 
in moving the passage of the bill, he signalized the change of party policy by 
an eloquent war speech. He had no heart, he said, to discuss the causes of the 
troubles that were upon the countrj*. They stood on the dread threshold of 
civil war, and must act. The Government at Washington was his Government, 
and by it, in peace or in war, right or wrong, he would ever stand. The flag 
of our hearts — he would maintain to the last. The soil of Ohio or of the North 
must not be invaded. In its defense he would spend the last farthing of treas- 
ure and the last drop of blood, and locking shields with its friends, would stand 
or fall by "our country." Mr. Woods was greeted by loud applause from his 
fellow-members at the close of this speech; and when, soon afterward, the vote 
was reached, the bill was unanimously passed.* 

Thus far, however, he had only pledged himself to a war in defense of the 
territory of the North. As the war progressed his views enlarged, and on the 
11th of November, 1861, he was ready to enter the United States service (in 
which his brother, Charles E. Woods, of the regular army, was already actively 

♦Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 19th April, 1861. 



864 Ohio in the War. 

engaged), as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-Sixth Ohio. In this and his 
subsequent military positions he participated in the battles of Fort Donelson, 
Pittsburg Landing, Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post (in which he was slightly 
wounded), Eesaca, Dallas, Atlanta (July 22d and 28th), Jonesboro', Lovejoy Sta- 
tion, and Bentonville, and in the sieges of Vicksburg and Jackson, and in many 
minor affairs and skirmishes. He marched with Gen'eral Sherman's army from 
Atlanta to Savannah, from Savannah to Ealeigh, and thence to Washington 
City. During active hostilities his entire service, excepting three months, was 
in the field, at the front, and in command of troops. 

On the 10th of September, 1863, he was promoted to the Colonelcy of the I 
Seventy-Sixth Ohio Infantry. On the 12th of January, 1864, he was brevetted 
Brigadier-G-eneral, "for faithful and continued service as an officer in the Atlanta i 
and Savannah campaigns." On the 31st of May, 1865, he was, on the recom- 
mendation of G-enerals Grant, Sherman, and Logan, promoted to the full rank i 
of Brigadier-General; and subsequently, "for gallant and meritorious service i 
during the war," to the brevet rank of Major-General, honors which his faith- 
ful and able service abundantly warranted. 

General Woods was mustered out on the 17th February, 1866. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN W. SPRAGUE. 



JOHN W. SPEAGUE was born in Washington County, New York, April 
4, 1817. When quite young he removed with his father to Troy, New 
York, where he remained until May, 1845, when he removed to Huron, 
Ohio, and engaged in lake commerce and railroad entei'prise until the com- 
mencement of the rebellion. 

Under the fii'st call for troops, he raised a company and reported at Camp 
Taylor, near Cleveland. On the 19th of May, 1861, the company was assigned 
to the Seventh Ohio Infantry, which was soon ordered to Camp Dennison. Here 
the regiment reorganized for three years, and was ordered to West Yirginia. 
On the 11th of August, 1861, while Captain Sprague was proceeding from Sora- 
erville to Clarksville, under orders, with an escort of four mounted men, he 
was captured, when near Big Birch Eiver, after a sharp chase of about three 
miles, by a detachment of the Wise Legion, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel 
Crohan. Captain Spi-ague was taken to Eichmond, and was confined about siX' 
weeks in a tobacco house. He was then transferred to Charleston, South CarO' 
lina, and was confined first in Castle Pinckney and then in the Charleston jail. 
On the Ist of January, 1862, he was sent to Columbia, on the 5th he was taken 
to Norfolk for excha.nge, and on the 10th he reached Washington City. 



John W. Sprague. 865 

I While on his way to join his regiment, which was still in Virginia, Captain 

Sprague received from Governor Tod a commission as Colonel of the Sixty- 
Third Ohio Infantry. This regiment was at Marietta, Ohio, but its organiza- 
' tion was incomplete. This was rapidly completed, and on the 10th of February 
' Colonel Sprague moved with his regiment to report to Genei-al Sherman at 
Paducah, Kentucky. Immediately upon arriving he was ordered to report to 
General Pope, at Commerce, Missouri. Under that officer Colonel Sprague par- 
ticipated in the operations at New Madrid and Island Number Ten, and then 
joined the army at Pittsburg Landing. He moved with the army against Cor- 
inth, and subsequently commanded his regiment in the Battle of luka, but was 
only slightly engaged. Colonel Sprague was again engaged in the battle of 
Corinth, October 3d and 4th, 1862. On the 4th the regiment was posted on the 
right of Battery Eobinett, and lost more men, in proportion to its strength, 
than any other on the tield. Over one-half of the men were killed or wounded, 
and but three line officers esca2)ed unharmed. 

For some time Colonel Sprague was engaged in various operations of minor 
importance. In the latter part of 1863 the regiment re-enlisted. Of the men 
present only seven declined to re-enlist. Colonel Sprague always looked upon 
this almost unanimous act of his regiment as equal in importance, and worthy 
to be placed side by side, with any of its deeds on the field of battle. Indeed, 
no regiment could be more devoted to the country than was the Sixty-Third. 
Most of the men were Democrats, yet when Mr. Vallandigham, as candidate for 
Governor, asked for their suftVages, only three men out of the entire regiment 
were willing to indorse him. 

In the latter part of January, 1864, Colonel Sprague was assigned, by Gen- 
eral Dodge, to the command of a brigade, consisting of the Forty-Third and 
Sixtj-Third Ohio, the Twenty-Fifth Wisconsin, the Thirty-Fifth New Jersey, 
and the Third Michigan Battery. In April the brigade marched from Chatta- 
nooga, with the Army of the Tennessee, under General McPherson, forming 
part of the Gi-and Army under General Sherman. Colonel Sprague was act- 
ively engaged during the entire Atlanta campaign, and at Resaca, at Dallas, at 
Nicojack Creek, and at Decatur, on the 22d of July, he was conspicuous for cool- 
ness and bravery. At the place last mentioned Colonel Sprague was covering 
and guarding the train of the entire army, consisting of over four thousand 
wagons, containing almost all the supplies for the army. He was attacked by 
superior numbers, and the contest continued for more than four hours; but by 
his own bravery and ability, no less than by the courage and prompt obedi- 
ence of his men, the enemy was finally repulsed, and only one wagon was lost. 
Colonel Sprague's brigade lost two hundred and ninety-two men killed and 
wounded. 

Colonel Sprague was appointed Brigadier-General on the 29th of July, 
1864. After the fall of Atlanta he moved with General Sherinan to Savannah, 
and thence northward on the campaign of the Carol inas. After the surrender 
of the Eebel armies, he moved from Goldsboro, through Raleigh and Eichmond, 
to Washington City, where he participated in the Grand Review. He was 

Vol. I.— 55. 



866 Ohio in the Wae. 

relieved of his command in the army, and was assigned to duty by the Secretary 
of War, as Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau of Refugees, Freednien, and 
Abandoned Lands, with head-quarters at St. Louis, Missouri. The district under 
his "charge comprised the States of Missouri and Kansas, and, subsequently, the 
Indian Territory. In September, 1865, General Sprague's head-quarters were 
removed to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he remained until November, when 
he resigned. In the meantime, he was offered the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the 
Forty-First United States Infantry, which he declined to accept, and he was also 
brevetted Major-General of volunteers, to date fi-om the 13th of March, 1864. 

General Sprague is a man of fine personal appearance, tall, straight, and 
well-proportioned. His character as a soldier is imimpeachable, and his influ- , 
ance with his regiment, and afterward with his brigade, was almost unbounded.; 
No one who knew him as a soldier, failed to esteem and love him. He was 
always pronipt, efficient, and brave. On leaving the service he took charge of 
the Winona and St. Peter Railroad in Minnesota. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL BEN. P. RUNKLE. 



BEN. P. RUNKLE was born near AYcst Liberty, Ohio, September 3, 
1836. The family was closely connected by marriage with that of the 
Piatts, of Logan County. He was educated at Miami University, where 
he graduated in July, 1857. He studied laAv under General Samson Mason, at 
Sprino-field; was admitted to the bar in June, 1859, and entered upon the prac- 
tice of his profession at Urbana. In the same season he was candidate for State 
Senator from his district on the Democratic ticket, but was signally defeated. 

Upon receiving the news of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, he immedi- 
ately volunteered, as did every member of the Douglas Guard, a militia com- 
pany of which he was Captain. He was appointed Captain in the Thirteenth 
Ohio Infantry, April 19, 1861, and he again entered the regiment when it was re- 
organized for three years. He served in West Virginia under General Rosecrans, 
and shortly after the battle of Carnifex Ferry was promoted to Major. He 
was next engaged at Pittsburg Landing, where he distinguished himself by an 
almost reckless bravery, and was borne off the field mortall}^ wounded, as was 
supposed, being shot through the face and feet; the greater portion of his jaw, 
and a part of his tongue, being shot away. He returned to Ohio until he should 
recover from his wounds; but immediately he was apj^ointed Colonel of the 
Forty-Fifth Ohio. At once he set about recruiting and organizing his regiment, 
and before his wounds were healed he was again in the field. 



Ben-, p. Runkle. 867 

Colonel Ennkle continued to serve with credit in Kentucky, part of the 
time commanding a brigade, until June, 1863, when, having been sun-struck, 
and still suffering from his old wounds, he returned to Ohio, Notwithstanding 
his debilitated condition, at the request of Governor Tod, he assumed command 
of the Ohio Militia in the John Morgan raid. Colonel Eunkle's command 
guarded the line of the Cincinnati and Marietta Eailroad, the fords of the Ohio 
from Parkersburg to Steubenville, and continued to harass the raiders until 
they were captured. The exposure and anxiety of this campaign brought on a 
serious attack of fever, and Colonel Runkle being unable to return to the field, 
was ordered to report to the Governor of Ohio for duty on his staff. In the 
spring of 1864, Colonel Eunkle rejoined his command at Mount Sterling, Ken- 
tucky, and was placed in command of a brigade. He joined the army of the 
Ohio in front of Tunnel Hill, Georgia, and continued to serve with that army 
until the Etowah Eiver was crossed, when he was ordered to the command of a 
brigade in East Tennessee. Feeble health forced him to retire from active 
service, and on the 21st of Jul}^, 1864, he was discharged "on account of 
wounds received in action." 

On the 22d of August he Avas appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twenty- 
First Eegiment Veteran Eeserve Corps, and he continued to command the regi- 
ment until January, 1866, when the men were discharged. Colonel Eunkle in 
the meantime having been brevetted Brigadier-General, was assigned to duty in 
the Bureau of Eefugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands for the District of 
West Tennessee. Here he displayed good administration and executive ability, 
and during the Memphis riots he appeared in full uniform among the rioters, 
and did all in his power to protect the colored people. Ho afterward served as 
President of the Military Commission which investigated the riots. In Septem- 
ber, 1866, General Eunkle was appointed Major of the Fortj^-Fifth United 
States Infantrj^ and has since been brevetted Major-General of volunteers. 

In becoming a soldier, General Eunkle has adopted the profession for which 
he is by nature fitted. Gifted with a firm will, energy, talents, and a cultivated 
mind, he has entered upon his duties with an alacrity which can not fail to 
secure success. 



868 Ohio in the Wae. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL AUGUST WILLICH. 



AUGUST WILLICH was born in 1810, near Koenigsberg, in Eastern 
Prussia. His father was a Captain of Hussars, serving in the French 
war and in the Polish insurrection. Being disabled by wounds he 
was appointed to a civil office in one of the Prussian departments until his 
death in 1813. 

At the age of twelve years August Willicli, choosing to be a soldier like his 
father, entered the military academy at Potsdam. Three j'ears later, in 1825, 
he entered the military academj' at Berlin, and in 1828 he completed his educa- 
tion, and was commissioned Second-Lieutenant of the Eoyal Artillery. In 1841 
he passed the requisite examination, and received a coinmission as Captain. 

The officers of the brigade to which he was attached were strongly republi- 
can in their views, and in 1846 a conflict arose between them and the Govern- 
ment. Willich at once tendered his resignation, but it was not accepted, and 
he was assigned to duty at a distant point in Poraerania. He refused to act 
under the King's order, and regularly renewed his application for a dischai-goi 
every month. At the end of a year he sent an open letter to the King, for 
which he Avas court-martialed. His comrades were not willing to punish him, 
and they decreed that he be discharged from the service. 

Willich at once entered into active co-operation Avith the revolutionists, and 
commanded the forces at the battle of Candarn, where he was defeated. In 
1849 he commanded a corps in the German revolution, but the campaign o^ 
fourteen weeks proving unsuccessful, he fled to Switzerland, and afterward t 
England. 

In 1853 he came to the United States, -where he at first thought of collect 
in"- a force to move upon Hamburg; but, abandoning that idea, and being, like 
most political refugees, almost penniless, he began Avork as a carpenter, a1 
Avhich trade he Avrought about a year in Eastern New York. 

He finally procured a position on the United States Coast Survej^ unde^ 
Captain Maffit (afterAvard commander of the Confederate iron-clad Florida) 
In 1858 he became the editor of the Rcpublikana, a working-men's paj^er in 
Cincinnati. 

In the very beginning of the Avar he entered the service as a priA^ate in 
the Ninth Ohio, which regiment he drilled. He Avas soon appointed Adjutant, 
and afterAvard Major. With this regiment he served in West Virginia, being 
in the engagement at Rich Mountain. 



August Willich. 869 

He was then called to Indiana, where he organized the Thirty-Second 
Indiana, of which regiment he was appointed Colonel. 

His first engagement was at Munfordsville, where, with five hundred men, 
he repulsed the attack of Hindman's Texan Eangers, and a battery of artillery. 
At the battle of Pittsburg Landing he was still commanding his regiment. 
Being in McCook's division of Buell's army he did not reach the field until the 
second day. Coming to the support of Lew. Wallace at an opportune moment, 
he was directed to make a charge, which he did in such effective and brilliant 
manner as to win for him a Brigadier's commission. 

General "Willich was then placed in command of a brigade, consisting of 
the Fifteenth and Fortj^-Ninth Ohio, and the Thirty-Second and Thirty-Ninth 
Indiana. The Eighty-Ninth Illinois was afterward added to it. 

At the battle of Stone Eiver he was sent late in the evening of the first day 
to the right, and placed in rear of Kirk's brigade. In the morning he went to 
division head-quarters, and while he was gone the enemy broke through Kirk's 
brigade, and came upon his command before they could make any resistance. 
Hearing firing, he rode rapidly back to where he had left his troops, but found 
himself in the presence of General McCall, commander of the Eebel left Vv'ing. 
He was captured, and after spending four months as a prisoner, was exchanged. 

In the opening of Eosecrans's campaign against Bragg, in 1863, General 
Willich took Liberty Gap with his brigade, supjDorted by two regiments from 
another command. He characterizes this as the finesl fighting he witnessed in 
the war. The maneuvering of the brigade was managed by bugle signals, and 
the precision of the movements was equal to a parade. 

Chickamauga was the next battle in which General Willich participated. 
When the division to which he belonged (Johnson's of McCook's corps) was 
ordered from the extreme right to the support of Thomas, Willich's brigade 
moved in advance. By an order directly from General Thomas, General Wil- 
lich, with his brigade and another, made a charge which broke the enemy's line, 
and resulted in the capture of some artillery. In following up this charge the 
General found himself nearly a mile in front of Thomas's main line, and in 
this position the enemy turned his left flank. By a ba3^onet charge to the rear 
Willich succeeded in keeping from being cut off, and maintained his ground 
until evening, when the enemy in renewed force made an assault. After losing 
one-third of the command. General Willich was repulsed and forced to fall back 
to the main line. 

On the second day his command was again engaged, and in the evening, 
bj' direction of General Thomas, he was left to cover the retreat. He main- 
tained this position on the thii-d day until the whole army arrived safely at 
Chattanooga, 

Here he remained, enduring with the rest, the sufferings incident to that 
state of siege, until the battle of Mission Eidge. On the fix-st day of this 
engagement Willich's and Hazen's brigades opened the battle, and captured the 
first portion of the enemy's works, being the point afterward occupied by our 
Generals as field head- quarters, and known as Bald Knob. 



870 Ohio in the War. 

In the action on the third day, when Sherman had made his unsuccessful 
charges, and Grant gave the well-known order for the center to take the enemy's 
works at the foot of the Eidge and stay there, Willich's and Hazen's brigades 
were in the front, with Sheridan's and other divisions in eclielon to the rear. 
The whole line moved in double-quick through woods and fields, and carried 
the works — Willich's brigade going uj) under the concentrated fire of batteries 
at a point where two roads met. 

At this point General Willich says he saw that to obey General Grant's order,] 
and remain in the Avorks at the foot of the Ridge,- would be the destruction of 
the center. To fall back would have been the loss of the battle, with the sac-[ 
rifice of Sherman. In this emergency, with no time for consultation with thei 
division General, or any other commander, he sent three of his aids to diff'erent 
regiments, and rode himself to the Eighth Kansas and gave the order to storm; 
the top of the Ridge. How brilliantly the order was executed the whole world, 
knows. 

After this General Willich went with his command to East Tennessee.? 
Here he obtained leave of absence to undergo a surgical operation, and did not! 
rejoin his command until at the beginning of the Atlanta campaign, in 1864. 
He participated in the engagement at Buzzard's Roost, and a few days after- 
ward, at Resaca, while in the act of charging upon the enemy's works, he 
received a bullet in his right shoulder, which terminated his active military 
career. 

He was afterward appointed to the command of the District of Cincinnati, 
which post he held until his corps (the Fourth) was ordered to Texas. Upon 
application, he was ordered to join the corps, which he did, serving in Texas 
until October, 1865, when he was mustered out of service. 

General Willich was afterward promoted to Brevet Major-General. Onl 
returning to resume his residence in Cincinnati, he was elected Auditor ofj 
Hamilton County, on the Union ticket. 



Charles Gtriffik ^y| 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL CHARLES GRIFFIN. 



CHAELES GEIFFIN was born in Licking County, Ohio, about the 
year 1827. He attended an institution of learning in Bardstown, Ken- 
tucky, and afterward, July 1, 1843, he received the appointment of cadet 
at West Point. Four years later he graduated in the class with Generals Burn- 
side and Ayres, and received the appointment of Brevet Second-Lieutenant in 
the Fourth Artillery. 

The Avar with Mexico being then in progress, the young officer was at once 
ordered to active dut}-, and thus commenced a military career of more than 
ordinary- variety of service. In Mexico he marclied from Vera Cruz to Puebla in 
command of a company attached to the force commanded by General Patterson. 
From Mexico he was ordered to Florida, in January-, 1848, and to Old Point 
Comfort in the following December. Here he remained until July, 1849, when 
he was promoted to First-Lieutenant of the Second Artillery, and was ordered 
to New Mexico in command of a cavahy compan3^ In scouting and other 
duties of frontier life his time was occupied until 1854. Next he S])ent three 
years in garrison duty at Fort McHenry, Maryland, in command of a battery. 
In 1857 he was engaged in conducting recruits from Carlisle Barracks, Penn- 
sylvania, to Fort Leavenw^orth, Kansas ; Avas in garrison at Fort Independence, 
Missouri ; on frontier duty at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and afterward in com- 
mand of the escort which accompanied the Governor of New Mexico to Santa 
Fe. Eeturning through Texas, he rejoined his command at Fort Leavenworth, 
and remained there and at Fort Eiley until in the latter part of 1859, when he 
received a leave of absence, continuing until some time in 1860. In September 
of this 3'ear he was ordered to West Point and appointed assistant instructor of 
artillery, a position for which he was well fitted from his previous experience 
in that arm of the service. This post he held until January, 1861, when, among 
the earliest movements of the war, he was ordered to Washington with the 
West Point battery. This was one authorized to be attached to the Fifth Cav- 
alry, and was afterward known as Griffin's battery. He remained in command 
of it until June 26, 1862, Avhen he received his commission of Brigadier-Gen- 
eral of volunteers, and assumed command of his brigade as it was marching 
to the battle-lield of Meehanicsville. He at once rendered himself conspicuous 
for his gallantry in that action ; and subsequently, at the battle of Gaines's 
Mill, he displayed a heroism that challenged the admiration of the enemy. At 
Malvern Hill he was placed in command of the artillerj^, which was supported 
by his own brigade, and posted at the point of attack by the forces of the Eebel 



872 Ohio in the Wae. 

General Magruder. 3y his skillful use of the artillery he threw Magruder's 
trooi^s into confusion, and thus contributed much to the good results of the en- 
gagement. In addition to these battles, he participated in almost everj^ battle 
and skirmish of the army of the Potomac, beginning with the first battle of 
Bull Eun and ending with the battle of Five Forks. He was engaged at Bull 
Eun, July 21, 1861; at Secessionville ; at Yorktown, May 4, 1862; Mechanics- 
ville, June 26th ; Hanover Junction, June 27th ; Gaines's Mill, June 27th ; 
Malvern Hill, July 1st and August 4th ; Bull Eun, August 29th and 30th ; An- 
tietam, September 16th and 17th ; Sharpsburg, September 19th ; Fredericks- 
burg, December loth ; Chancellorsville, May 2, 3, and 4, 1863; Gettysburg, July 3d 
(returning from a sick leave); Williamsport, July 6th ; Culpepper. July 13th ; 

Morton's Ford, ; Wilderness, May 5, 1864; Laurel Hill, May 8th and 13th; 

Sj^otsylvania, May 18th and 19th; Jericho Ford, May 23d ; Anderson's Farm, 

; Tolopotomoy, May 29th ; Shady Grove, May 30th ; Bethesda Church, June 

2d and 3d; Petersburg, June 19th; Weldon Eailroad, August 18th, 19th, and 
21st; Hatcher's Eun (Nos. 1 and 2), February 7th and 8th and March 25, 1865; 
Quaker Eoad, March 27th; White Oak Eoad, March 31st; Fair Oaks, April 
1st; Appomattox C. H., April 8th and 9th. 

When the surrender of Lee was agreed upon General Griffin was appointed 
one of the commissioners to arrange the details. 

His command in the war was at first a battery, then a brigade, afterward 
a division ; and, on the battle-field of the Five Forks, when Sheridan was 
placed in command of the entire force, he was assigned to the command of the 
Fifth Corps, which he retained until the Army of the Potomac was disbanded. 
After this he was appointed to the command of the Military Division of the State 
of Maine, with head-quarters at Portland, where he made many warm friends. 

When he was mustered out of the volunteer service he received a promotion 
in the regular army to Colonel of the Thirty-Fifth United States Infantr^'^, and 
Brevet Major-General. He was then ordered to the command of the State of 
Texas; and when, in March, 1867, General Sheridan was assigned to the com- 
mand of the Fifth Military District, he retained General Griffin in command of 
that State. When General Sheridan was relieved of his command, General 
Griffin, as the next in rank, succeeded him. He had discharged the duties of i 
this high place, however, but for a short time, when he was attacked by yel- 
low fever. The terrible disease soon ran its course to a fatal termination. He 
died September 15, 1867. 

From his first march in Mexico to his last work in Texas thei'e is found but 
one leave of absence in General Griffin's military record ; and it has already 
been said that he participated in every battle and skirmish in which his com- 
mand engaged with the Army of the Potomac. To have moved with his com- 
mand to the defense of Washington, even before the actual beginning of 
hostilities — to have remained in active and dangerous service throughout the 
war, and to have finallj* fallen a victim to a pestilence while in the w^ork of 
restoring the self-exiled States to their places in the Government, is to have a 
record which of itself is an honorable monument. 



Charles Griffin. 873 

In the delicate position in Texas, as the agent to carry out the provisions 
of the reconstruction laws of Congress, General Sheridan ever found in him a 
faithful co-worker. In April, 1867, in a letter to Governor Throckmorton on 
the subject of registration, he said : " I am very anxious to see the laws impar- 
tially carried out, and no effort shall be spared on my jnirt to bring out the 
full number of legal voters in the State. If the citizens accept the situation, 
come forward and yield a cheerful obedience to the laws, there can be no 
trouble." Among his last orders was one which directed that there should be 
no distinction made in Texas on account of race, color, or previous condition, 
b}' railroads or other chartered companies which were common carriers. His 
letter to General Hartsuff, the Adjutant-General of General Sheridan (written 
only a few days before the fever attacked him), showed that he Avas fully in 
sjMujjathy with that commander's views : 

".Head-Quarters Department of Texas,") 
Galve.'^ton, Texas, September 6, 1867. J 
"Brevet Major-Generai, Geo. L. Hartsuff, A. A. G., 

" Head- Quarters Fifth Military District, JSeio Orleans, Louisiana: 
" General : I de-sire that yon transact all business and issue orders in the same manner 
that you would have done had General Sheridan remained in command and received his antici- 
pated leave of absence. It is uncertain when I can go to New Orleans, as I am threatened a 
little with yellow fever, and my physician advises me not to leave. All papers requiring my 
official signature please forward to these head-quarters. 

" I am, General, etc., 

" CHAS. GRIFFIN, Brevet Major-General." 

General Griffin, though often in great danger, escaped unhurt in all his 
battles. He had several horses shot under him at diffei-ent times, and once had 
the visor of his cap torn away b}' a musket-ball. At another time the folded 
strap of his boot served as a shield to stop the force of a bullet, which other- 
wise would have pierced his leg; and at another time a ball struck his sword 
with such violence as to break it. 

He was married, December 10, 1861, to Miss Sallie Carroll, of Maryland, a 
lady whose ancestry were favorabl}^ known in the history- of our country — one 
being a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and another one of the 
members of the convention which formed the Constitution of the United 
States. The wedding ceremony, which took place at the residence of the bride's 
father, Hon. \Vm. T. Carroll, was distinguished by the presence of President 
Lincoln, with many prominent officers of the Government and representatives 
of foreicfn nations. 



874 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY J. HUNT. 



HENEY J. HUNT was one of the old officers in the regular army, of 
excellent standing, and speciallj^ noted for familiarity with the artillery 
arm of the service, who rose to prominence under the ausj)ices of Gen- 
eral McClellan. 

He was born in Ohio, and appointed a cadet to West Point in Jul}', 1835.' 
In 1839 he graduated with such standing as to warrant his apjjointment as Sec- 
ond-Lieutenant in the Second Artillery. At the outbreak of the war he had' 
risen through the grades of Lieutenant and Captain. On the 14th of May,^ 
1861, he became Major in the Fifth Artillery. Some months later he was ap-J 
pointed Colonel and additional Aid-de-Camp on the staff of General McClellan.J 
On the 15th of September, 1862, he was made Brigadier-General of volunteers^ 
He served for a time as Chief of Artillery to the Army of the Potomac, and 
the close of the war found him Lieutenant-Colonel in the Third Artillery, Brig- 
adier-General of volunteers, and Brevet Major-General in the regular army. 



BREVET MAJOR-GENERAL B. W. BRICE. 



BENJAMIN" W. BE ICE, Paymaster-General of the army of the United 
States, a native of Virginia, was appointed a cadet to West Point frorai 
Ohio in 1825. He was graduated as a Brevet Second-Lieutenant in the 
Third Infantry, in 1829. The war found him in the Paj^masters' Department; 
where he had held the rank of Major since 1852. He rose through the variou 
grades of the department till, on the 29th of November, 1864, he became iti 
head. At the close of the war he was a Brevet Brigadier-General in the regu 
lar army. He has since received the brevet of Major-General. 



Robert L. McCook. • 875 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL ROBERT L. McCOOK. 



EIGHT brothers, in one cajjacity or anotlier, through tlie Avar, served 
to make tlie name of McCook a dear one to all who loved the army 
and the country. Few of them displayed brilliant military abilit3^ 
but all exhibited patriotism and devotion; nearly all were dashing, hard- 
hitting fighters, and three of the best sealed their labors with their blood.* It 
was the hard fortune of the ablest of them to fall, not in battle, as he would 
have wished, but at the hands of Eebel assassins, as he lay stretched upon a 
sick bed. Cut off thus almost at the threshold, he has not left us a rounded, 
perfect career in the war to admire; but he has left enough to deepen the gen- 
eral regret at his loss, and to insure his permanent place in the affectionate 
remembrance of his countrymen. 

Eobert Latimer McCook was the fourth son of Major Daniel McCook, and 
was born in Columbiana County, Ohio, on the 28th of December, 1827. Thirty- 
six years later, the father, white-haired and feeble with age, but inflamed with 
the warlike ardor he had bestowed upon his famil}^, and resolved to avenge the 
death of his murdered son, rode to his own death at the head of John Morgan's 
pursuers in the action at Buffington Island. 

Eobert was a perfectlj^ healthy lad, physically and intellectually. He 
could endure remarkable fatigue of body and bear up under long-continued 
mental application. His father was Clerk of the Court of Carroll County. The 
boy was sent to school till he was fifteen years of age, then was taken into his 
father's ofl&ce as a deputy, and was found fully competent for the place. Al- 
ready he had the quiet, grave manners that always distinguished him from his 
brothers ; was always sober, judicious, and devoted to his work. Even as a 
lad at school, people had been accustomed to speak of him as -'an old-fashioned 
child, sober bej^ond his years." 

Practice in the office of the clerk of the court soon familiarized him with 
the forms of legal proceedings. Presently he conceived the desire to be a law- 
yer himself. Hon. Ephraim E. Eckle}^ (since member of Congress from that 
district) took charge of his studies. After a time he removed to Steuben- 
ville, completed his legal course in the office of a notable firm, that of Messrs. 

••■ Charles Morris McCook, private company F, Second Ohio, killed 21st July, 1861, in the 
first battle of Bull Eun ; Brigadier-General Eobert L. McCook, mortally wounded on his sick 
bed by guerrillas in Tennessee, 5th August, 1862 ; Brigadier-General Daniel McCook, mortally 
wounded at Kenesaw Mountain, June 27, 1864. To this sad list may be added the father of these 
boys, Major Daniel McCook, mortally wounded at Buffington Island, July 21, 1863. 



876 • Ohio IN the Wak. 

Stanton & McCook, and began the practice of law under their auspices. Ho 
was soon admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and 
in good time he came to be known as one of the hard-working, faithful, rising 
lawyers of the State. He removed to Columbus, and, after practicing his pro- 
fession there for a time, finally settled in Cincinnati. His standing was now 
such that he was able to form a partnership with Judge Stallo, one of the most 
noted German lawyers in the city, and the firm of Stallo & McCook soon had 
all the business it could transact. Here the war found the future General and 
victim. 

The first call to arms brought into the service the majority of the ftimil)\ 
Robert was among the foremost. His partnership with Judge Stallo, and his 
consequent relations to the German population of Cincinnati, gave him a spe- 
cial influence among them, and the Germans at once thought of him as the 
Colonel of their first regiment. He knew nothing of military matters, but 
they had plenty of experienced -officers among their number who could drill 
them. What they wanted in their Colonel was a man in whom they could 
trust, and whose standing and character Avith the authorities would secure 
them from the annoyances which, as citizens of foreign birth, and mostly igno- 
rant of the English language, they feared they would otherwise encounter. 
This they thought Robert L. McCook peculiarly qualified to do ; and, in accord- 
ance with their wishes and his own earnest desire to enter the service as soon 
as possible, he was commissioned Colonel of the regiment he had helned to 
raise, the first German regiment given b}^ Ohio to the war, on April 28, 1861. 
His regiment was numbered as the Ninth Ohio. 

It was soon taken to Camj^ Dennison, and here speedily became noticeable 
as the one regiment in all that encampment that had no complaints to make. 
Its men had everything they wanted. If bad bread was issued, their Colonel 
was on the sj)0t to observe it, and he was the most pertinacious of men in keep- 
ing up his outcry till every abuse was corrected. The men were kept drilling 
under the competent subordinate officers, while Colonel McCook devoted himself 
to their comfort, saw to their supplies, the condition of their camp, and the wants 
of their sick. The morale of the regiment was thus kept up at the very time 
when the question of re-enlistment for three years Avas disorganizing almost 
every other command in the camp. The men promptly re-enlisted, and Colonel 
McCook had the pleasure of leading them, well drilled, perfectly" equipped, and 
in the best of spirits, among the fii'st of the three years' regiments, into West 
Vii'ginia. 

The history of Colonel McCook through the next few months may be best 
read in the history of the Ninth Ohio.* It need only be added here that Ihe 
regiment was in a fine state of discipline (with the single exception that from 
the outset the Colonel suffered them to act on the theory that they were enti- 
tled to anything they could find in the country that would help them to make 
camp-life more comfoi-table) ; that it marched well and fought well; and that 

•See Vol. IL 



Robert L. McCook. 877 

its commander rose rapidly in the confidence first of McClellan and then of 
Eosecrans, At the action with Flo^^d, in the autumn of 1861, at Carnifex Ferry, 
Colonel McCook led his men with especial gallantry under the eye of Eosecrans 
himself Those whose memories go hack to these early days of the war, recall 
also with infinite amusement another trait of character which Colonel McCook 
developed. His " Bully Dutchmen," as he was wont to call them, must always 
have the best and the most of everything. Supplies, clothing, pay, transporta- 
tion, everything was to be found in prompt abundance where Colonel McCook 
commanded. Where his wagons came from he never explained, but he gener- 
ally had twice as many as any other Colonel in the department. Eosecrans 
once ordered the extra transportation to be turned in to his staff quartermaster, 
McCook complied as promptly as the rest, but the next day he still had double 
as many wagons for his "Bully Dutchmen " as the envious regiments on either 
side of him could secure. 

He was commissioned a Brigadier-General of volunteers. He was at once 
assigned to the command of an excellent brigade in Buell's Army of the Ohio 
in which he insisted that his old Ninth Ohio should not fail to find a place. 
When the long delays in Kentucky gave way to the rapid movements that fol- 
lowed the opening of the Fort Donelson campaign, General McCook's brigade 
inarched with the rest of Buell's army across Tennessee from JSTashville to the 
field of Pittsburg Landing. In the skirmishes which alone varied the peaceful 
monotony of Halleck's advance on Corinth, he displayed the activity, zeal, and 
military capacity that had already secured his promotion, and were now to 
cause him to stand still higher in the esteem of his superiors. 

Then, after the fixll of Corinth, Buell's weakened army was turned east- 
ward to essa}' the reduction of Chattanooga. In other pages we have traced 
the tedious delays and the final retrograde movement, almost without fighting, 
to the Ohio Eiver. Long before this dispiriting termination General McCook 
had met his untimely fate. 

He had been disposed from the outset to rely on his hardy constitution, and 
to believe that he could safely undertake any labor or exijosurc of the cam- 
paign. For a time his health remained perfectly good, but at last he was pros- 
ti-ated by camp dysentery. His surgeons urged him to go to Nashville and 
remain thei-e in quiet till he should recover, but he refused to leave his troops, 
and although unable to sit up, insisted upon accompanying them on the march. 
A camp cot was fitted into an ambulance, and in this he moved with his bri- 
gade, continuing to direct its movements. 

It was the time when, finding little to endanger them at the front, the 
Eebels improved the opportunity for incursions upon the rear of Buell's com- 
mand. John Morcan burst suddenly into Kentucky. Points between Nash- 
ville and the army were threatened; and to meet one of these sudden dangers 
the division to which McCook's brigade was attached was ordered from Athens, 
Alabama, to Decherd, Tennessee. There was even yet an opportunity for the 
sick General to return to Nashville, but he persisted in accompanying his men. 
On the morning of the 5th of August, 1862, he started, as the day before, in his 



878 Ohio in the War. 

ambulance in the middle of his brigade. At a point where two roads met the 
officer in command of the advance marched one regiment, with its train and 
baggage, on the Avrong road. General McCook, on coming up, discovered the 
mistake, and ordered the column to be halted and turned upon the right road. 
The head-quarters train, however, was now in the way, so that, to clear the 
road. General McCook passed through it and went slowi}^ ahead, expecting to 
be speedily overtaken by the troops. Then he became engrossed in looking for 
a good ground for encamping. He sent part of his escort ahead to seek for 
some spot where water would bo abundant, and another part back on a similar 
errand. While thus left almost unprotected, he was suddenl}- attacked b}^ a 
party of mounted guerrillas, including about forty "partisan rangers" and 
about sixty of the Fourth Alabama Cavalry, who, as it seems, had been lying 
in wait for an oj^portunitj' to atta.ck a train. "With the first shot General Mc- 
Cook divined the nature of the attack, ordered the few remaining membei's of 
the escort to keep back the assailants as well as possible, and had the ambulance 
turned back, at full speed, toward the advancing brigade. The attacking party 
could see that it contained only a sick man and an unarmed attendant (the cur- 
tains being rolled up on all sides), but they opened a sharp fire. The team ran 
about half a mile. By this time the top of the ambulance was knocked off, and 
some forty or fifty shots had been fired. General McCook, seeing the impossi- 
bility of escape, now ordered the driver to run his team against the bank at 
the side of the road, and held up his hands in token of surrender. Three shots 
were fired after this by the Rebels who were now surrounding the ambulance — 
two of them b}^ Captain Frank Gurlej^. One of these last shots struck General 
McCook in the side, inflicting a mortal wound. A score of weapons were after- 
ward levelled upon him, but Captain Hunter Brooke, of his staft', who was in 
the ambulance, begged them not to shoot a sick and wounded man, and General 
McCook himself exclaimed that it was idle to shoot now — he was already mor- 
tally Avounded. He was taken into a neighboring house and there abandoned, 
the staff officer being dragged oft' a prisoner while trying to bathe the wound 
of his dying chief. 

The General lingered in great agony until the next day. He remained 
rational to the last; sent kindly messages to the family; gave a detailed ac- 
count of the attack to those about him, and dictated to Colonel Yan Derveer his 
will — directing that his favorite horses should be divided between his brothers 
Alexander and Daniel, and that his other property should be given to his 
mother. About noon on the 6th of August he expired.* 

The following official report of the murder was made by Colonel Van Derveer, the next in 
command of the brigade : 

" Head-Quarters, Third Brigade, Army op the Ohio, ( 
'' Camp near Decherd, Tennessee, August 9, 1862. f 
"MA.TOR George E. Fltnt, A. A. O.. Cfiief of Staff : 

"Sir : It becomes my melancholy duty to report thsit while a portion of the Third Brigade, composing the Ninth 
Ohio Volunteers, the Second Minnesota, and the Thirty- Fifth Ohio Volunteers, under the command of Brigadier- I 
General R. L. McCook, were on their march from Athens, Alahama, to this point, at a point near the southern line^« 
of Tennessee, General McCook, who was sick and riding in an open carriage upon his bed, al)out three miles in a 
advance of his troops, accompanied by Captain Hunter Brooke of his staff and Major Boynton of the Thirty-Fifth 'i 
Ohio, together with nine members of his escort, was suddenly attacked by a band of mounted guerrillas, numbering i 
between one and two hundred men, about noon on the 4th inst. 



J 



Robert L. McCook. 879 

Wliat the promising officer thus cruell}- cut oflF might have become, we can 
not venture to say. It is enough for his fume that he entered the war at 
the outset, that he was always at his post, devoted to the welfare of his men, 
gallant in action, energetic on the niai-ch, and equal to every task with which 
he Avas entrusted — that he was striving from a sick bed to direct the movements 
of his brigade — that in the midst of his devoted service he fell — a martyr to his 
zealous fidelity to the cause. 

General McCook was personally a man of warm disposition and hearty 
attachments. No man was more beloved by his soldiers or deplored by his 
State. His abilities were fine, his standing among his brother officers and in 
the esteem of his commanders was of the best, and there was every reason to 
predict for him a brilliant future. 

" major Boynton, with one of the escort, and a citizen as a guide mounted upon the horse of another, had been 
sent lialf a mile to the rear, and three members of tlie escort, including the sergeant, a like distance to the front, in 
search of suitable camping grounds for the brigade, thus leaving but four of the escort with General McCook, one of 
whom was dismounted, and Captain Brooke, who was unarmed and in the carriage attending upon the General, when 
the attack began. 

" The General succeeded in turning his carriage, but not until the guerrillas were within range and firing. Ho was 
soon overtaken and surrounded, althougli his horses were running at the top of their speed. In reply to the oft-re- 
peated cry of ' stop ! ' stop ! ' the General arose in his bed and exclaimed : ' Do n't shoot, the horses are unmanageable ; 
we will stop as soon as possible.' Nothwitlistanding this surrender, those riding within a few feet, by the side of the 
carriage, fired, one ball passing through his hat, and one inflicting a mortal wound in the abdomen, which produced 
death in twenty-four hours after, at noon of August (ith. 

" The alarm h.aving reached the column it was hurried up at double-quick, and almost immediately encountered 
tlie advance of the band, but a few shots from the head of the Thirty-Fifth scattered them instantly. 

"General BlcCook was found in a house near v.-here lie was shot, whither he had been carried by Captain Brooke 
and the driver. 

" Of those in advance. Captain Brooke, two members of the escort, and two teamsters of the Ninth Ohio were cap- 
tured, and one member of the Ninth Ohio band was wounded by a saber cut on tho head. 

"The condition of General McCook could not but have been known to the attacking party, as he was on his bed 
divested of all outer clotliing, except a hat used as a shade, and the curtains of the carriage being raised on all sides. 

"There are good reasons for supposing tliat the attack was planned solely for General McCooks capture or mur- 
der. Infuriated by this cowardly assassination, many of the soldiers of the brigade spread themselves over the coun- 
try before any measures could bo taken to check them, and burned nearly all the property of Rebels in the vicinity, and 
shot a Rebel Lieutenant who was on furlough and supposed to be connected with the gang. 

" I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

" F. VAN DERVEER, Colonel Thirty-Fifth 0. V. I., Commanding Third Brigade." 

I Some additional particulars are given by a staff officer: 

' The people in the house where General McCook was left, when Captain Brooke was carried off, tried to conceal 
him, lest if the Yankee should die on their hands their premises would be burned. The advance of the brigade, how- 
ever, soon discovered him, and gave him every attention. Recovering from a paroxysm General McCook said to Cap- 
tain Burt: 'Andy, the problem ot life will soon be solved for me.' In reply to Father Betty's question if he had any 
message for his brother Alexander, he said : ' Tell him and the rest I have tried to live as a man, and die attempting 
to do my duty. To Captain Burt he said : ' My good boy, may your life be longer and to a better purpose than mine.' 
f atlier Betty, the brigade wagon-master, was with him in his last moments. Clasping his hand in the death-struggle, 
he said to him : ' I am done with life : yes. this ends it all. You and I part now, but the loss often thousand such 
lives as yours or mine would be nothing, if their sacrifice would but save such a Government as ours.' 

" Before bis death, the General sent for Colonel Van Derveer, who drew up his will. In it he directed that his two 
favorite horses should be given to his brothers Aleck and Daniel, and the remainder of his property to his mother. 

" The personal devotion of his troops to Gen. McCook was scarcely equalled during the war, and in spite of the best 
efforts of their commanders, after his death, they inflicted dire vengeance upon the country surrounding, and were 
only checked by the danger of the Rebels hanging Captain Brooke and his fellow-prisoners in retaliation. Captain 
Frank Gurley, who killed General McCook; was subsequently captured, tried, and found guilty of murder— with the 
sentence of death— hut for some unkno.vn cause the case was never finally acted upon by President Lincoln. lie re- 
mained in prison for eighteen months, w hen by some error he was sent forward for regular exchange. After the sur- 
render of Lee he returned to Madison County, and because of his murderous notoriety was almost unanimously elected 
BherilT of the county. President Johnson, finding out the error as to his exchange, and incensed at the insult of his 
election, ordered him arrested and placed in irons, but subsequently ordered his release upon parole, but prohibited 
him from holding his office." 



880 Ohio ln the Wak. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM H. LYTLE. 



WILLIAM HAINES LYTLE was born in Cincinnati, November 
2, 1826. He was descended from a family distinguished for its 
military proclivities. His great-grandfatlier, William Lytle, held a 
commission in the French War of 1779, and afterward rendered valuable service 
against the Indians in Kentucky. His grandfather, General William Lytle, 
served throughout the Indian War of the West, and was noted for his intrej^idity 
and executive ability. His father. General Eobert Lytle, was for many year 
an influential politician. He represented the Cincinnati district in Congress, 
and, under President Jackson, he held the office of Surveyor-General. He was 
ever known as a frank, courteous, generous gentleman, and he was admired and 
respected even by his political opponents. 

William H. Lytle graduated at the old Cincinnati College at the age of 
sixteen, and, under the influence of his friends, selected the law as his profession, 
although his own predilections were in favor of West Point. Yet the martial 
spirit still burned beneath the surface, and revealed itself occasionally in boyish 
effusions of prose and verse. Upon the outbreak of the Mexican War his mili- 
tary ardor could be restrained no longer, and, though but twenty years of age, 
he at once proffered his services, and was elected Captain in the Second Ohio 
Volunteer Infantry. He served with distinction during the war, and then 
returned to the practice of law, but Avas elected very soon to the Ohio Legisla- 
ture. In 1857 he was commissioned Major-General of the Southern District of 
the Ohio Militia, a position previously held b}^ his father and grandfather. At 
the opening of the rebellion he offered his services to the Government, and with 
great promptness and efficiency organized Camp Harrison, the first organized 
camp in the West. He was proffered the Colonelcy of the Tenth Ohio Infantry, 
which he accepted, and left Camp Harrison June 24, 1861, for active field-ser- 
vice, proceeding to West Virginia, where he served under Rosecrans. i 

The campaign in this rugged and mountainous country was most arduous; | 
but Colonel Lytle ever shared the hardships and privations of his men, thus < 
winning their warmest love, while his true soldierly qualities and innate dignity 
commanded their deepest respect. Having missed Eich Mountain by only a 
few hours, to the great disappointment both of the Colonel and the regiment, 
they were first engaged at Carnifex Ferry. The Tenth Ohio surprised an 
advance-guard of the enemy, and drove the Eebels from their position, when 
suddenly it found itself within range of a parapet batterj^ and a long line of 
palisades for riflemen. Colonel Lytle, though Avith only a handful of men at 



} 



William H. Lytle. 881 

his command led a furious onslauglit with telling effect; but a well-directed 
ehot brought him to the ground, while his gallant steed, infused with the spirit 
of the rider, and maddened by a wound from the same bullet, pushed forward, 
leaped the parapet, and fell dead within the enemy's intrenchments. On this 
occasion the Ecbels acknowledged " the courage displayed by Colonel Lytle 
even at the cannon's mouth," and some admitted that "but for his fall the works 
would probably have been carried." 

Colonel Lj'tle had not recovered entirely from his wound when he was 
placed in command of a Camp of Instruction at Bardstown, Kentucky, where 
he remained for three months, having ten thousand men under him during a 
great portion of the time. He was then assigned to the command of the Sev- 
enteenth Brigade, of Mitchel's division, and was with that officer during his 
Alabama campaign. He enjoyed to a great degree the esteem and confidence 
of General Mitchel, and was assigned "b}' him, during his absence, to the com- 
mand of the division. To Colonel Lytle was also intrusted the evacuation of 
Huntsville ; and, with his command, he brought up the rear of General Buell's 
arm}" on the march to Kentuckj', and for his services he received from General 
Buell the warmest commendations. At the battle of Perryville Colonel Jjjile 
again was wounded. In this engagement, as in all others. Colonel Lytle liter- 
ally led his men ; and when they saw him fall, as they supposed, dead, they 
involuntarily fell back, and before they could regain the ground the Eebels 
had carried him off the field to their own hospital, where he was cared for 
as kindlj" as their resources admitted. The next day the enemy retreated, 
carrj'ing Colonel Lytle with them. Upon reaching Harrodsburg some of 
his loyal friends procured his parole, and he was once more restored to his 
family. 

After this battle Colonel Lytle's promotion came, and he was assigned to 
the command of the First Brigade, Sheridan's division, Army of the Cumber- 
land. This brigade was composed of troojDS to whom General Lytle was an 
ftntire stranger, and it had previously been commanded by General Sill. Yet 
the soldiers soon discovered the true mettle in their commander, and were ever 
ready to follow his lead. About this time General Lytle was urged b}^ his 
friends to become a candidate for the office of Governor of Ohio, but he de- 
clined. He had entered the army from a sense of "duty to his beloved countr}^ 
and as he had been in at the birth, so he desired to remain until the death of 
the rebellion. 

A few weeks before the battle of Chickamauga Lytle's old regiment, then 
on duty as head-quarter-guard for General Eosecrans, presented him with an 
elegant testimonial of their regard, in the shape of a Maltese cross of gold, 
studded with diamonds and emeralds. The spot selected for the pi-esenta- 
tion was a most picturesque valley among the Alabama hills, and sur- 
rounded by his present and his old command, and by ladies, and officers of 
rank. The hero, with a graceful elegance so peculiarly his own, acknowledged 
the tribute. 

On the 2d of September, 1863, General Lytle was ordered to break up his 
Vol. I.— 56. 



882 Ohio in the War 

camp at Bi-idgeport, and to commence the march which led to the fatal field of 
Chickamauga. After seventeen days of incessant marching, either under 
scorching suns or in heavy rains, he came to Lee and Gordon's Mills, Septem- 
ber 19th. The march was particularly arduous for General Lj^tle, as a brigade 
from each division was detailed as a guard for the corps-train, the whole under 
his command. The troops had hardly laid down for their night's rest at Chick- 
amauga, when General Lytic was ordered to move his brigade to the Widow 
Glenn's house. He was much pleased with his new position, but was ordered 
to move on the double-quick to the support of General Thomas, on the left. 
Simultaneously almost with this movement the flital break in the line of battle 
occurred, through which the enemj^ poured, flushed with triumph, and opened 
a galling fire upon Lytle's brigade. There was no time, then, to re-enforce 
Thomas. In a moment General Lytle brought his command from the order 
in column to the order in battle, and though subjected to an inconceivabl}^ 
murderous fire, and flanked on right and left, the brigade pushed onward and 
forward, further and deeper into the midst of the blazing carnage and 
bloody havoc. General Lytle saw from the first that the case was hopeless; 
but he remarked to one of his staff, that if thc}^ were to die they would die 
in their tracks, with harness on; hastily adding that he was wounded in the 
spine, and he feared lest he should be compelled to leave the field. Again 
he ordered another charge, which was bravely executed. Then the brigade 
was forced back a little, but with desperate valor General Lj^tle rallied his 
men, and led them forward until, pierced by three bullets, he fell at the 
head of his charging colum.n. Captain Howard Green, a volunteer-aid, 
sprang from his horse, received the General in his arms, and was rewarded 
Avith a smile of grateful recognition. Several officers and orderlies attempted 
to bear him off the field. The peril of this undertaking may be imagined 
since two of the orderlies were killed, and Colonel William B. McCreary Avas ■ 
wounded, and left for dead on the field. General Lj'tle repeatedly opened 
his eyes and motioned to his friends to leave him and save themselves. 
Finally, upon coming to a large tree upon a green knoll, they laid him down. 
He then handed his sword to one of the orderlies, and waving his hand 
toward the rear, he thus tried to express with his last breath, that his well-j 
tried blade should never fall into the hands of the enemj^. So closed the* 
life of the poet-soldier — Lytle. His death found him, as he propheticallyi 
wrote years before. 



"On some lone spot, wliere, far from home and friends, 
The way-worn pilgrim on the turf reclining, 
His life, and much of grief, together ends." 



Having many friends in the Eebel army, General Lytle was recognized 
and his remains were treated with every mark of respect. They were placed 
in a coffin and buried near Crawfish Springs, there to rest until they couldj 
be sent North through the lines. It may be truly said of Genei-al Lytle thali 
" his mourners were two hosts — his friends and his foes." When the remains 



I 



William H. Lytle. 



883 



vere convej-ed to his home, every lienor was paid to them along the entire 
oute. At Chattanooga, esjiecially, where his old command was, the funeral 
ibsequics were most imposing. At Cincinnati the body lay in state in the 
otunda of the court-house for a day, and was visited by crowds of people, 
ne-half of whom were ladies. He was buried with military honors. The 
lageant was large and imposing. All classes, ages, and sexes, seemed anxious 
pa}^ their last tribute to the illustrious dead. The houses were draped in 
lourning, the bells tolled solemnly, and the flags hung at half-mast. Just as 
he moon was gilding the tombs of Spring Grove Cemetrj- with mellow light, 
be sorrowful cortege slowly wound its way through the avenues, until it 
eached the tomb of his fathers, and there, amid the sobs of loving friends, 
nd 



"By the struggling moonbeam's misty light, 

reneral William Haines Lytle was laid to rest. 

In figure General L3-tle Avas graceful and well-developed. His head was 
Til-proportioned, and was covei'ed with masses of long silken brown hair. 
[is complexion was so fair as to be almost effeminate ; but it was relieved by a 
owing beard. A high, intellectual brow, expressive gray eyes, delicately 
arved nostrils, and a resolute mouth, made up an agreeable face, illuminated 
'ith the light of genius, and toned down by that unaffected modesty which 
VQY distinguished him. Till the outbreak of the war poetry was to him a fre- 
uent occupation and amusement; and some of his fugitive jDieces — like the 
■ell-known one, "Antony and Cleopatra," (first published in the Cincinnati 
Inquirer), with which we may fitly conclude this sketch — are likely to retain a 
rominent place in our lighter literature: 



I am dying, Egypt, dying, 

Ebbs tlie crimson life-tide fast, 
And the dark Plutonian shadows 

Gather on the evening blast ; 
Let thine arm, oh Queen, enfold me, 

Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear. 
Listen to the great heart secrets. 

Thou, and thou alone, must hear. 

' Though my ecarred and veteran legions 

]5ear their eagles high no more. 
And my wrecked and scattered galleys 

Strew dark Actium's fatal shore ; 
Though no glittering guards surround me, 

Prompt to do their master's will, 
I must perish like a Roman, 

Die the great Triumvir still. 

' Let not Cresar's servile minions 

Mock the lion thus laid low ; 
'T was no foeman's arm that felled him, 

'T was his own that struck the blow — 
His who, pillowed on thy bosom. 

Turned aside from glory's ray — 
His who, drunk with thy caresses, 

Madly threw a world away. 



" Should the base plebeian rabble 

Dare assail my name at Rome, 
Where the noble spouse, Octavia, 

Weeps within her widowed home. 
Seek her; say the gods bear witness, 

Atlars, augurs, circling wings. 
That her blood, with mine commingled. 

Yet shall mount the thrones of Kings. 

' And for thee, star-eyed Egyptian ! 

Glorious sorceress of the Nile, 
Light the path to Stygian horrors 

With the splendors of thy smile ; 
Give the Casar crowns and arches, 

Let his brow the laurel twine, 
I can scorn the Senate's triumphs. 

Triumphing in love like thine. 

' I am dying, Egypt, dying ; 

Haik! the insulting foeman's cry, 
They are coming; quick, my falchion, 

Let me front them ere I die. 
Ah, no more amid the battle 

Shall my heart exulting swell ; 
Isis and Osiris guard thee, 

Cleopatra, Itome, farewell I " 



884 Ohio i^ the War. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM SOOY SMITH. 



THE subject of this sketch was born in Tarleton, Pickaway County, Ohio, 
on the 22d of July, 1830. His father was a captain in the war of 1812, 
and his grandfather was a revolutionary soldier. Both belonged to the 
Society of Friends, but they severed their connection with their sect to fight for 
their country. 

In September, 1844, the father, yielding to the desires of his son, gave him 
two shillings and his blessing, and permitted him to go to Athens, the seat of 
the Ohio University. The young student attended a select school for one year,' 
and then entered the Preparatory Department of the College. He rang thei 
bell, swept the halls, carried coal, attended to the grounds, in short, was a veri- 
table "professor of dust and ashes," and received sufficient salary to pay his; 
expenses. He graduated in 1849, and through the influence of the Faculty and 
other friends, he obtained an appointment as Cadet in the West Point Militaryi 
Academy. McPherson, Sill, Schofield, Terrill, and other distinguished officers-i 
were classmates, and the two first mentioned were his roommates. During two 
years out of the four which he spent at the academy. Cadet Smith was reported 
as one of the distinguished members of his class; and upon graduation, he was 
assigned as Brevet Second-Lieutenant to the Third Artillery. When he becamei 
full Second-Lieutenant, he was transferred to the Second Artillery; but finding 
army-life in time of peace rather monotonous, he soon resigned. 

Buffalo, ISTew York, then became his residence, and for two years he taught 
a select school, and then commenced civil engineering. In this he was veryi 
successful; he travelled through almost all the States, the Canadas, and the West^, 
Indies. When the war broke out he was engaged in the construction of a bridgoi 
over the Savannah Kiver, where it is crossed by the railroad leading from Savan- 
nah to Charleston; but, ten days before the attack upon Sumter, he escaped to! 
the North, and entered the volunteer service as Assistant Adjutant-General, 
with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was veiy soon made Colonel of the 
Thirteenth Ohio Infantry, and he immediately moved with the regiment to West 
Virginia, where he participated in the campaigns of the summer and fall ofJ 
1861, under McClellan and Eosecrans. In the reports of the battle of Carnifex 
Ferry he was specially mentioned for gallantry, and in the pursuit of Floj^d he 
led the advance, and three times engaged the enemy's rear-guard, for which hei 
was again honorably mentioned in official reports. 

His regiment was transferred from West Virginia to Louisville, Kentucky,] 
and was assigned to the Army of the Ohio under General Buell. Colonel Smith 



William Sooy Smith. 885 

participated in the advance on Bowling Green and N'ashville, and in the battle 
of Pittsburg Landing he commanded the Foui-teenth Brigade, and on the 7th of 
April was engaged from eight o'clock in the morning until the close of the bat- 
tle. The same ground was fought over three times. The brigade captured 
Standiford's Mississippi battery twice, and finally held it; many prisoners also 
were captured, among them Colonel, afterward G-eneral, Battle, of Tennessee. 
Six hundred and ten dead Eebels were counted in front of the brigade, but some 
of these were killed the da}- before. The brigade lost one-fifth of its number 
killed and wounded, but none were captured. Colonel Smith was again men- 
tioned in official reports for gallantr}^ and meritorious conduct, and was pro- 
moted to Brigadier-General, to rank from the 7th of April, 1862. 

General Smith had already been emploj^ed in ojjening the railroad from 
Bowling Green to Nashville and from there southward, and now, upon the evac- 
uation of Corinth, he was directed to open the railroad from that point to Deca- 
tur. This he accomplished in three weeks, by the aid of the First Michigan 
Engineers. He was then assigned to the command of the Third Division, Army 
of the Ohio. Soon after this the Eebel cavahy, under Morgan and Forrest, 
began to make destructive raids on the National lines of communication in 
Tennessee and Kentucky. General Smith was placed in command of about fif- 
teen thousand troops, stationed upon the triangle of railroads having its ver- 
tices at Nashville, Decatur and Stephenson, and was busily engaged in building 
stockades and forts to protect the lines, when Bragg advanced into Kentucky. 
General Smith concentrated at Nashville, and was ordered to assume command 
of Bowling Green and defend it to the last. With four companies of cavalry as 
an escort, General Smith marched eighty miles in twenty-four hours, and reached 
Bowling Green safely. Here he remained until Bragg's army attacked Mun- 
fordsville and the main body of the National army arrived, when he was placed 
in command of the Fourth Division, and continued in command of it durinir 
the remainder of the campaign. He was present at the battle of Perryville, 
and participated in the pursuit of the Eebel army; beyond Wild Cat he led the 
advance, and had several sharp skirmishes. During the pursuit General Smith's 
division received the surrender of about six hundred Eebel soldiers, and ca^itured 
four hundred fat cattle from the enemy's supply train. When the pursuit ended, 
the division moved to Nashville. 

Just before the advance on Murfreesboro', General Smith was relieved by 
General Eosecrans, to make room for his senior. At his own request he was 
transfei'red to General Grant's army, and was assigned to the command of the 
First Division of the Sixteenth Corps, stationed along the Memphis and Charles- 
ton Eailroad, from Memphis to Grand Junction. He remained here until Vicks- 
burg was invested, in the meantime making many raids into the Eebel territory 
between the Coldwater and the Tallahatchie. Enough horses and mules were 
captured to remount the cavahy, and to supply the trains with good draught 
animals. The General suggested the Grierson raid, and prepared the command 
for its adventurous ride. Upon the investment of Vicksburg, General Smith 
Was assigned the duty of holding Haines's Bluff". Here Smith's and Kimball's 



886 Ohio in the Wak. 

divisions dug six miles of rifle-pits and constructed six strong batteries in one 
week, for which they were highly commended by General Grant. Immediately 
after the surrender of Vicksburg, General Smith moved with his division 
against Genex-al Johnston, at Jackson. He participated in several sharp skir- 
mishes, and in one of them lost eighty men in five minutes. After this he was 
assigned to duty on General Grant's staff as Chief of Cavalry, and in that ca- 
pacity accompanied the General to Nashville and Chattanooga. 

About this time General Smith was ordered to collect all the available 
cavalry at Memphis and to move southward, and to effect, if possible, a junc- 
tion with General Sherman's forces at Meridian, on the celebrated raid to 
that point. There was at least twelve thousand Kebel cavalry which could be 
concentrated against General Smith; and it was definitely understood between, 
General Sherman and General Smith, that the latter was not to risk a sacri-I 
fice of his command to cut his way through. General Sherman stating that; 
his own success was not contingent upon a junction of the forces. It wasi 
thought that a junction could be eftected at Meridian by the 10th of February; 
but the cavalry did not concenti"ate as rapidly as was expected, and General! 
Smith did not leave Memphis until the 10th. At the very start the advancei 
was confronted by General Forrest, who disputed the crossing of the Talla- 
hatchie. Leaving a brigade of infantry to engage Forrest, General Smith threw 
his whole cavahy force up the river thirty miles, and crossed without firing ^i 
gun. Passing through Pontotoc toward Huston, he approached a swamp ovePi 
which the road passed on a corduroy causeway. This road was held by a 
sti"ong force, and as it was impossible to flank the swamp. General Smithi 
changed his course, and turning to the left struck Okaloona, and sweeping downi 
the Mobile and Ohio Eoad destroyed thirty-five miles of raih'oad, thirteen] 
bridges and trestles, two trains of cars, five million bushels corn, and sevei 
thousand bales of Confederate cotton. Negroes came in from every dii*ection, 
bringing with them, in many instances, the horses and mules which their mas-l 
ters had sent them into the woods to secrete. When the expedition reachedi 
West Point, at least five thousand negroes and three thousand head of stockj 
were collected. At the Octibbeha General Smith again encountered Forrest'si 
entire force. The river was fordable at only one point, and that was guarded 
by a force fully equal to General Smith's. He was now one hundred and sixty 
miles in the Eebel territory; he was encumbered by his captures, and a Eebel 
brigade was moving upon his rear ; accordingly he commenced to retire^ and 
for the first sixty miles there was continuous fighting. The Rebels acknowl- 
edged a loss in killed and Avounded of five hundred (among them was For- 
rest's brother, a Colonel commanding a brigade), and, in addition, they 
lost two hundred and fifty captured. The National loss was two hundred 
and fifty killed, wounded, and missing. General Smith reached Mempliis 
safely with the stock, negroes, and prisoners, and on reporting to General 
Grant at Nashville, he was commended for the skill with which he managed the 
enterprise. 

When General Sherman succeeded General Grant in the command of the 



C. p. Buckingham. 887 

Military Division of the Mississippi, General Smith remained Chief of Cavalry, 
and exerted himself to the utmost to prepare the eavalry for the coming cam- 
paign. Horses were issued at the rate of five thousand per month, and arms 
and accoutrements were urged forward in great haste. But the excessive 
fatigue endured by General Smith in his Mississippi raid so shattered his sys- 
tem as to bring on an attack of inflammatory rheumatism in July, 1864, and for 
six weeks he lay on his bed, unable to move even a finger. His physician 
informed him that he never would be fit for active service, and thouoh he 
might here perform post-duty, he had no relish for so inactive a position. Hav- 
ing given eight years of his life to the military service of his country, he ten- 
dered his resignation, feeling, as he himself expressed it, that he had done but 
little, and regretting that he could not do more, in a cause to which he would 
have fi-eely given his life. The country he served will not rate his work so 
cheaiDly. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL C. P. BUCKINGHAM. 



THE subject of this sketch Avas born March 14, 1808, at Putnam, then 
Springfield, Muskingum Countj^ Ohio. His fiither, Ebenezer Bucking- 
ham, was one of the early settlers in the State, and his mother was a 
daughter of General Eufus Putnam, a soldier in the Eevolution, the first Chief 
Engineer in the United States Army, and the first man to lead a band of settlers 
to Ohio. Young Buckingham was appointed a Cadet by President Monroe, and 
at the age of seventeen he entered West Point. His application was such that 
at the end of one year he was appointed Acting Assistant Professor of Mathe- 
matics, and for two years, besides prosecuting his own studies, he spent several 
hours each day in teaching. At the end of four years he graduated second 
in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Engineering; and sixth in general merit. 
Among his classmates were General Eobert E. Lee, Josej^h E. Johnston O. M. 
Mitchel, Thomas A. Davis, James Barnes, Thomas Swords, and others of less 
celebrity. 

In 1829 he was commissioned by President Jackson as Second-Lieutenant 
in the Third United States Artilleiy, and before the expiration of the usual 
furlough he was ordered to join a party engaged in surveying Green Eiver 
Kentucky, with a view to render it navigable. The next winter was spent in 
Washington completing majDS of the surve}^, and in the following September 
after a furlough of four months, he was ordered to West Point as Acting Assist- 
ant Professor of Natural Philosojihy. After serving one year in this capacity 



888 Ohio in the Wae. 

Lieucenant Buckingham decided to quit the service and to devote himself to 
civil pursuits. 

In 1833 he was called to the Professoi'ship of Mathematics and Natural 
Philosoph}^ in Kenyon College, Grambier, Ohio, which position he held for three 
years; and upon his retirement he was chosen a trustee of the institution. 
Professor Buckingham settled in Mount Vernon, Ohio, and in 1849 became the 
senior partner in the Kokosing Iron Works. In 1856 he removed temporarily 
to Chicago, where he spent two years in building and putting in operation the 
grain houses of the Illinois Central Eailroad. At the end of that time he re- 
turned to Ohio and resumed the management of the Kokosing Iron Works. 

A few days after the fall of Sumter Governor Dennison offered Mr. Buck- 
ingham the position of Assistant Adjutant- General of Ohio, and he at once re- 
paired to Columbus and repoi'ted for duty. At that time the State of Ohio was 
organizing twentj^-two regiments. These troops, to the number of seventeen 
or eighteen thousand, were collected in several camps and fed by contract at 
the rate of fifty cents j)er day for each man. The necessity for an organized 
Commissary Department was very urgent, and within a week after arriving in 
Columbus, Mr. Buckingham was appointed Commissary-General of the State. 
He immediately established depots of provisions, purchased supplies, appointed 
assistant commissaries, and within two weeks the troops were put upon regular 
arm}^ rations, and were fed at an average cost of fourteen cents per day for 
each man. 

After the Commissary Department was fully organized, Genei-al Carrington, 
the Adjutant-General of the State, was commissioned in the regular army, and 
General Buckingham was appointed to succeed him ; and for nine months he 
labox-ed incessantly in raising regiments and forwarding them to the field. 
Special difficulties arose between the State authorities and the authorities at 
Washington in regard to the recruiting service, and to give a minute account 
of General Buckingham's efforts to bring order out of confusion ; to establish a 
system of recruiting on fixed principles; to organize and arrange the records of 
the oflSce so that the information which they contained should be reliable and 
easily accessible; to bring the War Department into proper relations Avith the 
State authorities; to reconcile the conflicting claims of officers, and, in a word, 
to meet all the wants and requirements of his position — to give a minute account 
of all this would require the publication of a voluminous correspondence, and 
an innumerable number of official documents. It is sufficient to say that by the 
end of the year eighty thousand men had been organized and equipped for the 
three years' service. Upon the accession of Governor Tod, General Bucking 
ham still continued in his position, and nothing ever occurred in his private 
and official intercourse either with Governor Dennison or with Governor Tod 
to interrupt for a moment the confidence that existed between them. 

On the Ist of April, 1862, General Buckingham was offered, and he accepted, 
the position of Brigadier-General of Volunteers, with special reference to ser- 
vice in the War Department. General Buckingham's duty was of a very mis- 
cellaneous character. Two or three examples will be sufficient to give an idea 



C. p. Buckingham. 889 

of its nature. In July, 1862, when the National affairs on the James River wore 
their most gloomy aspect, it was decided that strenuous efforts should be made 
to raise a large additional force. Experience had showm the necessity of a com- 
plete understanding between the War Department and the State authorities; 
and to effect this the Secretary of State set out to visit sevei-al of the Govern- 
ors, and to have interviews with them upon the subject. General Buckingham 
was directed to accompany him, with authority from the War Department to 
remove so far as possible any impediments which the State authorities might 
find in the way of recruiting. Together they conferred with the Governors of 
Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts; and then General Buckingham 
proceeded alone to Cleveland, where he met the Governors of Ohio, Indiana, 
Michigan, and Wisconsin ; and, without doubt, the arrangements thus made 
greatly facilitated the business of recruiting. 

In October, 1862, General Buckingham was ordered to repair to Columbui, 
Indianapolis, and Eock Island, to select sites for the arsenals authorized at the 
preceding session of Congress. He performed this duty b}' selecting those now 
occupied b}^ the Government at Columbus and Indianapolis, and by recommend- 
ing that Eock Island, alread}^ owned by the Government, be selected for the 
third. His report was adopted in every particular. 

The first conscription was ordered in Jui}^ 1862, and General Buckingham 
was selected to organize and arrange the details, and to set the machinery in 
motion. While engaged in this dutj^ his attention was directed to the enormous 
amount of desertion and straggling, and also to the necessity of some means by 
which the Government could reach and control the recruiting system at all 
points. To this end, he suggested to the Secretary of War the propriety of 
appointing Provost-Marshals ; and subsequently the Provost-Marshal's Bureau 
was established mainly upon General Buckingham's plan. 

In February, 1863, Congress determined to pass a conscription law, and the 
Senate Military Committee requested General Buckingham to meet them, and 
to make such suggestions as would assist them in drawing up a bill. After 
hearing the views of General Buckingham, whose past experience, both as a 
State officer, and as having charge of the conscription during the previous sum- 
mer, had made him quite familiar with the subject, the Committee requested 
him to take the papers and memoranda to his office and to draw up a bill to be 
submitted to them. This he did; and the bill as it passed Congress varied but 
little from the one which he reported to the Committee. 

About this time General Buckingham's private affairs, which he had almost 
wholl}^ neglected since the opening of the war, demanded his attention; and 
accordingly he tendered his resignation, and once more returned to civil life. 
His services through the war were not of the kind that figure largely' in the 
public eye or in the newspapers of the day, but a large share of the credit 
^hich Ohio won for her promptitude in filling her quotas, and for the admirable 
organization of her troops is due to General Buckingham ; and his name will 
ever deserve prominent mention in her list of those who served and honored 
their native State through the trials of the Great Eebellion. 



890 Ohio in the Wae. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL FERDINAND VAN DERVEER. 



FERDINAND VAN DEEVEER, a brave and trusty officer from 
the opening to the end of the war, was born in Butler Countj^, Ohio, 
27th February, 1823, and was educated at Farmers' College, Ohio. 

In May, 1846, he volunteered as a private in the company of the First Ohio 
(Colonel Alexander M. Mitchell), raised in Butler County, for the Mexican war 
By October 4, 1846, he had jDassed through all the grades, Orderly-Sergeant, 
Second and First-Lieutenant, and had become Captain of his company. His 
company was at the head of one of the assaulting columns in the storming of 
Monterey, and his own conduct was conspicuously handsome. He continued to 
serve under General Taylor until 1847, when his regiment was mustered out. 

Returning to Hamilton, Ohio, he first entered politics, and was presently 
elected sheriff of his native county. He subsequently entered upon the prac 
tice of law. 

Soon after the outbreak of the rebellion he was apjjointed Colonel of the 
Thirtj^-Fifth Ohio. He recruited his regiment in six weeks, and was the first 
to take the field on the Central Kentucky line. Leaving Hamilton on the 26th 
of September, 1861, he reached Cynthiana, Kentucky, on the night of the 
same day. 

His experience in Mexico caused every step taken in the rapid drill and 
discipline of his men to be of the most practical character, and the six weeks 
spent in camp in Ohio and Kentucky were given assiduously to preparation for: 
active field service. 

In the field his first care was to see for himself that his picket-lines were 
properly established, at any cost of fatigue and reconnoissance. His care of all 
the interests of his men was unceasing, and no effort on his part was ever spared 
to promote their comfort. From the men up through all grades of officers withi 
whom he served, confidence in his judgment was general. Though suffering 
from attacks of a chronic disease contracted in Mexico, he was often in the sad 
die when he should have been in bed. At the battle of Mill Springs he got out 
of a sick-bed, Avhere he had lain for weeks dangerously^ ill, and rode to the field 
with his regiment. 

Colonel "Van Derveer remained in the command of his regiment, following 
the fortunes of Buell's army through Tennessee to Pittsburg Landing and Cor- 
inth, and back toward Nashville, till, in September, 1862, the death of General 
Robert L. McCook left to him the command of the brigade of that lamented 
officer. With the exception of only a fevv months, he continued to command. 



,L 



Fekdinand Van Derveer. 891 

this brigade until the expiration of his term of service, in September, 1864. It 
was the brigade originally organized by General George H. Thomas, shortly 
before the battle of Mill Springs, which was always a part of his command, 
and an object of his especial pride. 

Soon after assuming command of the brigade, Colonel Van Derveer o-ave 
close attention to its drill as such, and long before these evolutions were com- 
mon in the army to which he was attached, his regiments were skilled in all the 
movements of line which would be of practical use in battle. 

The separate regiments making up the command arrived at a point where 
each had perfect confidence in the ability of the other to execute any maneuver. 
The result was, that in the first general battle after his assuming command his 
brigade was a unit, and through both days of that hot fight performed all of its 
evolutions as promptly as if on parade. It moved habitually in two lines, the 
one relieving the other as the ammunition became exhausted, or as the front 
became fiitigued. From first to last it gave no foot of ground to the enemy, 
and on each day drove the enemy in its immediate front a full third of a mile 
when, regarding the field generally, the Eebel line was advancing. 

How Colonel Van Derveer's conduct at the head of his brigade was esteemed 
in the army may be best seen, perhaps, in the official reports of his superiors. 
General J. M. Brannan, in his report on Chickamauga to General Thomas, said 
with reference to the extreme right of his line, after the rout of the rest of the 
army had left it exposed : 

" Finding that this latter point was the key to the position so de.sired by the enemy, I made 
every preparation to defend it to the last, my command being somewhat increased, . .' . and 
most opportunely re-enforced by Colonel Van Derveer's brigade (Third), which having success- 
fully, thougli with great loss, held its precarious position in the general line until all in°its vicin- 
ity had retreated, retired in good order, actually cutting its way through the Rebels to rejoin my 
division. This gallant brigade was one of the few who maintained their organization perfect 
through the hard-fought passes of that portion of the field. . . . Where the conduct of all 
i» so commendable, it is hardly possible for me to select any for particular mention. Yet I can 
not conclude this report without bringing to the special notice of the commanding General the 
gallant and meritorious conduct of Colonel F. Van Derveer, Thirty-Fifth Regiment Ohio Vol- 
unteer Infantry, commanding Third Brigade, whose fearlessness and calm judgment in the most 
trying situations added materially to the eflSciency of his command, which he handled both days 
in the most skillful manner, punishing the enemy severely." 

General A. Baird, who succeeded General Brannan in the command of the 
latter division, in his report to General Thomas regarding the storming of Mis- 
sion Kidge, says : 

"To my brigade commanders, Brigadier-General Turchin of the First, and Colonel Van 
Derveer of the Second, I invite your attention. To their skill, bravery, and high soldierly qual- 
ifications we are greatly indebted for the results we were able to accomplish. I hope that their 
services will be rewarded." 



And after the Atlanta campaign. General Baird reported to General Tho 



mas: 



"On the 27th (June, 1864), Colonel Van Derveer, commanding my Second Brigade, who 
had long been suflering from disease, was compelled to go North for relief, and turned over the 
command of the brigade to Colonel Gleason, Eighty-Seventh Indiana, who has since retained it 



892 Ohio in the War. 

" In losing Colonel Van Derveer my command and the service generally was deprived ot 
one of its most gallant and best officers, and most accomplished gentlemen. Always prompt, 
judicious, and brave, he had distinguished himself on many fields, and his promotion had been 
strongly urged upon the Government, but unaccountably overlooked. 

" The long record would be incomplete should I fail to mention especially the five officers 
who, as brigade commanders, have been my chief assistants in the campaign. 

" Colonel F. Van Derveer, Thirty-Fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, the brave and accom- 
plished commander of the Second Brigade at Chickamauga and at Mission Ridge, remained with 
the command until the end of June. He also has, by expiration of term of service, been re- 
turned to civil life." 

Just before the line broke on the second day at Chickamauga there came 
an occasion for testing the General's mettle and the nerve of his troops. His 
brigade being in reserve Avas ordei-ed to the left to re-enforce a hard-pressed 
point. Deploying his battalion, which was closed in mass, he marched rapidly 
toward the threatened point. The line of march lay through a forest skirting 
the road to Chattanooga. He had no knowledge of any force of the enemy 
having gained the i-ear. However, just as his front line was marching through 
some thick underbrush and coming out in the road, it received a brisk musketry 
fire exactly enfilading both lines, delivered by a heavy skirmish line of an en- 
tire division of Eebels advancing rapidly down the road, their line crossing it 
at right-angles. Without replying to the fire, the General in an instant sent a 
staff officer to each regiment, and while the ranks were actually melting away, 
the brigade in two lines changed front, both lines lay down, and received the 
full front fire from the Eebels. The remnant, however, delivered a volley which 
checked the Eebel line at less than a hundred yards, when, upon an order, the 
rear line (Thirty-Fifth and Ninth Ohio regiments) rose, and with a cheer to 
which they had been trained, without firing a shot, charged on a full run di- 
rectly into the whole Eebel division, which turned and fled, followed closely for 
a full third of a mile by Van Derveer's entire brigade. Many j)risoners were 
captured, and the army saved from being cut in two at the point attacked. 

Oddly enough, the Eebel division proved to be that of Breckinridge — a 
gentleman whom Colonel Van Derveer had often expressed a desire to meet in 
the field, that he might get satisfaction for having voted for him for the Presi- 
dency. 

After his muster-out in the fall of 1864, Colonel Van Derveer was appointed 
a Brigadier-General and assigned to the Fourth Army Corps, then operating in 
Tennessee. In this position he served through the brief remnant of the war. 

General Van Derveer possessed many of the most valuable characteristics 
of an officer. Though never "spoiling for a fight," he was always anxious for 
any duty that would tell on the operations of the campaign. He was quick to 
sieze upon all the features of a position — for fortifications, attack, pickets. He 
always paid special attention to selecting comfortable camps; gave personal at- 
tention to every thing connected with the well-being of his troops; always had 
the best transportation, and took pride in keeping it in prime order; knew all 
his men by name, and generally had a joke that each would appreciate when 



Fernando Van Derveer. 893 

he met him ; had the fixculty of organizing his men so as to gain speed in field- 
work of all kinds; Avas so unceasingly vigilant, that from the day he entered 
the field a surprise to his camp would have been an impossibility. In action 
he was a cool and close observer. He was always close along the fighting line, 
always on horseback, and generally exposed more than any of his men. 

He was a volunteer, and as such, was in the habit of criticising freely the 
orders he received, sometimes carrying his objections and expostulations to 
what a regular would call the verge of insubordination. A signal instance of 
this occurred almost at the outset of his career in Kentucky. He received from 
General Sherman one of the first and least justifiable of those panic-stricken 
orders on which many officers of the army based (and still base) their belief 
that General Sherman was insane. It Avas an order to destroy the railroad at 
Cynthiana, abandon every thing, and march back to Cincinnati I Yan Derveer 
knew that the alarm Avas groundless; and, furthermore, he saw the absurdity 
of destroying the railroad and marching back to Cincinnati, when he might so 
much easier go back by rail, if a retreat became necessary. He accordingly 
took the responsibility of flatly disobeying the order. 

Before the Avar he had been a strong Breckinridge Democrat — a friend and 
supporter of Yallandigham. Soon after reaching Cynthiana, Kentucky, Avhose 
citizens made great outcry because his regiment had violated the laAvs of the State 
in bringing free negroes into the place, he ordered all black servants brought 
from Ohio to be taken back. With these earl}' sentiments, he was still one of 
the first to learn the lesson of the Avar as it stood related to slaver}^ ; and long 
before his term expired he ranked Avith the advance of the most earnest War- 
Democrats. Though the majority of his regiment felt as he did politically when 
it took the field, in the great campaign betAveen Brough and Yallandigham the 
latter did not receive a single A^ote in his regiment. This was in great measure 
due to the decided position taken by its first commander. 

On leaAang the service he took an active part in the Republican campaign 
of 1865, stumping the old Yallandigham district and carrying with him a large 
number. Just before the break betAveen Congress and the President occurred, 
he received the appointment of Collector of the Third Ohio District. This Avas 
given at the time AA'hoU}^ on his military record and Avithout any pledges Avhat- 
cver. In the canvass which foUoAved the President's defections, though strongly 
urged by the old-time Democratic friends to take the stump for Johnson, he 
steadil}' refused. 



894 Ohio in the Wae. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL GEORGE P. ESTE. 



GEO. PEABODY ESTE, an oflficer in the service from the outbreak 
till the close of the war, with a record always good and sometimes 
brilliant, was born at Nashna, New Hamjishire, on the 30th of April, 
1830. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1846, at the age of sixteen. 

Shortly after his graduation, in consequence of a brain fever, Avhich left 
him in feeble health, he made a trip to Califoimia, where, with true Yankee "go- 
aheadativeness," the young college lad speedily began to interest himself in 
mining operations; in which, however, he gained more experience than money. 
While speculating in gold mining he also read law. 

In 1850 he returned to " the States," paid a visit to the old homestead, then 
went to G-alena, Illinois, and there began the practice of his profession with con- 
siderable success. In 1856 he removed to Toledo, Avhere he continued in the prac- 
tice, in the office of M. R. Waite, the acknowledged lender of the bar in Toledo, 
until the outbreak of the war. In 1859 he was elected prosecuting attorney of 
that county on the Eepublican ticket, in spite of obstacles which seemed to in- 
sure his defeat in advance. He was in those days a Republican of somewhat 
radical views, approaching more nearly to the position of Mr. Chase than to 
that of any of the other party leaders in the State. 

When the news of the fiill of Fort Sumter reached the North he was on a 
business visit at Troy, New York. He immediatelj' sent a dispatch to his per- 
sonal friend and political enemy, James B. Steedman, of Toledo, then conspicu- 
ous as the Democratic leader of the north-western section of the State. "Are 
you for your country," ran the dispatch, "after this news, or for your party?" 
He added that he would take the first train home, and that meantime he hoped 
Steedman would call a war meeting. 

Steedman did call thfe meeting, and by the time Este arrived the war fever 
had risen so high that Steedman felt authorized in telegraphing to Columbus 
the offer of a full regiment within ten daj^s — the first regiment offered for the 
war. He now proposed that Este should take the Colonelcy. This Este refused, 
and, in the hope of stimulating enlistments, himself volunteered as a private in 
the ranks. When the regiment was full, he was elected Lieutenant-Colonel 
(Steedman himself being chosen Colonel), but this also he declined at fii'st. In 
some ten days, however, he accepted the position, and entered upon its duties. 

Thenceforward, for some years, his history is that of the Fourteenth Ohio. 
He crossed with it into West Virginia, at Parkersburg, when the occupation of 
that State was determined upon ; with it led the way along the broken railroad 



George P. Este. 895 

to Grafton ; with it fell upon Porterfield's fleet Virginians at Philippi, in the 
first skirmish of the war; with it advanced on Xiaurel Hill, led the pursuit of 
Garnett, and routed his rear-guard at Carrick's Ford ; with it was transferred 
from Western Virginia to Buell's army, and advanced from Pittsburg Landing 
on Corinth. 

After having been in constant service with the regiment until the fiiU of 
1862, as Lieutenant-Colonel, he then took command of it, on the return from 
Corinth to Decherd — Colonel Steedman having by this time been assigned to 
higher duties. 

From this time he led the regiment through all the battles of the Army of 
the Cumberland, Avith one exception, until he was able to lead it back on its 
veteran furlough. The exception was the battle of Chickamauga, which he 
missed by reason of the urgent calls from Ohio which had induced General 
Eosecrans to order him back to Ohio, nominally on recruiting duty, that he 
might participate in the campaign against Vallandigham. 

He was now able to accomplish the work which, out of his whole military 
service, he himself most values. He saw very clearly, as the expiration of the 
terms of enlistment began to appi'oach, the necessity of securing the continued 
services of the large body of instructed soldierj^ who made up the best part of 
the Arm}' of the Cumberland ; and to the task of obtaining their re-enlistment 
as veterans he devoted himself. For some time the work was a difficult one, 
but it was at last happily accomplished. To Colonel Este, as much, at least, as 
to any officer of his grade, more perhaps than to any other, was due this suc- 
cess ; and for it he received the grateful acknowledgments of his superiors. 

At the expiration of the veteran furlough, Colonel Este took back his regi- 
ment to the field, rejoining the army at Chattanooga. 

He was then put in command of the Third Brigade, Third Division, Four- 
teenth Army Corps, comprising the Fourteenth Ohio, Thirty-Eighth Ohio, Tenth 
Indiana, and Eleventh Kentucky Infantry. This brigade he continued to lead 
through the Atlanta Campaign, the march to the sea, the campaign of the Car- 
olinas, and the Grand Review. 

He was in all the battles of his corps : Snake Gap, Eesaca, Kenesaw, the 
Chattahoochie, Peachtree Creek (in which, however, his command only skir- 
mished), and at Jonesboro'. . At the Chattahoochie he was slightl}^ wounded in 
the leg, and his horse Avas shot under him; and at Jonesboro' he was again 
slightly wounded, and another horse was shot under him. The number of his 
narrow escapes in this campaign was something remarkable. He started out 
with a pair of high, glazed cavahy boots; by the time he reached Atlanta they 
were fairly shot to pieces, and he had received repeated contusions from half- 
spent balls which they served to check ; so that it came to be a saying in the 
division that Este's boots were a better coat of mail than the patent bullet- 
pi'oof vests which the agents and sutlers had been trying to introduce. 

At Jonesboro' Colonel Este and his brigade were particularly distinguished. 
After the repulse of the regulars, he led them up to the attack, stormed two 
lines of works held by Hardee's command, captured four hundred and twent}'^- 



896 Ohio in the Wae. 

six prisoners, two pieces of artillery and three battle-flags, and lost in the brief 
assault three hundi-ed and thirty killed and wounded, out of one thousand and 
twenty engaged. So brilliant was his conduct, and that of his brigade in this 
action, as to draw from the division commander the following unusually eulo- 
gistic notice in his official report : 



" This charge of my Thirrl Brigade, one of the most magnificent on record, and the first, 
durino- tliis campaign, in which works upon either side have been assaulted and carried, was pro- 
ductive of the greatest results, in opening the way for the advance of the troops on our right 
and left and destroying the morale of the boldest and most confident troops in the Rebel army. 

" The losses sustained attest the severity of the struggle. Out of eleven hundred officers and 
men who went into the action, seventy-five were killed, and two hundred and fifty-five wounded, 
nearly one out of every three being hit, and all in a space of thirty minutes' time. Among those 
who fell was the gallant Colonel Choate, of the Thirty-Eighth Ohio, who has since died. Major 
Wilson commanding the Fourteenth Ohio, lost his leg; and numerous others of our best officers 
and men on this glorious occasion, sacrificed themselves upon the altar of their country. For 
the names of those who particularly distinguished themselves, I refer to the reports of brigades 
and regiments. 

" On no occasion within my ownknov/ledge has the use of the bayonet been so well authenticated. 
Three brothers, named Noe, of the Tenth Kentucky, went over the Rebel parapet together, and 
two of them pinned their adversaries to the ground with the bayonet, and as an officer of the 
Seventy-Fourth Indiana was about to be bayoneted by a Rebel, a soldier warded off the blow 
and after some moments fencing, transfixed his antagonist. These, as the wounded Rebels show, 
are but isolated instances. 

" The brigade captured four hundred and twenty-six prisoners, including fifty-five officers, 
from the rank of Colonel down. They were from the Second, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth 
Kentucky; the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Arkansas; the Twenty-Eighth, Thirty-Fourth, and 
Fortv-Sixth Alabama ; the Twenty-Fourth South Carolina, and the Sixty-Third Virginia Regi- 
ments. It also captured the battle-flags of the Sixth and Seventh Arkansas Regiments, and the 
battle-flag heretofore spoken of. 

"In closing the report of this battle, and whilst testifying to the heroic conduct of all officers 
and men of the brigade, I can not overlook the splendid gallantry of Colonel Este, commanding 
it. His horse was shot under him, and his clothing torn with bullets, yet he retained the utmost 
coolness, and managed his command with a high degree of judgment and skill. I hope that he 
will receive the reward which his service merits. 

"A. BAIRD-, 
" Brigadier-General, Commanding Division." 

Before this, on the 20th November, 1862, Colonel Este had been promoted 
to the Colonelcy of his regiment, and had been recommended by General Geo. 
H. Thomas for a Brevet Brigadier-Generalship. Thomas and Sherman now 
united in recommending him for a full Brigadiership, and the commission was 
accordingly issued, although he did not receive it till during the camj)aign of 
the Carolinas. 

In the march to the sea General Este's brigade supported the cavalry dur- 
ing the operations on the left wing, and participated in the little affairs brought 
on by the enemy's cavalry on that flank. 

In the campaign of the Carolinas, just before the battle of Bentonville, 
General Este was sent back to take charge of the army trains, numbering some 
one thousand three hundred wagons, which were supposed to be in considerable 
danger. 



Joel A. Dewey. 897 

Shortly after participating in the Grand Eeview he resigned his commis- 
sion, to enter upon the practice of law in Washington City, in connection with 
Judge James, of Cincinnati. 

General Este passed for one of the handsome men of the army. He is tall, 
portly but compact, with good head, and an open, manly countenance. Yet, 
three years after the close of the war, he was still a bachelor. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOEL A. DEWEY. 



JOEL A. DEWEY, a resident before the war of Ashtabula County, Ohio, 
and one among the youngest Brigadiers in the service, was born on the 
20th of September, 1840. 

He entered the service as a Second-Lieutenant of the Fifty-Eighth Ohio 
on the 10th of October, 1861. Early in 1862 he was transferred to the Forty- 
Third Ohio, and mustered in as Captain. After service here until 1864, he was 
in February of that year transferred to the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the One 
Hundred and Eleventh United States Colored Infantry. In April, 1865, he be- 
came Colonel of the same regiment. In November, 1865, he was appointed a 
full Brigadier-General of volunteers, in which capacity he continued to serve 
until his honorable discharge, on the 31st of January, 1866. He then settled in 
the town of Dandridge, Tennessee. 
YoL. I.— 57. 



898 Ohio in the Wak. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL BENJAMIN F. POTTS. 



G ENSEAL POTTS was born in Carroll County, Ohio, on January 29, 
1836. His parents were farmers. He received a good English educa- 
tion in the public schools of his native county, and when seventeen 
years old entered the dry -goods store of Charles Boies at Wattsville, Ohio, as: 
clerk. In about a year he left the store and entered Westminster College, ati 
New Wilmington, Pennsylvania. He remained at college during 1854-5 but, 
his funds becoming exhausted, he returned to Ohio, and engaged in teaching: 
school and reading law. 

Although only twenty years of age he took an active part in the political 
contest of 1856, and addressed numerous meetings in favor of Mr. Buchanan 
and the Democratic party. In September, 1857, he entered the law office of 
Colonel E. E. Eckley, CarroUton, Ohio (late Colonel of the Eightieth Ohio 
Infantry, and now member of Congress from the Seventeenth Congressional 
District), where he remained devoting his whole time to the study of law until 
May, 1859, when he was admitted to the bar by a full bench of the District 
Court at Canton, Ohio. He immediately opened a law office in his native' 
county and, by energy and apjilication, soon obtained a good practice. 

In November, 1859, he was elected a delegate to the Charleston Convention. 
He was present at Charleston and Baltimore and voted, first and last, for 
Stephen A. Douglas. 

Upon the fall of Sumter the Douglas Democrat, following the example ofl 
his political leader, declared for his countiy, advocated vigorous war measure8,ij 
raised a company, and entered the Thirty-Second Ohio. He was mustered as 
Captain on August 29, 1861. He served with the regiment in West Virginia,, 
and was present at Cheat Mountain and Greenbrier. He was engaged in:j 
scouting with his company during a portion of the winter of 1861-62; and in 
the spring of 1862 he accompanied the regiment in the advance under General 
Milroy, and was engaged in the battles at McDowell and Franklin. He accom- 
panied General Fremont in his campaign up the Shenandoah Yalley in pursuit 
of Stonewall Jackson, and was present at Cross Keys and Port Eepublic. 

In July, 1862, Captain Potts was detached with his company, and was 
placed in charge of a battery of light artillery. He was stationed at Winchester 
until the evacuation of that place in September, 1862, when he fell back withi 
the army to Harper's Ferry. For gallant conduct, during the siege of Harper's 
Ferry, the company was transferred, by order of the War Department, to thei 
artillery arm of the service,, and was afterward known as the Twenty-Sixth [ 



Benjamin F. Potts. 899 

Ohio Batteiy. Captain Potts was now (August, 1862,) appointed Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-Sixth Ohio Infantry, but he declined 
to leave his company in the face of the enemy, remained, and was captured 
at Harper's Ferry September 15, 1862. He was paroled, was sent to Annapolis, 
JMarj'land, and thence to Camp Douglas near Chicago. 

Owing to the resignation of one and the dismissal of another of the 
Field-Oflacers of the Thirty-Second, the regiment became demoralized and many 
of the men returned to their homes. At the request of Captain Potts the 
regiment was ordered to Cleveland for re-organization, and it arrived at its 
destination on the 1st of December with an aggregate of twenty-five officers and 
fifty-five enlisted men. On the 2d of December Captain Potts was commissioned 
Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment. The work of re-organization was at once 
commenced, and in twelve days there were eight hundred men in camp ready 
for the field. On the 25th of December he was commissioned full Colonel, and 
on January 20, 1863, he left Cleveland with the regiment under orders to report 
to General Grant at Memphis, Tennessee. At Memphis the regiment was as- 
signed to the Third Brigade, Third Division, Seventeenth Army Corps. On the 
20th of February Colonel Potts moved with his regiment on the Yicksburg 
campaign. At Port Gibson he was complimented for gallantry by General J. 
D. Stevenson, the brigade commander; and at Eaymond, Jackson, and Cham- 
pion Hills he received the thanks of General Logan. At the latter place Col- 
onel Potts charged with his regiment, and captured an eight-gun Eebel battery 
and about one-half of an Alabama brigade that was guarding it. He was at 
the front during the entire siege of Vicksburg, and was in command of the 
skirmish-line the day that Generals Grant and Pemberton negotiated the 
surrender. 

In August Colonel Potts was assigned to the command of the Third Bri- 
gade, Third Division, Seventeenth Army Corps, and he accompanied an expedi- 
tion to Monroe, Louisiana. In November he was transferred by General 
McPherson, and was placed in command of the Second Brigade, Third Division, 
Seventeenth Army Corps. On General Sherman's Meridian expedition Colonel 
Potts led the advance of the Seventeenth Army Corps across Baker's Creek, 
routed the Eebels under Wirt Adams, and drove them into Jackson. He com- 
manded the forces that destroyed Chunkeyville and the railroad from Meridian 
south. On March 4, 1864, Colonel Potts with his regiment left Vicksburg for 
Columbus, Ohio, on veteran furlough ; and on the expiration of the furlough he 
reported at Cairo to General Crocker. He was assigned to the command of the 
Second Brigade of the Tennessee Eiver expedition, which was to make a cam- 
paign in pursuit of the Eebel General Forrest. The expedition arrived at 
Climon, Tennessee, on the 1st of May; but Forrest had made his escape, and so 
the expedition marched to Huntsville, Alabama. The Seventeenth Corps, to 
which Colonel Potts was now attached, joined Sherman's army at Acworth, 
Georgia, on the 10th of June, and participated in the movements at Big Shanty 
and Kenesaw. 

On the 10th of July Colonel Potts was assigned to the command of the First 



900 Ohio in the Wak. 

Brigade, Fourth Division, Seventeenth Army Corps. He participated in the 
battles near Atlanta on the 20th, 21st, 22d, and 28th of July; and Avas com- 
j)limented highly by Generals Blair and Smith in their official reports, and 
General Giles A. Smith, commanding the Fourth Division, said in a private 
letter: "Colonel Potts did more, on the 22d of July, 1864, to save the good 
name of the Army of the Tennessee, than any other one man." The official 
report of the campaign that closed with the capture of Atlanta, showed that 
Colonel Pott's brigade had been in the thickest of the fight and, within ninety 
days, had been reduced in numbers more than one-half Colonel Potts par- 
ticipated in the battles of Jonesboro' and Lovejoy Stations, and returned with 
his command to Bast Point to enjoy a brief rest; but no rest was allowed him, 
as he was detailed immediately as President of a Court-Martial at General 
Smith's head-quarters. 

He moved with the army to the sea-coast. At the Occonee Eiver he drove 
the Eebels across the river on the railroad bridge, and held 'the crossing until 
pontoons were laid. On the 10th of December he commanded the advance 
brigade of General Sherman's army, drove the enemy into the works around 
Savannah, and cut the Charleston and Savannah Eailroad. During the siege 
of Savannah he commanded the post at King's Bridge. He was present at the 
review in Savannah, December 24, 1864, and at the taking of Pocotaligo Station, 
South Carolina, Januaiy 15, 1865. 

Colonel Potts had been recommended rej^eatedly for promotion, and at this 
place he received his appointment as Brigadier-General of volunteers. He 
accompanied Sherman's army through the Carolinas, was present at the cap- 
ture of Orangeburg and Columbia, and with his brigade was the first to enter 
Faj^etteville. He participated in the battle of Bentonvillo, and again was 
present at the capture of Raleigh. After the surrender of the Pebel forces he 
moved with the army to Washington City, and led his command in the grand 
review. On the 7th of June he embarked his troops on cars for Louisville, 
and upon arrival was assigned to the command of the Fourth Division, Seven- 
teenth Army Corps. General Pott's command was mustered out of the 
service on the 22d of July, and he was ordered to proceed to his home and 
repoi't by letter to the Adjutant-General of the Army. He was discharged 
from service January 15, 1866, and he is now engaged in the j)ractice of law at 
Carrollton, Ohio. 

General Potts, though a volunteer officer, stands recommended by Generals 
Sherman, Howard, Logan, Smith, and Blair for a Colonelcy in the Eegular 
Service. He is full six feet and one inch in height, weighs two hundred and 
thirty pounds, and possesses wonderful muscular strength and great energy. 
General Sherman said to General Potts at Eichmond, that he wished to show 
him to the Foreign Ministers at Washington City, as evidence that he had not 
starved his army while campaigning in the South ; and General Sherman act- 
ually did point out General Potts at the head of his brigade, on review in front 
of the Presidential mansion, as his "Sample Vandal." 



Jacob Ammen. 901 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL JACOB AMMEN. 



THE subject of this sketch was born in Botecoui-t County, Virginia, Jan- 
uary 7, 1808. When about ten years of age his parents removed to 
Brown County, Ohio. His father established the first printing office in 
that county, and published -'The Benefactor," a weekly paper, at a little village 
called Levanna. In this office Jacob leai-ned the printer's art, and followed it 
Tor some years. 

In June, 1827, he entered West Point Academy, graduated at that institu- 
tion in July, 1831, and was assigned to the First United States Artillery as Bre- 
vet Second-Lieutenant. Among his classmates at West Point were Henry Clay, 
jr., Samuel E. Curtis, Andrew A. Humphreys, and William H. Emory. In June, 
1833, he became a full Second-Lieutenant, and served with his company at Cas- 
tle Pinckuey, Charleston harbor, during the nullification excitement of that 
day. In October, 1834, he was ordered back to West Point on academic duty. 
He continued to serve there as Acting Assistant Professor of Mathematics, and 
then as Assistant Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosoph}-, until l^o- 
vember 30, 1837, when he resigned to accept the Professorship of Civil Engin- 
eering in Bacon College at G-eorgetown, Kentucky. From this date until 1861, 
he was engaged as professor in various colleges of the South and West. 

On April 17, 1861, two days after the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter, 
he enlisted as a private soldier, but was chosen Cajjtain the next day. He 
reported with his company at Columbus, April 24th. The companj- was at once 
assigned to the Twelfth Ohio Infantry, and, on the organization of that regi- 
ment, Captain Ammen was elected Lieutenant-Colonel. He was transferred 
from the Twelfth, and commissioned Colonel of the Twenty-Fourth Ohio by 
Governor Dennison, June 22, 1861. The Twentj^-Fourth was placed in Camp 
Chase, and Colonel Ammen immediately commenced organizing and preparing 
his regiment for the field. 

On July 26th he left, with his regiment, for Western Virginia, and partici- 
pated in the afi'air at Cheat Mountain Summit, September 12th, and in the en- 
gagement at Green Briar, Virginia, October 3d. On November 18th he was 
ordered, with his regiment, to Louisville, Kentucky, arriving at that place on 
the 28th. On November 30th he was placed in command of the Tenth Brigade, 
Fourth Division, Army of the Ohio, then under General Buell. 

Eeaching Nashville on the 25th of February, 1862, the brigade went into a 
temporary camp. On March 17th it left Nashville on its advance to Pittsburg 
Landing. On the arrival at Duck Eiver, near Columbia, it was discovered that 



902 Ohio in the War. 

the enemy had destroyed the bridge over that stream. Its banks were high and 
precipitous, and the water was at a stage which rendered it almost impossible to 
cross without bridge facilities. General Nelson (in charge of the division in 
which Colonel Amman's command was brigaded), imjJatient of delay, ordered 
Colonel Ammen to devise some means whei'eby he could place his men on the 
other side of the stream, and in that way gain the advance. Colonel Ammen at 
once commenced his operations, and, marching his men to the bank of the creek, 
oi'dered them to strip, place their clothes on the points of their bayonets, and 
make their way to the oj)posite bank. This order was promptly and success- 
fully accomj)lished, and thus the delay was overcome. 

Colonel Ammen, with his brigade, reached Savannah, twelve miles below 
Pittsburg Landing, and was there personally met by General Grant, who said 
to him : " Colonel Ammen, I hardly think we will need your troops. I do not 
think we will have an engagement short of Corinth. Keep your men in hand 
at this point, and I will send the boats down for you." 

At daylight the next morning (6th of April} the heavy guns of the con- 
tending forces at Pittsbu]-g Landing were heard, and an hour or two later came 
orders to march to the battle-field. Through difficult swamps the column made 
its way, and, on the evening of the 6th, reached a point on the river opposite 
tlie battle-field. Crossing on steamers, it took position, and the next morning 
the command hotly engaged the enemy. 

Colonel Ammen particii^ated in the tedious approach to, and siege of, Cor- 
inth, and took part, with his command, in the numerous aflfairs of that 
approach. 

On July 16, 1862, Colonel Ammen was promoted to the position of Briga- 
dier-General "for valuable services on the march to, and gallant conduct in, the 
battle of Pittsburg Landing." On August 17th he was placed in command of 
the Fourth Division of the Army of the Ohio, head-quarters at McMinnville, 
Tennessee. With this command he accompanied General Buell's army on its 
memorable march to Louisville, in chase of Braxton Bragg. 

While at Louisville, in September, 1862, General Ammen was relieved from 
active duty in the field on account of bad health. From this time until Decem- 
ber, 1863, he was in command at Camp Nelson, and at other points in Kentucky. 
He was, also, for a period of six months, in command of the District of Illinois, 
head-quarters at Chicago, a responsible and arduous position. In these various 
posts General Ammen performed valuable service in organizing and dispatching 
needed re-enforcements to the field. His military education at West Point emi- 
nently fitted him for this description of duty. 

From April, 1864, until after the battle of Nashville, he was in command 
of the Fourth Division of the Twenty-Third Army Corps. While stationed at 
Knoxville he took part, with his command, in numerous skirmishes and affairs 
with the enemy, who were at that time making demonstrations in that quarter 
of Tennessee, in aid of General Hood's movement on Nashville. For a time, at 
Knoxville, matters assumed a serious shape. If Thomas had been defeated, Gen- 
eral Ammen's position would have been critical in the extreme. The General 



Jacob Ammen. 903 

held matters with a firm hand, and invariably defeated the Eebel bands of cav- 
alry who were operating around Knoxville. 

"While there he also had many chances to observe the action of quasi Union 
men, in their efforts to supply the Eebels with provisions. Their most approved 
plan was to deceive Parson Brownlow (then Treasury Agent at Knoxville), get a 
permit to bring "hogs and salt" through Cumberland Gap, and, at a convenient 
point on the road, contrive to get "gobbled" by the Eebels. General Ammen, 
by his personal watchfulness, soon put a stop to this rascality. At one time he 
dressed himself as a common soldier, contrived to get into conversation with 
several of these "Union shriekers," and thereby learned their plans. 

This was the last service General Ammen performed in the War of the 
Eebellion. H.e remained at Knoxville until the middle of January, 1865, when, 
the war being virtually ended, he resigned and returned to his home in Ohio. 

His present residence is on his beautiful country place, near Lockland, 
Hamilton County. Here he proposes to pass the remainder of his days, devoted 
to the culture of fine fruits, with which his grounds are bountifully stocked. 
When on duty, General Ammen was a stern, unbending disciplinarian. 
"When off duty he was ever among his men, listening to their complaints and 
supplying their wants. No officer in the field was more beloved by the soldiers, 
and the name of "Uncle Jake Ammen" will ever be held in grateful remem- 
brance by thousands of brave men who had the honor to serve under him. 



904 Ohio in the War. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL DANIEL McCOOK. 



DANIEL McCOOK, one of the martyrs of the war, and the third of 
his family to fall in battle, was the sixth son of Judge Daniel McCook. 
He was born in CarroUton, Carroll County, Ohio, on the 22d of July, 
1834. Unlike his lamented brother Eobert, he was delicate and nervous from 
childhood. He early manifested a liking for books, had a fine memory, famil- 
iarized himself with poetry and would recite it by the page, read history, kept 
a diary — in short, had the ways and characteristics of a thoughtful, studious 
lad. The surviving members of the family also describe him as affectionate, 
warm-hearted, unselfish, and devoted to his mother. He was sent to a college 
at Florence, Alabama, where, after a four years' course, he graduated in 1857. 
He next studied law, and in 1858 was admitted to practice. He settled in Leav- 
enworth City, and became a member of a notable firm — Swings, Sherman & Mc- 
Cook — the several members of which were to make some figure in the country 
a few years later. While here young McCook was married in December, 1860, 
to Miss Julia Tibbs, of Platte County, Missouri.* 

He had a militia company, the Shield Greys. When news came of the 
firing on Sumter, he marched this company to the fort, and forthwith entered 
the service. A little later he left Leavenworth City to report to General Lyon, 
then at Wilson's Creek. "Here's for a General's star or a soldier's grave," was 
his joyous exclammation as he bade good-by to family and friends at starting. 
He was, alas, to win both. 

Some time after Wilson's Creek, his brother Alexander, then a Brigadier, 
commanding a division in Buell's army, asked for an appointment for him as 
Adjutant-General on his staff. In November, 1861, he received this appoint- 
ment, and he continued to serve in this capacity for nearly a year, accompany- 
ing his brother through the advance on Nashville, the battle of Pittsburg Land- 
ing, and a part of the inconsequential campaign against Chattanooga that 
followed. 

In May, 1862, he was called to Columbus by Governor Tod, who wished 
him to undertake the recruiting of the Fifty-Second Ohio. The work went on 
slowly, but by August the regiment was full, just in time to answer the sudden 
call for troops in Kentucky at the time of Kirby Smith's invasion. 

Thenceforward Colonel McCook's career may be best read in the history of 

* Since the death of her husband this lady has married again — the widow of General Daniel 
McCook becoming the wife of Major Wm. B. Locke, formerly of the Rebel army. 



Daniel McCook. 905 

his regiment. He led it for a time with acknowledged success; was then made 
commander of a brigade containing it and three other new regiments ; kept it 
with him through all the active campaign that followed, from Perry ville to Ken- 
esaw, and at the last bore only, on the field on which he fell, the title of Colo- 
nel of the Fifty-Second Ohio. 

At Perryville Colonel McCook's brigade was in the division of Sheridan, 
which was advanced from the central corps to the relief of General A. M. Mc- 
Cook's imperiled command. General Sheridan compliments the Colonel in his 
official report. At Stone Eiver he was sent to look after the ammunition train, 
and General Rosecrans in person complimented him for having saved it in the 
hand-to-hand encounter with Wheeler's men. Through the Tullahoma cam- 
paign he led his brigade, not failing, as he passed the spot where his brother 
Robert had been murdered, to detail a detachment instructed to desolate the 
entire locality. At Chickamauga his brigade held the extreme left of Thomas's 
position and maintained its ground to the last. It was in Sherman's command 
at Mission Ridge, and participated actively in the pursuit. It moved to the 
relief of Burnside at Knoxville, and then returned in time for the Atlanta 
campaign. 

Through this, too. Colonel McCook continued to lead it till, at last, in the 
fatal assault on Kenesaw Mountain, he fell mortally wounded. "If Harker and 
Daniel McCook had lived," wrote Sherman afterward, "I believe I should have 
carried the position." 

A little before he died a dispatch was brought him from the War Depart- 
ment, announcing his promotion to a Brigadier-Generalship of volunteers, for 
distinguished gallantry in battle. He had won the star he set out for, and the 
soldier's grave as well. 

To the bare outlines thus presented we can do no better than add this 
tribute, from the pen of George D. Prentice : 

[From a private letter to the author of this work.] 
" I first met Daniel McCook at the house of General Eousseau in this city, and was very 
much pleased with his gentleness, his urbanity, liis intelligence, and his ardent patriotism. I 
felt, before we had been fifteen minutes together, that we were friends. I next met him on the 
northern bank of Green Eiver, where the army of his brother. General Alexander M. McCook, 
was stationed. Dan. saw that 1 had an especial regard for him, and he did whatever he could 
to make my time pasa pleasantly. There had just been a fight on the southern bank of Green 
Eiver, and although the Confederates were still pretty thick upon that bank, and for a considerable 
distance beyond, he invited me to make with him a horseback incursion into the doubtful terri- 
tory. We rode several miles, beholding at two points the marks of battle ; and I could not fail 
to understand that he was far more concerned for me than for himself. While I was at the 
Green Eiver encampment a little incident occurred that may illustrate in some small degree one 
phase of Daniel McCook's disposition. He was a pale and feeble-looking young man ; one 
whom you might expect to die of consumption. He has in his command a brave but reckless 
and lawless soldier. The soldier committed a great ofiense. It was reported to McCook. The 
latter summoned him in front of the troops (simply a company, I believe), and told him that he 
could have him tried and punished with the utmost severity. "But," he added, "I prefer pun- 
ishing you myself without trial. I will give you a fight. Do the best you can, and whether I 
whip you or you whip me, your offense shall be forgiven." Daniel whipped him awfully, and he 
assured us months afterward that the offending soldier would at any time from the date of the 
whipping have died for him. • 



906 Ohio in the Wae. 

"In one of the battles or skirmishes south of Mnrfreesboro', Daniel McCook shot my son. 
Colonel Clarence J. Prentice, inflicting a very severe and even dangerous wound. A short time 
afterward, and while my son was still confined to his bed, I met my friend Dan. at a hotel in 
Nashville. He knew that I knew that it was he who had wounded my son. He advanced to 
me, but not with his accustomed alacrity, apprehensive, as he afterward told me, that I might 
not wish to speak to him. But when I heartily grasped his hand, he gave utterance to all the 
joyousness of his nature. He told me that he had always liked me and admired me, and that 
he should thenceforth like and admire me more than ever. And he was kind enough to say (I 
am sure in all sincerity) that if he had recognized my son in the fight he should have fired his 
pistol in some other direction. 

" My impression of Daniel McCook is that he was one of the noblest, bravest, and most 
generous spirits that I ever knew. I know not where he sleeps, but I should love to lay a flower 
upon his grave. Yours respectfully, GEO. D. PKENTICE." 

General McCook was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, near Cincinnati. 
The family group there sleeping was to receive yet another accession before the 
war should end. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. W. FORSYTH. 



JAMES W. FOESYTH was born in Ohio, and appointed a cadet to 
West Point from Maumee City in 1852. He was graduated in 1856, and 
commissioned as Brevet Second-Lieutenant of the Ninth Infantry. At the 
outbreak of the war he had risen to be a First-Lieutenant, and in October, 1861, 
he was promoted to a Captaincy in the Eighteenth x-egulars, a new regiment, 
then recruiting under the management of General Carrington at Columbus. 
From service with this regiment he was detached for staff duty, and was ulti- 
mately attached to the staff of General Sheridan, with whom he served through 
the active campaigns in the Shenandoah and in the pursuit of Lee, and after- 
ward in the civil administration in the South-west. He was promoted to a 
Brigadier-Generalship of volunteers, and was brevetted a Brigadier in the reg- 
ular service in April, 1865. In the autumn of 1867 he was married to the eldest 
daughter of ex-Governor Dennison. 



i 



Ralph P. Buckland. 



907 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL RALPH P. BUCKLAND. 



GENEEAL BUCKLAj^D was born about 1812 or '13. He studied 
law and when quite a young man settled at Lower Sandusky, now 
Fremont, Ohio, where he has continued to reside ever since. He 
was elected twice to a seat in the State Senate, and served with honor to him- 
self and with satisfaction to his constituents. 

In October, 1861, he began to organize the Seventy-Second Ohio Infantry, 
and in three months it was ready for the field with full ranks. He left Camp 
Chase on February 19, 1862, and reported with his regiment to General W. T. 
Sherman at Paducah, Kentucky. He was assigned to the command of the 
Fourth Brigade of Sherman's Division. On the 7th of March he moved up the 
Tennessee Eiver, and on the 17th encamped at Pittsburg Landing; the left of 
the brigade resting at Shiloh Church. On the 3d of April he made a reconnois- 
sance with his brigade some four miles to the front, and on the 4th he 
participated in a skirmish with some of the enemy's advanced forces. On the 
morning of the 6th Colonel Buckland's brigade was in line full half an hour 
before the hard fighting began. He advanced his lines about two hundred yards 
on the left and about four hundred on the right, and met the enemy. The 
fighting was desperate for two hours, and then the Eebels gradually fell back. 
During this time Colonel Buckland was riding along the line continually, en- 
couraging officers and men by words and example. When the firing ceased in 
front of the brigade it retired to the color-line, obtained a fresh supply of am- 
munition, and was advancing again when orders were received from General 
Sherman to fall back and to form on the Purdy Eoad. While forming this line the 
troops to the left of Colonel Buckland's brigade gave way, and ran in great 
confusion through the half-formed lines of the brigade, causing it to fall back. 
Colonel Buckland at the first opportunity rallied his command, and reported to 
General Sherman for orders. During the second day of the fight the Colonel 
was continually in the saddle, and three times did he drive the Eebels 
from his immediate front. General Lew. Wallace remarked on Monday morn- 
ing, while riding over the ground in front of the brigade, that "Judging from 
the dead bodies here seems to have been the best and hardest fighting." Col- 
onel Buckland's horse received a slight wound in the neck, but he himself 
escaped uninjured. 

The Colonel continued in command of the brigade during the advance 
on Corinth until about the 16th of May, when he was succeeded by General J. 
W. Denver. At Memphis, Tennessee, in I^ovember, Colonel Buckland was 



908 Ohio in the Wak. 

assigned to the command of a brigade in General Lauman's division, and he ac- 
companied his brigade on the Tal ahatchie expedition. In March, 1863, he received 
his commission as Brigadier- General to rank from November 29, 1862. He left 
Memphis on the 20th of March and, joining General Sherman's coi'jds in front 
of Vicksburg, he participated in that series of battles which occurred in the 
movement to the rear of Vicksburg. When the Eebels were driven into their 
fortification General Buckland walked at the head of his command, and led each 
regiment to its proper position, while shot and shell fell thick about him. One of 
the color-bearers having faltered in moving forward to his designated position, 
General Buckland took the colors in his own hand and planted them on the line 
which he wished the regiment to maintain. During the siege he was always active 
and vigilant, and was at times much exposed. One day, while he was standing 
within twelve inches of an artillery oflScer, a ball j^assed between their faces ; 
and at another time, while he was examining the works in front of his com- 
mand, a Minie ball struck the body of a tree just above his head, and fell at 
his feet. He picked it up and remarked that he would keep that, as it seemed 
to be intended for him. During the months of August, September, and October 
his command was in the rear of Vicksburg. About the 1st of October General 
Buckland's right wrist was broken by his horse falling ; and in consequence of 
this injury he was incapacitated for active field-sei'vice for months. 

His command arrived at Memphis on the 12th of November, and was re- 
tained there by General S. A. Hurlburt. On January 26, 1864, General Buck- 
land was assigned, by direction of Major-General W. T. Sherman, to the com- 
mand of the Post of Memphis, where his administrative abilities were exem- 
plified and his integrity of character was clearly manifested. At the time of the 
Foi'rest raid into Memphis General Buckland, though commanding the post, did 
not have control of the defenses. Forrest cajjtured the cavalry -patrols, rushed 
over the infantry-pickets, and was in Memphis before daylight. As soon as 
General Buckland knew of the danger he ordered the signal-gun fired, and in 
an hour the enemy was driven from the city. General Buckland then rode 
to the front and, in another hour, the line was clear and the Eebels were mov- 
ing to the south. He remained in command of the Post of Memphis until 
December 24, 1864, eleven months; when having been elected to Congress from 
the Ninth District, he asked to be relieved, and immediatel}^ afterward he 
resigned. 

General Buckland never sought popularity in the field or elsewhere; and I 
he was strictly conscientious in the discharge of his duty. He did not ask the 
nomination for Congress, and he did not go home to forward his election. He 
was continually on duty, except when sick or disabled, from the time he entered 
the service until he resigned; and on every battle-field, and in everj^ campaign, 
he proved himself a brave, energetic, and reliable officer. In Congress his course 
harmonized with that of the Eadical wing of the Eepublican party; and his con- 
stituents manifested at once their approval of his course and their regard for the 
man, by returning him to the Fortieth Congress with an increased majority. 



William H. Powell. 909 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM H. POWELL. 



WILLIAM H. POWELL was born in South Wales, Great Britain, 
oil the 10th of May, 1825. When he was only five years old his 
parents emigrated to the United States, and settled in New Jersey. 
He removed from there after a year's residence, and spent two years in Penn- 
sylvania. In the spring of 1833 he removed to Nashville, Tennessee ; in the 
spring of 1843 to Wheeling, Virginia ; and in the spring of 1853 to Ironton, 
Lawrence County, Ohio. When the rebellion broke out he was employed as 
financial agent and general superintendent of an extensive iron manufactory in 
the State of Ohio. 

In August, 1861, he relinquished his position and organized a company for 
a regiment which was recruited in the counties of Jackson, Lawrence, Athens, 
Vinton, Meigs, Washington, Morgan, and Monroe. Governor Dennison was 
requested to assign this regiment to the cavalry service, but the request was 
refused, in consequence of an order from the Secretary of War, directing the 
muster out of all cavalry in the United States service in excess of forty regi- 
ments. Aj)plication was then made to Governor Picrpont, of West Virginia, 
who, by special permission from the War Department, accepted the organization, 
and denominated it the Second Regiment (Loyal) West Virginia Cavalry. Thus 
the State of Ohio lost the credit of an entire organization of seven hundred and 
ninety enlisted men and thirty-nine officers. In June, 1862, Captain Powell was 
promoted to Major. In the following fall, with one officer and twenty-five men 
from his own regiment, he charged a Eebel camp of two hundred men, captured 
one hundred and seventeen prisoners, including two commissioned officers, five 
hundred stand of arms, and one hundred and thirty horses. For gallantry in 
this action he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and soon after was made 
Colonel. He led his regiment on the Wytheville Eaid and charged into the 
town, capturing two pieces of artillery and eighty prisoners. The enemy was 
routed, but unfortunately Colonel Powell was wounded and fell into the hands 
of the Rebels. He was taken to Richmond, and it being reported that he had 
burned the property and maltreated the families of Rebels in West Virginia, 
he was confined, without bed or bedding, for thirty-seven days, and was kejJt on 
bread and water. Dui'ing that time he succeeded in sending a letter to the 
Rebel General Jenkins, commanding the Department of South-Western Virginia, 
who, in reply, made such representations to the authorities at Richmond, aa 
induced them to allow Colonel Powell the privileges of a prisoner of war. 
After suffering the hardships and indignities of a Rebel prison for six months. 



910 Ohio in the War. 

he obtained a special parole for thirty days, went j^orth, and succeeded in effect- 
ing an exchange for the Eebel Colonel Eichard H. Lee. Colonel Powell again 
assumed command of his regiment, and participated in General Hunter's move- 
ment against Lynchburg, and it was Colonel Powell's brigade, the Third of the 
Second Cavalry Division, that opened the engagement in front of Lynchburg. 
Upon returning to the Kanawha Yalley, Colonel Powell was complimented by 
General Averill for his part in the expedition. On the 20th of July, 1864, his 
command was engaged at Stevenson's Depot, on the 22d at Newtown, and on 
the 24th at Winchester. As a brigade commander he passed through ail the 
battles from Moorefield, on the 7th of August, to Winchester, on the 19th of Sep- 
tember, including also the engagement at Fisher's Hill. Colonel Powell suc- 
ceeded General Averill in the command of the Second Cavalry Division, and led 
it in all the movements in the neighboi'hood of Port Eepublic, Weyer's Cave, 
and Brown Gap. 

He had been recommended for promotion by Generals Averill, Crook, and 
Sheridan, and these recommendations had been favorably indorsed by President 
Lincoln. Finally, on the 19th of October, 1864, Colonel Powell was made Brig- 
adier-General for gallant conduct in the battles of Winchester and Fisher's Hill. 
He was next engaged at Nineveh, where he attacked General Lomax. He killed 
twenty and wounded twenty-five of the enemy, captured sixty -one prisoners, 
including twenty commissioned officers, two battle-flags, and all the enemy's 
artillery and train. His own loss was two killed and fifteen slightly wounded. 
On the 22d of November General Powell charged his division against Early's 
whole army, deployed in three lines of battle — the center covered with artillery 
and the flanks protected by cavalry — and brought off his command in good 
order, with the loss of only a few men killed. In consequence of family afflic- 
tions General Powell tendered his resignation. Very reluctantly it was ap- 
proved, and passed through the regular channels to Washington. The Secretary 
of War received an official protest against its acceptance, based on the fact that 
the cavalry could not afford to lose so well-trained and so gallant an officer, who 
had been looked up to with confidence by his soldiers from the time he was in 
the line until he attained the grade of a general officer. But General Powell 
pushed the matter and his resignation was finally accepted. He issued his fare- 
well address on the 10th of January, 1865 ; this drew forth a reply from the 
division, from General Torbert, Chief of Cavalry, and from General Sheridan, 
all expressive of regret and esteem; and so General Powell left the service, 
enjoying in the highest degree the affection of his inferiors, and the confidence 
of his superiors. 



John Gr. Mitchell. 911 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN G. MITCHELL. 



JOHN G. MITCHELL was born in Piqua, Ohio, November 6, 1838. 
He entered Kenyon College in 1855, graduated in 1859, immediately 
commenced the study of law in the office of Sloan, Andrews & Noble, at 
Columbus, and was ready for admission to the bar in the early part of 1861. 

On the 27th of June he enlisted as a private in the first battalion of Ohio 
Eeserves, then on duty in the south-eastern part of the State. On the 29th of 
July he was appointed by Grovernor Dennison First-Lieutenant and Adjutant of 
the Third Ohio Infantry. He joined his regiment in West Yirginia, and partici- 
pated with it in the campaign under Eosecrans. In the fall of 1861 the Third 
Ohio was transferi*ed to Kentucky, and was assigned to General O. M. Mitchel'a 
command. On the 2l8t of December Adjutant Mitchell was commissioned Cap- 
tain, and in that capacity he sei-ved during General Mitchel's campaign in Ten- 
nessee and Alabama. He participated in the action at Bridgeport, and in other 
eligagements which occurred during that period. 

Captain Mitchell was ordered to Ohio on recruiting service in the latter 
part of the summer of 1862, and while on that duty he was appointed Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Thirteenth Ohio. He accompanied the 
regiment to Kentucky, which, after guarding railroads for a short time, waa 
ordered to the Army of the Cumberland, and for several months was stationed 
at Franklin, Tennessee. Lieutenant-Colonel Mitchell was promoted to the Col- 
onelcy of the regiment April 29, 1863. In June the regiment was attached to 
the Eeserve Corps, Army of the Cumberland, and it participated in all the hard- 
ships and marches incident to the Tullahoma campaign, and the pursuit of 
Bragg. After the occupation of Chattanooga the Third Division of the Eeserve 
Corps was brought up to the immediate vicinity of the main army, in order to 
give assistance in case the result of the impending battle should render support 
necessary. Upon the solicitation of General Steedman, commanding the divis- 
ion. Colonel Mitchell was assigned to the command of the Second Brigade. 
During the first, and the morning of the second, day of the battle of Chicka- 
mauga, Steedman's division was stationed at Eossville Gap, and at McAfie's 
Church, on the Einggold Eoad, protecting the left flank of the army. About 
noon on the second day the division moved in the direction of the sound of the 
artillery, and arrived on the field of battle just in time to check the victorious 
course of the Eebels. Mitchell's and Whittaker's brigades at once went into 
action, and drove back the Eebels that were pressing General Thomas's right. 
This diversion enabled the army to make sure its retreat, and, perhaps, saved it 



912 Ohio in the War. 

from destruction. In the official reports Colonel Mitchell was especially men- 
tioned, and was recommended for promotion to the rank of Brigadier-General. 

In the reorganization of the Army of the Cumberland Colonel Mitchell's 
brigade fell to General John Beatty, and was known as the Second Brigade, 
Second Division, Fourteenth Corps. At the battle of Mission Eidge the division 
supported General Sherman's column, and upon the retreat of Bragg, led in the 
pursuit, having a warm fight with the Eebel rear-guard near Chickamauga Sta- 
tion. The division moved to the relief of General Burnside, at Knoxville, and 
upon returning, went into winter-quarters at Eossville. Previous to the Atlanta 
campaign General Beatty resigned, and Colonel Mitchell again assumed com- 
mand of the brigade. In the Atlanta campaign the brigade was assigned to 
many difficult and responsible duties. It led the advance at Eocky Face Eidge, 
suffered severely at Eesaca, took a prominent part in the capture of Eome, and 
in the battles of Dallas and New Hope Church. At Kenesaw Mountain Mitch- 
ell's brigade, in conjunction with Colonel Daniel McCook's, led an assault, and 
suffered terribly in an attempt to break the enemy's center. One single regi- 
ment, the One Hundred and Thirteenth Ohio, lost one hundred and fifty men 
within twenty minutes. At the battle of Peachtree Creek the Second Division 
was on the extreme right of the army, and Mitchell's brigade had a severe fight 
in forcing a crossing at the mouth of the stream. In the subsequent move- 
ments about Atlanta the Second Division generally operated on the right, and 
participated in the sanguinary struggles which marked the close of the cam- 
paign. At Jonesboro' the Second Brigade captui-ed several pieces of artillery, a 
large number of small arms, and several hundred prisoners, including one gen- 
eral officer. In the official reports of the campaign, the commander of the Second 
Brigade was again complimented, and recommended for promotion. 

When General Sherman moved from Atlanta on his march to the sea, Colo- 
nel Mitchell was at the North, and so was prevented from joining him. He 
reported to General Thomas, at Nashville, and was placed in charge of the de- 
tachment of the Fourteenth Corps which remained there. With his command 
Colonel Mitchell participated in the battle of Nashville, and in the pursuit of 
Hood. After this Colonel Mitchell hastened around by New York, and joined 
his corps at Sister's Ferry, South Carolina. There he found awaiting him a 
Brigadier-General's commission, bearing date January 12, 1865. This was one 
of the appointments made by Secretary Stanton during his visit to Sherman at 
Savannah. General Mitchell was assigned to the command of his old brigade, 
and he led it through the campaign of the Carolinas. It was engaged at Averys- 
boro' and Bentonville, and at the latter place the Second Brigade was the first to 
break the impetuous advance of the Eebels. and though compelled to refuse the 
left until it was at right angles to the right, and to fight at times on both sides 
of the works, it never left its ground, and at the close of the battle found it 
occupying the same position which it had taken at the opening. After the sur- 
render of Johnston General Mitchell accompanied his brigade to Washington, 
and upon the disbanding of the army he tendered his resignation, and returned 
to Columbus, Ohio, which he made his place of residence. 



Ohio in the War. 913 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL A. SANDERS PIATT. 



r^ ENEEAL PIATT was born at Cincinnati on May 2, 1821. He re- 
|-|- ceived a thorough education at the Athenseum, subsequently called St. 
Xavier, in his native city. After graduating he chose the life of a 
former, and retired to his lands in the rich valley of the Macacheek, where, 
surrounded by books and friends, he was tilling the soil and indulging in poetry 
and politics, the latter more as a pastime than as a pursuit, when the rebellion 
broke upon the country. He entered earnestly into the strife, offering his serv- 
ices in any capacity to the Government. 

On April 30, 1861, he was commissioned as Colonel of the Thirteenth Ohio 
Infantr}^ tlien organized in Camp Jackson, near Columbus. From this camp he 
was ordered to Camp Dennison, where he remained until the regiment enlisted 
for the three j^ears' service. An order from the Governor authorized an election 
for officers; but Colonel Piatt, unwilling to receive as constituents the men whom 
he had sought to command as soldiers, declined appearing as a candidate for the 
Colonelcy. He solicited and received authority from Mr. Lincoln to enlist a 
brigade for the war. Eelying upon his own means he selected a camp, and or- 
ganized the first Zouave regiment (so-called, though for no reason save that they 
Avore a fancy, red-legged uniform which they Avere soon forced to discard) in 
Ohio. He subsisted his regiment for one month and six days, and Avas then 
commissioned as Colonel and ordered to Camp Dennison. The regiment was 
designated the Thirty-Fourth. He continued recruiting, with permission from 
the State authorities, and a second regiment was subsequently organized and 
designated the Fifty-Fourth. This second regiment was being rapidly filled up, 
and there is every reason to believe that the brigade would soon have been 
completed, Avhen Colonel Piatt was ordered to report, with the Thirty-Fourth, to 
General Eosecrans, then commanding in Western Virginia. He proceeded as 
for as CampEnyart, on the Kanawha Eiver, where, for lack of transportation, he 
was compelled to remain. On the 23d of September he led a portion of his own 
regiment and a detachment from a Kentucky regiment across the Kanawha, in 
search of an organized band of Eebels, known to be encamped at some point 
south, and to be preparing to obstruct the navigation of the river. On the 24th 
the detachment from tlie Kentucky regiment was sent up Cole Eiver, Avhile Colonel 
Piatt continued his march to Chapmansville, where he arrived at three o'clock P. 
M. on the 25th and found the Eebels strongly fortified. After making a reconnois- 
sance he attacked and drove the enemy, in utter rout, from his position, and 
wounded and captured the commander of the force, Colonel J. W. Davis 
YoL. I.— 58. 



914 Ohio in the Wae. 

During the return march the troops were overtaken by a storm, almost unpar- 
alleled for severity in the history of the valley ; Camp Enyart was submerged, 
and they went into quarters at Camp Piatt. 

Colonel Piatt next attacked and defeated a Eebel force at Hurricane, which 
was co-operating with General Floyd, then at Cotton Hill ; and on the 24th of • 
October he went into Avinter-quarters at Bai-boursville. In March, 1862, by 
order of General Cox, he removed to Gauley Bridge; Avhere, in the latter part of 
the month, he was taken ill with typhoid fever. He returned on leave to hia i 
home in Ohio^ where he remained until he recovered sufficienth' to report for ■ 
duty. During this sickness he Avas commissioned Brigadier-General, and was ■ 
ordered to report to General Fremont. He joined that officer at Harri- • 
sonburg in the Shenandoah Valley, and was assigned a brigade in General i 
Schenck's division. When General Sigel succeeded General Fremont, General ! 
Piatt was ordered with his brigade to Winchester, and was directed to fortify- 
and to command that post. He enjoyed the satisfaction of having his works • 
inspected and approved by General Sigel. 

On the 28th of July he was directed to report to General Sturgis at Alex- - 
andria, and was assigned to a brigade in General McClellan's army, which was-- 
then returning from the Peninsula. Shortly after organizing his brigade Gen- 
eral Piatt received information from the division General, that in the press for 
transportation he had succeeded in securing only twenty cars; that these should '] 
be at the disposal of the first regiments ready to take possession of them, and 
tkat they would thus be privileged to go to the front. General Piatt immedi- 
ately took possession of the track, and as soon as the cars arrived ordered his 
men into them. He arrived at Warrenton Junction at midnight, and the next 
day, August 26th, he reported to General Pope. 

On the evening of the 27th .General Piatt was ordered to march to 
Manassas Junction. He immediately put his troops in motion and had pro- 
ceeded three miles, when General Sturgis ordered his return to Warrenton 
Junction to protect that point from an expected attack. On the morning of the' 
28th he was again ordered to Manassas Junction. He reached the junction atj 
noon on the 29th, having been seriously delayed by trains and troops in his* 
front. He marched a mile and a half towards the battle-field on the Manassas 
Gap Eoad, and was then ordered back to the junction ; but before reaching the 
junction he was directed to march toward the gap. He went into camp for the ' 
night, and in the morning received an order to report to General Porter. He; 
had proceeded but a few hundred yards w^hcn he met a brigade belonging to 
General Poi'ter's corps, which was marching to join the command. General 
Piatt followed the brigade and found that it led him to Centerville. Here he 
halted his brigade while the one in front marched on toward AYashington Gen- 
eral Piatt remarked to General Sturgis that he had gone far enough in that 
direction in search of Genei-al Porter, and that with his permission he would 
march to the battle-field. He then ordered his men into the road and, guided by 
the sound of the artillery, he arrived at the battle-ground of Bull Eun at two 
o'clock P. M. The brigade went into action on the left, and acquitted itself 



Eliakim p. Scammon. 915 

with groat courage. General Pope in liis official report complimented General 
Piatt highl}-, for "the soldierly feeling which prompted him, after being misled 
and with the bad example of the other brigade before his eyes, to push forward 
with such zeal and alacrity to the field of battle." 

On the 4th of September General Piatt reported to General Morril on 
Minor's Hill, and remained there until ordered to Harper's Feny. He reported 
at that post, and marched on the extreme right of the arm}^ under General Mc- 
Clellan, in its flank movement against the Eebels at Winchester. At Manassas 
Gap he was ordered by General McClellan to make a reconnoissance of the gap, 
which ho did successfully. It the battle of Fredericksburg General Piatt occu- 
pied the right, and had the satisfaction of being assured by his superior officer 
that his brigade performed well the duty assigned it. 

General Piatt entered the army with no intention of making it his profes- 
sion, and now that a large family of motherless children demanded his atten- 
tion and care, he tendered his resignation and retired from the service. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL ELIAKIM P. SCAMMON. 



ELIAKIM P. SCAMMON" was born at Whitefield, Lincoln County, 
Maine, December 27, 1816. His father was the Honorable Eliakim 
Scammon, and he was the fourth son in a family of eight children. 
At the age of sixteen he obtained a cadetship at "West Point, where he gradu- 
ated in June, 1837, standing seventh in a class of forty-six members. Among 
his classmates vvere Generals Benham, Hooker, and Sedgwick, of the National 
army, as well as the Eebels Bragg, Pemberton, and Early. He was commis- 
sioned Second-Lieutenant in the Fourth Artillery, but in the summer of 1838 
was transferred to the Corps of Topographical Engineers. Immediately upon 
graduating he was assigned to duty as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at 
"\Yest Point, where he remained until September, 1838, when he was ordered to 
Florida, where he served one year, under General Taj^lor, in the Seminole "War. 
He was then ordered on the Military Survey on Lake Ontario, and thence to 
"Washington, where he remained two years, assisting the celebrated French 
astronomer and topographer, Nicolet, then employed by the "United States Gov- 
ernment. In 1847 he married Margaret Stebbins, of Springfield, Massachusetts, 
and about the same time was appointed Assistant Professor of Ethics at "West 
Point, where he remained five years. At the end of that time he went as aide- 
de-camp with General Scott to Vera Cruz, where he remained until after the 
capture of that city, when, his health failing, he was ordered north by the com- 



916 Ohio in the Wae. 

mander in-chief, as bearer of dispatches. At Washington he was directed tc 
report to Colonel Kearney for duty on the Lake Survey, at Detroit, Michigan. 
Here he served eight years, and during that time was promoted to a Captaincy. 

In 1850 he resigned his commission, and became Professor of Mathematics 
in Mount Saint Mary's College, near Cincinnati. When the rebellion broke out 
he was Principal of the Polytechnic College, of Cincinnati. He immediately 
offered his services to the Government, and was commissioned by Governor 
Dennison Colonel of the Twenty-Fourth Ohio Infantry. He was soon trans- 
ferred to the Twenty-Third, and with this regiment he performed brilliant and 
valuable services in West Yirginia, at the second battle of Bull Eun, and at 
South Mountain and Antietam. With two regiments he held the enemy in 
check at Bull Eun Bridge during General Pope's retreat, in September, 1862. 
He was made Brigadier-General "for gallantry and meritorious services" at 
South Mountain; and at Antietam he commanded a division. After that he 
constantly commanded a division or a district — generally a district. On the 3d 
of February, 1864, he was captured. He was returning from an official visit to 
the department commander. General Kelly, to his own head-quarters at Charles- 
town, West Virginia. He took the boat at Gallipolis, expecting to reach his 
destination before daylight. After he had retired the night grew dark and tem- 
pestuous, and the captain of the boat "tied up" below Eed House Shoal, in the 
Kanawha. Here a party of Eebels surprised and captured the boat, and hur- 
ried off the General to Eichmond. After three months' confinement in Libby 
Prison, he was transfei'red to Danville, then to Macon, Georgia, and finally to 
Charleston, South Carolina, where he was exchanged on the 3d of August. On 
the 19th of September he was ordered to report to Major-General Foster, com- 
manding the Department of the South, and by him was assigned to the com- 
mand of the District of Jacksonville, Florida. 

From the beginning of the war General Scammon held radical views on the 
subject of slavery, believing that it was the cause of the war, and that it was 
doomed to perish with it. He is a person of affjxble and winning manners; to 
his equals just and kind, but not familiar, and to his inferiors a rigid discipli- 
narian. In religion he is a sincere and earnest Eoman Catholic. 



Charles G-. Harker. 917 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL CHARLES G. HARKER. 



CHAELES Gr. HARKEE was born at Swedesborough, Gloucester 
County, New Jersey, December 2, 1825. His father died when he was 
still quite young, leaving a widow and a large family of children. 
Charles enjoj^ed the advantages of a common-school education until he was 
twelve or thirteen years old, when he removed to Mullica Hill, and entered the 
store of the Honorable Nathan T. Stratton, as clerk. At an early age he joined 
the Methodist Episcopal Church, and it was his intention, should circumstances 
permit, to enter the ministry. Shortly after entering Mr. Stratton's employ 
that gentleman was elected to Congress, and, being called upon to nominate a 
suitable person from his district for the cadetship at "West Point, he nominated 
Charles G. Hai-ker. , 

He entei-ed the Military Academy in 1854, and graduated in 1858 with dis- 
tinction. He was assigned as brevet Second-Lieutenant to the Second Inflxntry 
in July, and in August he was promoted to a full Second-Lieutenancy in the 
Ninth Infantry. Lieutenant Harker joined his regiment on the frontier, where 
he remained until the summer of 1861, when he was detailed for special duty at a 
camp of instruction in Ohio. While there, by permission from the Secretary of 
War, he accepted the Colonelcy of the Sixty-Fifth Ohio Infantrj^; and at the 
same time he was promoted to a Captaincy in the Eegular Army. 

He joined General Buell's arm}-, and participated in the battle of Pittsburg 
Landing and the siege of Corinth; and commanded a brigade in the campaign 
against Bragg in Kentucky. At the battle of Stone Eiver he distinguished him- 
self greatl}^, and was recommended for promotion. At the close of this cam- 
paign he received a leave for twenty days. He rejoined the brigade at the 
expiration of his leave, and, under General Thomas, he participated in the bat- 
tle of Chickamauga. Two hoi'ses were shot under him, but he himself escaped 
without injury. He was again recommended for promotion, and was commis- 
sioned a Brigadier, to date from the battle of Chickamauga. At ^Mission Eidge 
his horse was killed, and he was slightly wounded. At Eesaca he again had his 
hoi'se killed, and was again slightly wounded; and, finally, he was mortally 
wounded in an assault at Kenesaw Mountain, June 27, 1864. His remains were 
forward^ to the scenes of his childhood, and though no gorgeous pageant 
followed them to the grave, yet a large assembly of friends gathered to pay 
their sad tribute of respect to one they loved so well. 

General Harker's courage Avas of no ordinary quality; and the estimatioti 
in which he was held by his superiors, will be seen by an extract from a letter 



I 



918 Ohio in the Wae. 

from General Howard to Colonel Euell of the Fifty -Eighth Indiana; "At 
Eocky Face where his division wrested one-half of that wonderful wall of 
strength from the Eebels; at Eesaca where he tenaciously held a line of worlds 
close under the Eebel fire; at Dallas where he hammered the Eebel works at 
less than one hundred yardsj at Mud Creek where he re-enforced the skir- 
mishers, and directed their movements with so much skill and vigor as to take 
and hold a strong line of the enemy's earthworks; in fact, in every place 
where the corps has been engaged this noble young man earnestly and heartily 
performed his part. God grant that we may live like him, and if called to die 
have as good an earnest of an enduring peace in heaven as our lamented Gen- 
eral Harker." 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. W. REILLY. 



BEIGADIEE-GENEEAL J. W. EEILLY was born in Akron, Sum- 
mit County, Ohio, May 21, 1828. His father, Thomas Eeilly, was for 
many years a contractor on the public works of Ohio and Pennsylvania, 
and died in 1852 in Ireland. General Eeilly was educated at Mount St. Mary's, 
Emmettsburg, Marj^land. In 1847 he commenced the study of law in Wellsville, 
Ohio, and was admitted to the bar in 1851. In 1861 he was elected a member 
of the Legislature from Columbiana County, by the Eepublican party. 

In July, 1862, he was tendered the Colonelcy of the One Hundred and 
Fourth Ohio by the military committee of the district comprising Summit, 
Stai"k, Portage, and Columbiana counties. Accepting the trust he went vigor- 
ously to work to fill the ranks of the regiment. By the 9th of August he had 
recruited one thousand eight hundred men. The recruits rendezvoused at Camp 
Massillon, and from them a regiment was mustered into the service on the 29th 
and 30th of August, 1862. Colonel Eeilly reported his regiment to General 
Lew. Wallace at Covington, on the 2d of September, and thereafter took it to 
Lexington, Kentucky. 

In August, 1863, he led his command to Knoxville, Tennessee. With Gen- 
eral Burnside's forces it participated in the taking of Cumberland Gap and the 
siege of Knoxville. Colonel Eeilly commanded the reserve during that siege. 

While at Knoxville, before the siege, he was ordered to organize and com- 
mand the East Tennessee ti'oops, then pouring into the National ranks. In the 
pursuit of Longstreet Colonel Eeilly commanded the First Brigade, Third Di- 
vision, Twenty-Third Army Corps, and remained in East Tennessee until April, 
1864. He then went with General Schofield to Dalton, Tennessee, and jiarticipated 



Joshua W. Sill. 919 

with his command in all the engagements of the Atlanta campaign. Upon the 
recommendation of Generals Cox and Schofield, Colonel Eeilly was promoted to 
the rank of a full Brigadier, July 30, 1864. 

With his brigade he joined in the pursuit of Hood's Eebel forces into 
Northern Alabama, and thence to Eome, Georgia. He then joined General 
Thomas's com-mand in Tennessee, and went with him to Nashville. From 
Nashville he went to Pulaski, Tennessee, and participated in the engagements 
with Hood's forces at Columbia and Franklin. In the battle of Franklin Gen- 
eral Eeilly commanded the Third Division of the Twenty-Third Army Corps. 

His next service was in the last fighting around Nashville, but before the 
final battle he left Nashville on a leave of thirty days for Ohio. At the expira- 
tion of his furlough he was ordered to join his troops at Wilmington, North 
Carolina, and on his arrival was assigned to the command of the Third Division 
of the Twenty-Third Army Corps. With it he marched from Wilmington to 
Kingston, and made connection with General D. 0. Cox's forces at Wise's Forks, 
below Kingston. He then, with the rest of the army, moved on to Goldsboi-o', 
North Carolina. 

At the epd of the war General Eeilly tendered his resignation — on the 20th 
of May, 186f — ^i-eturned to Ohio, and resumed the practice of his profession. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOSHUA W. SILL. 



BEIGADIEE-GENEEAL JOSHUA W. SILL was born at Chil- 
licothe, Ohio, December 6, 1831. His father is a lawyer of distinction, 
who early settled at Chillicothe, where he continued to reside for years 
after the war. He lost his mother in his infancy, and he was reared and edu- 
cated at home under the eye of his father. His taste for literature and science 
develoijed rapidly, and in 1850 he was appointed a cadet at West Point. He 
graduated in 1853, standing third in his class. He was appointed immediately 
Second-Lieutenant of Ordnance at the Watervliet Arsenal, but was soon 
ordered back to West Point as instructor, where he remained until the next 
year, when he was sent to Oregon to supei'vise the construction of magazines 
and fortifications. During the Indian war in Oregon Lieutenant Sill was Chief 
of Ordnance to General Haimey, and performed the duties of his office with 
energy and efficiency, A difficulty arising between himself and the General, 
he applied for and obtained an exchange; and in the fall of 1859 he was again 
at Watervliet. He was ordered from there to Fort Leavenworth, where he 



920 Ohio in the Wae. 

remained until the spring of 1860, wlien, weary of the monotony of military 
life in time of peace, he resigned, and accepted the Professorship of Mathemat- 
ics and Engineering in the Polytechnic College at Brooklyn, New York. 

This position he filled with ability until the oj^ening of the war. He was 
offered and urged to accept the Colonelcy of several New York regiments, but 
he returned to his native State, entered the Adjutant-General's office, and 
assisted in organizing and equipping the Ohio regiments until the summer of 
1861, when he assumed command of the Thirtj'-Third Ohio Infantry, and ac- 
companied General McClellan to the Kanawha Yalley. From this time until 
his death on the field, he was constantly in active service; under Nelson and 
Thomas in Eastern Kentucky ; Mitchel in Alabama ; and Buell and Eosecrans 
in Tennessee and Kentucky. In every sphere of military duty to which he 
was called he proved himself a thorough soldier, a skillful officer, and an hon- 
orable gentleman. He was idolized by his regiment while its Colonel, and 
upon promotion he still retained the affection of his men. He commanded a 
brigade, however, from the first, and in the winter of 1861 he was nominated 
and confirmed Brigadier-General of volunteers, for gallant and meritorious con- 
duct on the field. On the organization of Buell's aimiy at Bardstown, Gen- 
eral Sill was placed in command of a division in McCook's corps, which he 
continued to hold until his death. He was killed at Murfreesboro' December 
31, 1862. 

Of slight frame, mild and pleasing address, of sterling and extraordinary 
merit both as a soldier and a scholar, yet resei-ved almost to a fault — from mod- 
esty, not from pi-ide — he seemed to court obscurity rather than notoriety. The 
simplicity and kindness of his manners, his perfect and stainless integrity, and 
the singular purity of his life, endeared him beyond measure to all who were 
happy enough to know him; and the State will not fail to keep green his mem- 
ory among the lists of her sons " dead on the field of glory.' 



IS'athaniel C. McLean. 921 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL N. C. McLEAN. 



"ATATHANIEL C. McLEAN, son of Hon. John McLean, of Ohio, As- 
\ sociate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, was born 
February 2, 1815, in Warren Count}^, Ohio. At sixteen years of age 
he graduated at Augusta College, Kentuck}', and went immediately to Harvard 
College, where he passed through the studies of the senior class as a resident 
graduate, and then entered the law school. After completing the course pre- 
scribed in this branch, he returned to his home in Ohio, and in a short time 
commenced the practice of the law in Cincinnati. 

In 1838 he married the daughter of Judge Burnet, of Cincinnati. He con- 
tinued the practice of his profession successfully until his health failed, when, 
by the advice of his physicians, he took a sea voyage and visited Europe. His 
health was benefited, but not fully restored, by*this trip, and he was compelled 
to abandon his profession and seek employment in business which would enable 
him to lead a more active life. 

After remaining in active business for a number of years, his health seemed 
to be entirely I'e-established, and he again returned to the i^ractice of his pro- 
fession. He had not made the change in his business manj^ months before 
meeting with a sore affliction in the loss of his wife, who died suddenly, after a 
short illness, leaving four children. 

In 1858 he again married, his second wife being the daughter of Phillip E. 
Thompson, of Louisville, Kentucky. 

At the breaking out of the rebellion he was engaged successful!}' in the 
practice of his profession. In conjunction with the late Colonel Eobert Riley, 
of Hamilton County, Ohio, under authority received from General Fremont, he 
commenced the organization of the Seventy-Fifth Ohio. On the 18th of Sep- 
tember, 1861, he was commissioned as its Colonel. 

In January, 1862, Colonel McLean was ordered with his regiment to West 
Virginia. He reported to General Milroy, and commanded the regiment per- 
sonally in all its operations under Generals Milro}^, Schenck, and Fremont, up 
to and through the battle of Cross Kej'S, when he was promoted to the com- 
mand of a brigade, consisting of four Ohio regiments. This brigade Colonel 
McLean commanded through all the campaigns of General Pope in Virginia, 
■ from the time of his taking command up to the retreat upon Washington after 
the second battle of Bull Run. During this period of several months — from 
the battle of Cross Keys to the retreat upon Washington — his conduct had been 
such that he secured the approbation of his commanding officers, and they 
warmly recommended his promotion. 



922 Ohio in the Wae. 

On the 29th of November, 1862, Colonel McLean was commissioned as 
Brigadier-General. He remained with his command in the Army of the Poto- 
mac, under Generals McClellan, Burnside, and Hooker, participating in all its 
active operations through the battle of Chancellorsville. General McLean then 
applied to be relieved of his command, and ordered to report to. General Burn- 
side in the Department of the Ohio. By General Burnside he was placed upon 
duty as Provost-Marshal General of his Department. When General Burnside 
was relieved of the command of his department by General Schofield, General 
McLean was ordered to the command of a brigade in the field in Tennessee, 
where he joined the corps of General Schofield, and actively participated in all 
the operations of the army under General Sherman, up to within a short period 
of the taking of Atlanta. After the battles of Kenesaw and Lost Mountains he 
applied to be relieved of his command, and ordered to Kentucky. There he 
was placed in command of a district, where he remained several months, par- 
ticipating, in the meantime, in the raid upon Saltville, Virginia. He was sub- 
sequently ordered to Tennessee to take command of a brigade. Sherman was 
then marching across the country, and our army under General Thomas was 
pushed up the Tennessee Eiver. After some time, however, the orders were 
changed, and this command was ordered to North Carolina, by way of Wash- 
ington City, and at Alexandria the troops were embarked on transports, and 
conveyed to the coast of North Carolina, landing at Fort Fisher. From this 
time they steadily advanced up to their junction with General Sherman, when 
the surrender of Lee virtually ended the war. Believing that the war was now 
over, and that his services were no longer needed. General McLean sent in hia 
resignation which was, after a short period, accepted. 

Dnring the whole war General McLean was off duty for the space of onlj^ 
thirty days, having had leave of absence once for twenty, and again for ten 
days. Since the war he removed to the State of Minnesota, where he retired 
to the quiet occupation of a farmer. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM T. H. BROOKS. 



WILLIAM T. H. BEOOKS,a native of Ohio, and one of her cadets 
at West Point, was graduated from the Academy in July, 1841, and 
appointed Brevet Second-Lieutenant, Third Infantry. He had risen 
to a Captaincy Avhen the war broke out, and by March, 1862, to one of the 
Major's commissions in the Eighteenth Infantry. He was made a Brigadier- 
General of volunteers in-September, 1861. In July, 1864, he resigned. 



Geoeqe W. Morgan. 923 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL GEORGE W. MORGAN. 



GEOEGE W. MOEGAN, a Democratic politician of prominence and a 
Erigadier-General of volunteers during a part of the war, best known 
by hi.s evacuation of Cumberland Gap, was born in Washington, "Wash- 
ington County, Pennsylvania. He is a descendant, on the paternal side, of a 
Eevolutionary soldier, whose name is still preserved in the histor}' of the coun- 
try, and, on the maternal side, of the Duanes. 

He evinced military proclivities at an early age. When only eighteen 
years old he entered the army of General Houston, in the war for the inde- 
pendence of Texas, and served throughout that struggle with such courage as 
to attract the special notice of his superiors. On his return he received a com- 
mission as cadet at West Point, but he left the Acaden'iy before gi'aduating. 

When volunteers were asked for the war with Mexico he at once raised a 
company and marched with it to Camp Washington, near Cincinnati. Upon 
the organization of the Second Ohio Eegiment, he was elected its Colonel. 
With this command he served under General Taylor on the Eio Grande till the 
expiration of the term of service of the regimlent. President Polk then ap- 
pointed him Colonel of the Fourteenth Eegular Infantry, and this he commanded 
with distinction till the close of the war. In the battle of Contreras he was 
severely wounded. He had been in high favor with the Democratic party, and 
President Polk now gave him a consular appointment in Portugal, and after- 
ward made him Minister Plenipotentiary. 

Colonel Morgan only returned to the United States shortly before the out- 
break of the war. Uniting with the war wing of the Democratic party, he at 
once offered his services to the Government, and, on the credit of his past mil- 
itary experience, he was made a Brigadier-General of volunteers, his commis- 
sion dating from 12th November, 1861. 

When General Buell first proposed to occupy Cumberland Gap he directed 
General Moi'gan to go there. He moved vigorousl}', fortified the place se- 
curely when he gained possession of it, and was supposed to have a sure foot- 
hold. But when Kirby Smith, passing by Cumberland Gap, entered Kentucky 
in the summer of 1862, General Morgan considered his position compromised. 
Destroj'ing his works as well as he could, he abandoned the gap and began a 
hasty retreat to the Ohio Eiver. John Morgan's Ecbel cavalry was sent to 
hang upon and harass his flanks, but lie succeeded in extricating his command. 
His operations, however, were not satisfactory to the Government, and he held 
no further important place. General Moi'gan is a man of soldierly appearance 
and a fluent speaker. His manners are polished and popular, and his political 
friends still have hopes of further advancement for him. 



924 Ohio in the War. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN EEATTY. 



JOHN BBATTY was born at Sandusky City, Ohio, in 1828. For sev- 
oral 3^ears prior to tlie rebellion he was engaged in banking at Card- 
ington, and in 1860 he was Presidential Elector for the Thirteenth 
Congressional District on the Eepublican ticket. 

A-fter the fall of Fort Sumter he at once abandoned his business, and early 
in Ajiril, 1861, enlisted as a private in a company raised in his own town. Of 
this company he was immediately and unanimously elected Captain, and on the 
19th of the month he reported his men for duty to the Adjutant-General of 
Ohio. Eight days later he was elected Lieutenant-Colonel of the Third Ohio 
Infantry, of which his company was a part. It was originally a three months' 
regiment; but on the 12th of June, previous to taking the field, it reorganized 
for the thi'ee years' service; the field-officers remaining the same. On the 23d 
of June the Third Ohio was sent to West Yirginia, and, during a summer and 
fall campaign in that wild and mountainous region, at Middle Fork, at Eich 
Mountain, at Cheat Mountain, and at Elkwater it illustrated its own excellence, 
and the skill and bravery of its officers. 

Transferred to Kentucky in November, the regiment had the good fortune 
to be assigned to the old Third Division of the Army of the Ohio, commanded 
b}^ General O. M. Mitchel. While at Bacon Creek, Kentucky, Lieutenant- 
Colonel Beatty was i^romoted to the Colonelcy of his regiment, and in that 
capacity he accompanied General Mitchel through his campaign in Southern 
Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, and Northern Alabama. In the fight at Bridge- 
port, and in the operations about Decatur and Point Eock, Colonel Beatty took 
a conspicuous and useful part. Selected by General Mitchel as Provost-Marshal 
of Huntsviile, he discharged the delicate and difficult duties of that office with 
fidelity and tact. 

Eeturning to Louisville with General Buell in Sei^tember, 1862, he joined 
in the pursuit of Bragg through Kentucky, and on the 8th of October fought at 
the head of his regiment in the battle of Perryville. Here he first attracted 
general attention. Holding the extreme right of General Eousseau's division his 
regiment was assailed, both in fx-ont and flank, by an overwhelming force; and 
though, in an hour's time, one-third of his men were killed and wounded, Colo- 
nel Beatty refused to yield an inch of ground until relieved by Colonel Pope, 
with the Fifteenth Kentucky. 

On the 26th of December Colonel Beatty assumed command of the old Sev- 
enteenth Brigade, which had been formed previously with such leaders as Lytle 



John Beatty. 925 

and Dumont. On Wednesday, the 31st of December, at Murfreesboro', this 
brigade forming the third jDart of Eousseau's division, assisted checking the 
onset of Hardee. Colonel Beatty had two horses shot under him, but he came 
out uninjured. On Saturday night, January 3, 1863, he was ordered to attack 
the enemy's works lying near the Murfreesboj'o' Turnpike. Placing himself at 
the head of his brigade, he charged over the Eebel works and carried them at 
the point of the bayonet. On the 12th of March, 1863, Colonel Beatty was 
commissioned Brigadier-General of volunteers, to rank from the 29th of No- 
vember, 1862. 

Being assigned to the First Brigade of Negley's division, he participated in 
the Tullahoma campaign, and after the Eebels had been driven out of that 
stronghold he led the column which pursued them, skirmishing successfully with 
their rear -guard, until he gained the lofty plateau of the Cumberlands. In the 
Chattanooga campaign General Beatty had the honor of being the first to lead 
his command to the summit of Lookout Mountain. The Eebels, after a feeble 
resistance at Johnson's Creek, retired rapidly before him. In the masterly 
retreat from Dug Gap, which elicited warm commendation both from General 
Eosecrans and General Thomas, General Beatty was assigned by General Neg- 
ley to the responsible and difficult duty of protecting and bringing away a large 
wagon-train in the face of an immense force of Eebels. Not a single wagon 
fell into the enemy's hands. 

In the battle of Chickamauga it Avas General Beatty's fortune to commence 
the fighting both on the 19th and 20th of September ; the first day upon the 
extreme right, and the second upon the extreme left of the line. Assailed early 
on the morning of the 19th, he handsomely repulsed the enemy, after a fight of 
three hours' duration, and held his ground until ordered to the center of the 
line, late in the afternoon. On Sunday morning he reported to General Thomas 
with his command, and Avas placed on the extreme left along the Lafayette road, 
with orders to hold it at all hazards. Hour after hour, with his comparatively 
feeble force, he maintained his position against the masses of the foe which 
surged around him. He was re-enfoi'ced at last by Colonel T. E. Stanley, with 
his brigade, and in conjunction they charged and drove the Eebels half a 
rnile, capturing a large part of General Adams's Louisiana brigade, with its 
leader at its head. Later in the day General Beatty was among the heroes 
who held the last position against the combined efforts of the Eebel army. 
Again on the 21st, while in position near Eossville, a heavy reconnoitering col- 
umn attacked General Beatty's brigade, but it was driven back with consid- 
erable loss. 

In the reorganization of the army General Beatty was assigned to the 
Second Brigade of Davis's division, and, during the operations which resulted 
in the expulsion of the Eebels from Mission Eidge and Lookout Mountain, his 
command held the left of the line. Though not actively engaged at that 
time, it joined with great vigor in pursuit of the retreating foe. On the 20th 
of November General Beatty, in conjunction with Colonel Daniel McCook, over- 



926 Ohio in the War. 

took the Eebel General Maury at Graysville, and, after a sharp conflict, entirely 

defeated him. 

On the Ist of December General Davis's division commenced its march 
toward Knoxville for the relief of General Burnside, not returning to its camp 
at Chattanooga until the 18th of the same month. General Beatty partici- 
pated in this march, sharing fully the fatigues and hardships of the humblest 
private soldier in the command. On the 13th of January, 1864, he tendered his 
resignation for reasons of a private nature. 

General Beatty was never absent, during his entire term of service, from 
any command to which he had been assigned, while that command was actively 
eno-aged. He was thoroughly impressed with the duties and responsibilities of 
his position, and his soldierly reputation was stainless. In fact, so marked 
were his honesty and open-hearted integrity, that his name became a synonym 
for these qualities among his men; and when they wished to express their 
unquestioning trust in any one, they said he was " as honest as John Beatty." 
General Beatty remarked to General Thomas, after he had tendered his 
resio-nation, that he hoped there would be no misunderstanding of the motives 
which induced him to resign. General Thomas replied : " General, we know you 
too well to suspect your motives in anything." In the camp, in the bivouac, or 
upon the field of battle, it is said that he never laid down or closed his eyes in 
sleep, without first reading a passage in the Bible and commending himself, his 
soldiers, and his country to God in earnest prayer. An orderly whose business 
took him around to various places, said that General Beatty 's were the only 
head-quarters which he ever visited where he never heard an oath. Mirth and 
amusement were by no means unknown at these head-quarters ; but gaming, 
and intemperance were utter strangers; and on no pi*etense could General 
Beatty be induced to consent to the sale of liquor within his command. 

His power of endurance was wonderful. When occasion demanded he 
could perform the longest and most fatiguing marches without complaint, and 
seemino-ly without suffering the slightest inconvenience from want of food 
or sleep. Changes of temperature were nothing to him ; and snow, rain, and 
sleet were equall}'^ unable to affect his equanimity. Whatever was the soldier's 
bed, that also was his couch ; and whatever was the soldiei-'s fare, he also par- 
took of it. A soldier once said, " If we were compelled to eat the bark of 
trees I believe General Beatty would find it delicious food." The evening 
before leaving Chattanooga he received a communication from the commanders 
of the several regiments in his brigade, tendering their sincere thanks for his 
kind and generous bearing toward all, and expressing their high appreciation 
of his valuable services. Indeed, it did not often happen that the resignation 
of an officer excited more universal regret than did that of General Beatty. 



William W. Bubns. 927 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL WILLIAM W. BURNS. 



WILLIAM W. BUENS entered the Military Academy at West 
Point as a Cadet from Ohio, his native State, in the year 1843. 
He graduated in 1847, and was brevetted Second-Lieutenant Third 
United States Infantry on the 1st of July of the same year. During July 
and August he was stationed with a company of sappers and miners at West 
Point, and in September of the same year he sailed for Mexico. In 1848 he 
returned from Mexico and marched for Arkansas. In 1851 he was promoted to 
First-Lieutenant in the Fifth Infantry, and was ordered to Texas. In 1854 he 
was on recruiting service in Philadelphia, and in 1857 he was engaged in the 
Florida campaign. He was Depot Commissary at Fort Myers, and afterM^ard 
was Eegimental-Quartermaster in the Fifth Infantry. He participated in the 
Utah campaign, and in 1858 was apj)ointed Captain and Commissary of Subsist- 
ence. In 1859 he was Chief Commissary for the Arkansas and Texas frontier. 
He escaped capture at Fort Smith in 1861, and was appointed Chief Commis- 
sary on the staff of General McClellan, for the Department of Ohio. He Avas 
with General McClellan in West Virginia until after the capture of Eich Mount- 
ain and Laurel Hill, when he returned to Cincinnati as Chief Commissary, De- 
partment of the Ohio. 

In September, 1861, he was appointed Brigadier-General of volunteers, and 
was ordered to report to General McClellan, at Washington. He was assigned 
to the brigade formerly commanded by Colonel Baker. General Burns was 
member of a Board of Examiners for Stone's division, and, after that, was Pres- 
ident of a General Court-martial. In February, 1862, he made a campaign to 
Winchester, Virginia, and was then transferred to the peninsula. He made the 
first reconnoissance in front of Yorktown, and was engaged at Hanover C. H., 
Fair Oaks, Old Town, Peach Orchard, Savage Station, Glendale, and Malvern 
Hill. On the 5th of July he was granted a leave of absence, in consequence of 
a severe wound. Upon returning to the field he made the campaign in White 
Plains "Valley, and was engaged at Snicker's Gap. He assumed command of 
the First Division, Ninth Corps, November 3d, and on the 12th and 13th of 
December participated in the battle of Fredericksburg. On the 10th of Feb- 
ruary, 1863, General Burns was ordered to report to General Eosecrans, and on 
the 12th he Avas notified by the Secretary of War of his appointment as Major- 
General ; but on the 6th of March he resigned his commission of Brigadier-Gen- 
eral, preferring to return to his former rank of Major and Commissary of Sub- 
sistence in the regular army. His course in this respect was much i-egretted by 
many, who believed he had shown the capacity to make an excellent officer of 
volunteers, and to win distinction in the army. 



928 Ohio in the War. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN S. MASON. 



JOHN S. MASON was born at Steubenville, Ohio, August 21, 1824. His 
father was a prominent physician, and a surgeon in the war of 1812. 
John Mason's early years were spent at school in Steubenville, and in 
1840 he entered Kenj'on College, where he remained until the winter of 1842, 
when he went to Washington College, Pennsylvania. In 1843 he entered West 
Point, and in 1847 he graduated, standing ninth in a class of thirty-eight. 
Among his classmates were Generals Burnside, Gibbon, GriflSn, Wilcox, Ayres; 
and A. P. Hill and Henry Heath of the Eebel army. While a cadet ho always 
held one of the highest military offices in the class, and he graduated second 
in tactics. 

He was appointed Second-Lieutenant in the Third Artillery, and he joined 
his company at Tampico, Mexico. Soon after arriving he was attacked with 
yellow fever, and when convalescent he was ordered to Cincinnati for his 
health, where he spent the winter in assisting Major Shover to prepare his 
•battery for the field. He returned to Puebla, Mexico, with recruits in April, 
1848, and there he remained as Commissary of Subsistence until peace was 
declared, when he joined Shover's batterj^, and after a perilous passage reached 
New Orleans, where he was again attacked with yellow fever. He proceeded 
to his home in Ohio, and upon regaining his health, repaired to Fort Adams, 
Ehode Island, where he remained until January, 1852; in the meantime being 
promoted to First-Lieutenant, September, 1850. 

Having suffered in health ever since his return fi-ouT Mexico he aj^plied for 
a transfer, and Avas ordered to California. He sailed with the first detachment 
of troops that ever crossed the isthmus, and in February, 1852, arrived at San 
Francisco. He was stationed for some months at Monterey, and was then 
ordered to San Diego, where he was engaged in garrison duty and in scouting 
against the Indians. In December, 1853-, he was ordered to Fort Yaraa, at the 
junction of the Gila and Colorado Elvers, and from that point he made a scout 
to the head of the Gulf of California. In July, 1854, having been apj^ointed 
Eegimental Quartermaster, he proceeded to the head-quarters of the regiment 
at Benecia Barracks, where he remained until June, 1858, when, at his own 
request, he was detailed on recruiting service. He was assigned to Louisville, 
Kentucky, but was soon ordered to Newport Barracks as commandant of 
recruits at that rendezvous. In July, 1860, after a short leave, he joined his 
regiment at Vancouver, Oregon. 

In the summer of 1861 he was appointed Captain in the Eleventh Infantry, 



John S. Mason. 929 

and about the same time Governor Dennison offered him the Colonelcy of the 
Fourth Ohio Infantry, which he accepted. He assumed command of the regi- 
ment at Camp Pendleton on the Alleghany Mountains, and joined General 
Kelly in his attack on Eomney. The Fourth Ohio led the advance, and after a 
sharp skirmish the Eebels were driven from the town. In January Eomney 
was evacuated, and the command fell back to the Baltimore and Ohio Eailroad 
at Patterson's Creek. While at this point Colonel Mason was appointed Chief 
of Ai'tillery to General Lander, and during the winter he was engaged in reor- 
ganizing that arm of the service. Upon the reorganization of the division 
"under General Shields, the senior officer of artillery was made Chief of Artillery, 
and Colonel Mason's regiment was assigned to Colonel Kimball's brigade. Col- 
onel Mason remained with General Shields himself, and, with a force of infantry, 
artillery, and cavalry, was engaged in reconnoissance-duty around Middletown, 
Strasburg, and Winchester. General Shields, in his reports and letters, made 
frequent mention of Colonel Mason for efficiency and gallantry, and there was 
scarcely a movement of the division in which he did not participate. 

The brigade was ordered to Harrison's Landing, where Colonel Mason 
remained until that place was evacuated, when, after re-enforcing General Pope 
at Centerville, he marched to Georgetown, where the regiment was withdrawn 
from the field, in consequence of disease contracted at Harrison's Landing. It 
rejoined the brigade at Harper's Ferry, after the battle of Antietam, and 
marched with the army to Falmouth. At the battle of Fredericksburg Colonel 
Mason was in command of three regiments, which composed the advance line 
of skirmishers f6r Couch's corps. General Kimball being wounded early in the 
action Colonel Mason assumed command of the brigade, and held a position on 
the front line until near nightfall, when the brigade being out of ammunition 
was withdrawn. 

A few weeks after this Colonel Mason was promoted to Brigadier-General. 
His health having failed from severe exposure, he obtained a sick leave, and at 
its expiration was transferred to the Department of the Ohio, and assigned to 
the command of the District of Ohio; but upon the arrival of General Cox, his 
senior, he was transferred to the command of the troops at Columbus. Hia 
health would not admit of his returning to the field, and in November, 1863, 
ho was ordered on duty at San Francisco. 
YoL. I.— 59. 



930 Ohio in the Wak. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL S. S. CARROLL. 



GENEEAL CAEEOLL is a native of Washington City. He grad- 
uated at "West Point in 1856, and was a Captain in the Tenth United 
States Infantry at the opening of the war. He was appointed Colonel 
of the Eighth Ohio Infantry in December, 1862, and assumed command of the 
regiment at Eomney, West Virginia. It was serving then under Kelly ; and it 
subsequently served under Lander and Shields. 

Colonel Carroll commanded his regiment in the first battle of Winchester, 
and soon after he joined General McDowell's corps at Fredericksburg. There 
he took command of a brigade, and moved with General Shields to the Luray 
Valley. He was engaged in the battle of Port Eepublic, and was badly injured 
by his wounded horse falling upon him, and partly dislocating his right 
shoulder. 

Colonel Carroll's brigade was transferred to Eickett's division of McDowell's 
corps, and it participated in the battles of second Bull Eun and Cedar Mount- 
ain, and in General Pope's Virginia campaign. The Colonel was badly wounded 
on the Eapidan while inspecting the picket line. After Antietam the brigade 
was transferred to Whipple's division, Third Corps, and was engaged in the bat- 
tle of Fredericksburg. In the spring of 1863 Colonel Carroll was transferred 
to the First Brigade, Third Division, Second Corps, and was engaged in the 
battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Bristow Station, Mine Eun, and Morton's 
Ford. 

In the reorganization of the Army of the Potomac, in the spring of 1864, 
he wsk& assigned to the Third Brigade, Second Division, Second Corps. He was 
wounded, May 5th, in the battle of the Wilderness, through the right arm ; 
again, May 10th, in the right leg; and again. May 13th, through the left elbow- 
joint, permanently losing the use of the arm. He was promoted to Brigadier- 
General on the 12th of May, 1864. 

He continued in the service until the close of the war, and was a portion 
of the time in temporary command of the Department of West Virginia. 



I 



b 



Heney B Caerington. 931 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL HENRY B. CARRINGTON. 



HENEY B. CAEEINGTON was born at Wallingford, Connecticut, 
]March 2, 1824. In 1840 he exhibited a marked taste for military 
studies, but on account of ill-health he abandoned them and entered 
Yale College, where he graduated in 1845, and from the Law School in 1848. 
He removed to Ohio in the same year, and began the practice of law at Colum-' 
bus. at first in partnership with A. F. Perry, and afterward with Honorable 
William Dennison. 

In 1857 he was placed upon Governor Chase's staff, and he remained Adju- 
tant-General of Ohio until he was appointed Colonel of the Eighteenth United 
States Infantry. This appointment was made without the solicitation, and even 
M-ithout the knowledge of Colonel Carrington, for services rendered in the 
organization of troops, and for aiding in the inauguration of the first West Vir- 
ginia campaign. Lieutenant-General Scott was one of the prominent army offi- 
cers who interested themselves in this appointment. Colonel Carrington had 
given evidence of military ability while Adjutant-General of the State. At a 
military convention held in Cincinnati in 1859, Generals Lytic, Hildebrand, and 
Fytfe, on the part of the Yolunteer Militia, presented him with a fine sword and 
a brace of revolvers. 

In November, 1862, Colonel Carrington was promoted to Brigadier-GeneraJ 
of volunteers. He served mostly in the district of Indiana, and took an active 
part in the border defense, and in the destruction of secret societies with trea- 
sonable ends. When mustered out of the service as Brigadier-General in 
August, 1865, General Carrington was assigned to duty in Kentucky, where he 
remained till November, when he was ordered to the Indian frontier. He was 
l)'iaced, at first, in command of Fort Kearney, then of the East Subdistrict of 
Nebraska, and finally of the Mountain District, Department of the Platte. He 
was charged with the building of forts and the opening of a new line to Yir- 
giuia City, through Dacotah and Montana. General Carrington was still on 
duty in that section of country, when a disaster to a small detachment of his 
command, which was met by hostile Indians, a short distance from the fort, and 
cut to pieces, led to his being relieved from command for an investigation into 
the cause of the disaster. 

General Carrington 's field service during the war was not considerable, but 
his administration in Indiana was wise, active, and able, and greatly endeared 
him to the loyal people of that State. His efforts to unearth the machinations 
of the Knights of the Golden Circle and the like secret treasonable organiza- 
tions, were most efficient. Next to General Eosecrans more is due to General 



932 Ohio in the Wak 

Carrington than to an}' other one man for the exposure and defeat of formidable 
schemes, aiming at revolution in the North. His coui'se in the trial of the Indi 
ana conspirators was bitterly denounced by the opposition ; but it was sustained 
by the army, by the public sentiment of the country, and by the Government. 
The ease was ultimately carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
where a majority of the Justices held that his court, being held within a State 
not in rebellion and not the theater of war, was illegal, and that the case should 
have been tried before the ordinary civil tribunals. This decision never affected 
the popular approval of General Carrington's course, or the general gratitude 
for his unshrinking service in the premises. At the oubreak of the war his 
zealous and faithful labors as Adjutant-General of Ohio well deserved similar 
returns; though they would have been more valuable had he possessed more 
system. Of the nature and extent of these labors, we have spoken at greater 
length in the preceding sketch of Governor Dennison's administration.* 

In person, General Carrington is below the medium size, slender, nervous, 
and active. He has a finely-cultivated mind and good literary acquirements. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL MELANCTHON S. WADE. 



THE subject of this sketch was born in Cincinnati on the 2d of Decem- 
bei', 1802. He is desceiided from the old Eevolutionary stock, his 
father, D. E. Wade, having participated in that struggle, and having suf- 
fered imprisonment in the prison-ship and in the old sugar-house at New York. 
Melancthon S. Wade, upon arriving at manhood, became identified with the 
volunteer militia companies of the city, and rose by regular gradation from 
Second-Sergeant to Brigadier-General. He was in commission from 1825 to 
1849, and he always evinced a lively interest in the citizen-soldiery. Upon the 
breaking out of the rebellion he at once tendered his sex-vices to the Govern- 
ment, and, at the recommendation of General O. M. Mitchel, he was commis- 
sioned Brigadier-General of volunteers by President Lincoln, and was assigned 
to duty as commandant of Camp Dennison, then the rendezvous for the great 
majority of Ohio troops. In this position General Wade's arduous and respon- 
sible duties were faithfully performed. The camp literally swarmed with vol- 
unteers, eager to be drilled, equipped, and sent to the field. All this General 
Wade did to the satisfaction both of his superiors and of his inferiors. His se- 
vere labors, the miasma of the camp, and advancing years, were too much for his 
constitution, and after three months' service he was compelled to tender his 
resignation, wliich was accepted. 

*Part I, History of the State and her War Administration. 



John P. Slough. 933 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL JOHN P. SLOUGH. 



JOHN P. SLOUGH was born in Cincinnati in 1829. His father, Martin 
Slough, was one of the pioneers of the West, having removed to Cincin- 
nati as early as 1806. The son obtained his education in the public schools 
of Cincinnati, except one year in the Cincinnati College, before it burned down. 
He afterward graduated from the Cincinnati Law School, and for a number of 
years was a member of the Hamilton County bar, a local politician, and for a 
time a member of the Ohio Legislature, in which his belligerent tendencies in- 
volved him in some trouble. 

In 1861, at the breaking out of the war, he was in Denver City, Colorado 
Territory. He at once organized a company for the Union seiwice. It was 
afterward increased to a regiment and he was appointed its Colonel. He par- 
ticipated in the engagement at Port Union, JSTew Mexico, and for gallantry there 
was promoted to Brevet Brigadier-General, and was called to the East, where 
he served at Harper's Ferry during its seige. He was afterward promoted to a 
full Brigadier-Generalship and placed in command at Alexandria, where he 
remained until the close of the war. His administration at Alexandria was 
vigorous, and the post was important. His strenuous eiforts to preserve order 
brought upon him the hostility of influential classes, and particularly of the 
liquor-sellers; and concerted efforts were several times made for his removal. 
But he passed successfully through every investigation, and retained the confi- 
dence of the Government to the last. 

After the war he was for a time in Ohio, but he ultimately returned tc 
Colorado. 



934 Ohio in the Wae. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL B. C. LUDLOW. 



BENJAMIN CHAMBBES LUDLOW was born in the year 1832, 
at Ludlow Station, Hamilton County, Ohio ; was educated at Carey's 
Academy, College Hill, near Cincinnati, and at Kenyon College, Gam- 
bier, Ohio. He studied medicine, and graduated at the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, in Philadelphia, in 1854. He practiced his profession in the crty of New 
York for a year ; but ill health compelling him to seek some milder climate, he 
sailed for California, and thence went to Mexico, where he remained for three 
years. Eeturning to Cincinnati, he was appointed, by the Trustees of the Long- 
view Lunatic Asylum, assistant physician in that institution, in November. 1859. 

Educated from childhood to a hatred of slavery, Dr. Ludlow had held him- 
self always ready for any action that should wipe out that blight upon our Na- 
tional honor, and he hailed with enthusiasm the call of the President in April, 
1861. He raised a company of cavalry and went to Washington, hoping to get 
an order to some place of immediate usefulness. Armed with letters of recom- 
mendation to Mr. Cameron, he obtained an audience with that gentleman, but 
was met with these words for an answer: "No cavalry will be raised or re- 
quired ; General Scott thinks that, with the regular regiments (four) filled to 
their maximum, there will be sufficient for all purposes in putting down the 
rebellion." 

A few days later he heard that Carl Schurz had authority to raise one ca.v- 
airy regiment; and, calling to see that gentleman, was told that he wanted to 
raise two companies in the West ; would be in Cincinnati soon on that business, 
and would then see him. 

Dr. Ludlow returned to his duties at the Asylum for a time; but the news 
of the authority given to Fremont, for raising a great Western army, decided 
him to go to St. Louis and offer his services there. 

General Fremont gave him a commission as First-Lieutenant, and after- 
ward as Captain of his company, which composed part of the regiment of 
" Fi-emont Hussars," raised under the immediate direction of Colonel G. E. 
Waring. The Fremont Hussars marched to Springfield under Fremont, and 
back again to St. Louis under Hunter. Under General Curds they marched 
again to South-western Missouri, in February, 1862. At Lebanon, one-half of 
the Fremont Hussars, under Captain Ludlow, were detailed to occupy that 
post, an important one, to maintain the line of communication with the grand 
army. Fighting guerrillas, breaking up their strongholds, taking some of the 
most noted of them prisoners, having some brave men killed and others 



Benjamin C. Ludlow. 935 

wounded (being wounded himself and having his horse shot under him), con- 
stituted the dangerous and uncomfortable duty of those long months, while 
tlieir companions shared in the glory of Pea Eidge. On being reunited, they 
moved to Helena, where they remained all summer. In the fall the regiment 
was ordered to Pilot Knob, Missouri, and there consolidated with the Fifth 
Missouri Cavalry, and Captain Ludlow was made Major of the new organiza- 
tion. In December, 1862, he received the appointment of Major in the Seventh 
Ohio Cavalry, but it was declined, in consequence of his being ordered to the 
Army of the Potomac as Aid-de-Camp to Major-G-eneral Hooker. Major Lud- 
low acted as Aid-de-Camp to General Hooker at the battle of Chancellorsville, 
and until that officer was relieved by Major-General Meade. By an order of 
the Adjutant-General of the army he was retained on the statf of the General 
commanding, as Inspector of Artillery, and performed honorable service at 
Gettysburg, Williamstown, Mine Eun, Eappahannock, Bristow Station, and 
other battles fought by the Army of the Potomac between the last of June, 
1863, and February, 1864. At this time his regiment of hussars enlisted as vet- 
erans, and Major Ludlow received the appointment of Lieutenant-Colonel. 

In February, 1864, Colonel Ludlow was ordered to report to Major-General 
Butler, and was appointed Chief of Cavalry in the Department of Yirginia and 
Xorth Carolina. In the siege of Eichmond the gunboats and monitors were 
of no avail, except in keeping the James Eiver free from guerrillas to the base 
of operations. Fortress Monroe. This was owing to a bar at the head of Devil's 
Eeach, and a strong battery which the Eebels had constructed at what was 
called " Howlet House," which commanded the James at that point. General 
Butler proposed to cut a canal through a narrow strip of land made by the 
windings of the river, known as Dutch Gap. If this could be accomplished the 
gunboats could pass up the river above the point commanded by the Howlet- 
House batteries, and give material aid in the taking of Eichmond. To do this 
it was not only necessary to have a strong working party, but enough troops 
to retain possession of a position which would become the most advanced post 
of our line then investing Eichmond. By order of General Butler Colonel 
Ludlow was placed in command of this undertaking. Fifteen hundred infantry 
took possession of the position, and, before the enemy discovered their inten- 
tion, fortifications were thrown up strong enough to meet any attack made 
upon them by land. A one-hundred-pound Parrott gun was placed to protect 
the position from the Eebel gunboats, which cast their huge projectiles into 
the works. A battery of light guns, three eight-inch, and two twenty four- 
pound mortars, and three Gatlin guns were added to Colonel Ludlow's com- 
mand. From the mortar batteries, placed by the enemy on the north side of 
the river, shells were thrown night and day into the works of defense, as well 
as into the canal ; and for this reason all troops, when not on duty, were 
obliged to be protected by bomb-proofs. This confinement was so destructive 
of health that the troops were frequently changed. The work was commenced 
in August, 1864, and finished the following December. In the latter month, 
owing to the attacks upon Fort Fisher, the gunboats which had been stationed 



936 Ohio in the War. | 

on James Eiver had been ordered to more southern points ; and Captain Nich- 
ols, commander of the Fifth Division of the North American Squadron, in a 
communication to Colonel Ludlow, requested him not to open the canal at that 
time, for fear the Eebel vessels would take advantage of the opening and attack 
his (Captain Nichols's) reduced naval force. The blowing out of the bulkhead 
of the canal, which had been prepared by a mine, in the center, of nine thousand 
pounds of powder, was delayed until the 1st of January. The explosion cleared 
away the bulkhead and allowed the water to pass thi-ough the canal. This 
canal shortened the distance to Richmond six miles and a half, and was used 
after the fall of Richmond for small side-wheel steamers and tugs. Its width 
had been proportioned for the passage of the double-turreted monitor Onon- 
daga, and it was, therefore, not wide enough for large steamers. 

On the 28th of October, 1864, Colonel Ludlow was appointed Brigadier- 
General by brevet, for gallant and meritorious services at Dutch Gap and for 
his attack upon the enemy's works at Spring Hill, Virginia. The latter engage- 
ment occurred while he was in command at Dutch Gap. 

By special orders of the War Department, and by direction of President 
Lincoln, General Ludlow was assigned to duty, according to his brevet rank, 
December 9, 1864. He was placed in command of the James River and York 
River defenses, head-quarters at Fort Magruder, which he held at the time of 
Lee's surrender. Afterward he was assigned to the command of the Eastern 
District of Virginia, with head-quarters at Williamsburg, comprising the terri- 
tory between the James and Rappahannock Rivers. 

General Ludlow resigned in August, 1865, and resumed the practice of his 
profession in Cincinnati. His career throughout was honorable and laborious. 
He served in a great variety of positions and on widely separated theaters of the 
war, never failing, in any station, to command the confidence of his superiors 
and the admiration of his soldiers. He was notable for refusing to avail him- 
self of family influence to secure promotions (he is brother-in-law to Chief-Jus- 
tice Chase, and a member of one of the oldest families in Cincinnati), and for a 
modesty not often displayed in the scramble for place. His personal presence 
was fine ; and in battle he displayed a chivalric bearing which those who saw 
him at Gettysburg, or in other engagements of the Army of the Potomac, will 
never forget. 



Andeew Hickenlooper. 937 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL ANDREW HICKENLOOPER. 



ANDEEW HICKENLOOPEE, a meritorious artillery and engineer 
officer, of varied and always valuable service, but best remembered in 
the army by his connection with the lamented McPherson, was born 
in Hudson, Ohio, August 30, 1837. His youth was spent mainly at school, till 
in 1854, about the close of his seventeenth year, he entered the office of Mr. A. 
W. Griibert, the city engineer of Cincinnati. After three years spent here he 
was admitted to a partnership with Mr. Gilbert. In 1859 he became city sur- 
veyor of Cincinnati, in which position he confirmed the opinion that had al- 
ready become general, concerning his efficiencj^ and energy as an engineer. 

In August, 1861, he recruited an artillery company, first known as Hicken- 
looper's Cincinnati Battery, and afterward as the Fifth Ohio Independent Bat- 
tery. This was raised under the auspices of General Fremont, and in October 
was taken to Jefferson City, Missouri. Here, under special instructions from 
General Fremont, he was presentlj^ appointed Commandant of Artillery at the 
post. 

In March, 1862, Captain Hickenlooper returned to the command of his 
battery, and with it was tfansfei*red to General Grant's army at Pittsburg 
Landing. Here he participated in the bloody battle that soon followed, behav- 
ing so creditably as to attract the instant att-ention of his superiors. Three days 
after the battle General McKean appointed him Division Commandant of 
Artillery. 

In this capacity he continued to serve until after the battles of luka and 
Corinth, when, his conduct having still further secured the confidence of his 
superiors, he was, on the 26th of October, 1862, ordered, by General Grant, to 
repoi't for staff duty to General McPherson. The connection thus began which 
was only terminated by the untimely death of his chief. McPherson at first 
made him Chief of Ordnance and Artillery, with special instructions to com- 
plete the fortifications at Bolivar ; then in February, when about to start down 
to Yicksburg, changed his position and made him Chief Engineer for the Sev- 
enteenth Army Corps. 

He was with his chief throughout the masterly movements by Avhich the 
besieging army was planted in the rear of the defenses of Vicksburg, and won 
especial praise, after the battle of Champion Hills, by the rapid construction of 
a bridge of cotton bales, across the Big Black, over which the hurrying pursuit 
followed on the heels of Pemberton until he took refuge within the defenses of 
Yicksburg^ — not to emerge save as a paroled prisoner. 



938 Ohio in the War. 

Throughout the siege Captain Hickenlooper had charge of the engineer 
operations on the front of the corps, and conducted them so well as to elicit the 
warm approval of so competent and critical an engineer as McPherson himself 
The approaches were j)ushed up until some of the enemy's guns were silenced, 
and a mine — the first important one of the war — was run under one of the 
Eebel works. McPherson named one of the forts " Battery Hickenlooper," in 
his honor, and made special mention of him in official reports and letters of 
recommendation as follows : 

" Captain A. Hickenlooper . . . deserves special mention for his ability, untiring en- 
ergy and skill in making reconnoissances and maps of the routes passed over, superintending the 
repairs and construction of bridges, etc., exposing himself constantly, night and day. He merits 
some substantial recognition of his services." — From McPherson's Offi. Kep. Operations in ap- 
proaching Rear of Vicksburg. 

" I write, without solicitation, to urge the claims for promotion, by brevet or otherwise, of 
one of the best and at the same time, one of the most modest, oflBcers on my staff. Captain An- 
drew Hickenlooper, Fifth Ohio Battery. ... I first made his acquaintance at Jefferson 
City, in the winter of 1861-2, and was most favorably impressed with his intelligence and mili- 
tary bearing. . . . On assuming command at Bolivar, Tennessee, in October, 1862, I was 
very much in need of an engineer officer, and knowing his qualifications (as no regular engineer 
could be spared), I applied to Major-General Grant, and had him assigned to me as Chief oi 
Artillery and engineer officer. . . . He has made a reputation commensurate with the repu- 
tation of the corps. As all the Ohio batteries of light artillery are "independent batteries," 
there is no chance for him to obtain promotion in that branch of the service ; and I think it bui 
due that the General commanding should give him some token of its appreciation, cheering to 
the heart of a soldier. I therefore respectfully request that you will present his name for a, 
brevet commission of Colonel or Lieutenant-Colonel." — From letter to Halleck, then General-in 
Chief, by McPherson. 

After the fall of Yicksburg the "Board of Honor" of the Seventeenth 
Corps awarded him the gold medal, with the inscription, "Pittsburg Landing, 
Siege of Corinth, luka, Corinth, Port Gibson, Eaymond, Jackson, Champion 
Hills, Yicksburg." 

When McPherson took command of the Army of the Tennessee, Captain 
Hickenlooper was made Judge-Advocate on his staff, and a little later Chief of 
Artillery for the Department and Army of the Tennessee. In this position he 
accompanied his chief through the Atlanta campaign. After McPherson's 
death, when General Howard took command of the army, he was accompanied 
by his own Chief of Artillery. Hickenlooper was therefore returned to his 
duties as Judge-Advocate, and made Assistant Chief of Artillery. From this 
he was relieved at the request of General F. P. Blair to accept the position of 
Assistant Inspector General Seventeenth Army Corps, which candied Avith 
it promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. After the campaign of the 
Carolinas was nearly over, in the little rest at Goldsboro', the opportunity was 
taken to recommend him for a Brigadier-Generalship — General Howard indors- 
ing that he "knew of no officer in the service whom he would more cordially 
and heartily recommend;" General Sherman saying, "He served long and faith- 
fully near General McPherson, and enjoyed his marked confidence ; is young, 
vigorous, and well educated, and can fill any commission with honor and credit 



mk 



Thomas K. Smith. 939 

to the service;" and General Grant saying, "He has proved himself one of the 
ablest and most energetic volunteer officers, no one having the confidence of his 
superiors in a higher degree." 

He was appointed a Brevet Brigadier-General of volunteers (20th May, 
1865), and assigned to the command of a bi'igade composed of the Eleventh, 
Thirteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Iowa Yeteran Volunteers. 

After the muster-out of the troops he was warmly recommended by Blair, 
Logan, Howard, Sherman, and Grant for a commission as Major of Artillery in 
the regular army, or for the office of United States Marshal for the Southern 
District of Ohio. He was appointed to the latter position, was soon confirmed, 
and at once entered upon its duties, being at the time still under thirty years 
of age. 



BRIGADIER-GENERAL THOMAS KILBY SMITH. 



THOMAS KILBY SMITH was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 
year 1821. He was the eldest son of Geoi-ge Smith, who followed the seas 
for many j^ears as captain in the East India trade. 

At an early age young Smith removed, with his parents, to Hamilton 
County, Ohio, where, after a brief business life in Cincinnati, his father settled 
on a farm in Colerain Township. Thomas was educated at Woodward College, 
in Cincinnati, studied law with Salmon P. Chase, and was admitted to the bar 
in 1846. In 1853 he was called to fill a responsible position in the Post-Office 
Department at Washington City. In 1856 President Pierce gave him the ap- 
pointment of United States Mai'shal for the Southern District of Ohio, which 
position he retained until the accession of President Buchanan. From that 
time until the breaking out of the rebellion he filled with ability the position 
of deputy clerk of Hamilton County. 

In the summer of 1861 Governor Dennison appointed him Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the Fifty-Fourth Ohio, but before the regiment went to the field he 
was promoted to be its Colonel, October 31, 1861, a position he accepted with 
some reluctance, owing to his lack of militaiy knowledge, and to his self-dis- 
trust. But he inherited the fearlessness of his sailor father, and his subsequent 
career showed that he underrated himself, for, after a series of severe tests in 
the familiar path of the Army of the Tennessee — at Pittsburg Landing, the 
advance on Corinth, Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, Champion Hills, Big 
Black Bridge, and the assaults on Vicksburg, in all of which, by his conspicu- 
ous bravery, he won the highest admiration of his command and the warmest 
confidence of his superior officers — he was among the first to receive the reward 
of promotion. His commission as Brigadier General dated from August 11, 1863. 

In consequence of sickness contracted by exposure in the service. General 
Smith was compelled to abandon field duty early in 1864. In the latter part 
of 1866 he was appointed and confirmed United States Consul at Panama. 



940 Ohio in the Wak. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL B. D. FEARING. 



BENJAMIN DANA FBAEING was born in Harmar, Ohio, in 1837. 
His paternal grandfather, Hon. Paul Fearing, came out with the first 
colony of the " Ohio Company," and, at the first court organized in the 
North-west Territory, held in the block-house at Campus Martins, now Mari- 
etta, in 1788, "was admitted an attorney," and was the first lawyer in the Ter- 
ritory. He was also afterward the first delegate from the Territory to the Na- 
tional Congress. Through his maternal grandfather, Benjamin Dana, who was 
also a member of the "Ohio Company," and one of the first colony that founded 
Mai'ietta, he is the lineal descendant of the fourth generation from General 
Israel Putnam. 

His youth was spent in his native place, mostly in attendance upon schools; 
and, in 1856, at the age of nineteen, he graduated from Marietta College. The 
two years subsequent to his graduation he spent in business in Cincinnati, and 
the three following in Philadelphia. While on a visit to Cincinnati, in 1861, 
news came of the firing upon Fort Sumter. On the second day following, 
young Fearing enlisted in the " Zouave Guards," which, immediately upon its 
organization, started for Washington ; and, upon the organization of regiments 
at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, became Company D, of the Second Ohio. With 
this regiment he proceeded to the capital, and thence into Virginia, under com- 
mand of General Schenck. On this march he received his first promotion, be- 
ing made Fourth Corporal. 

At the request of Lieutenant-Colonel Clark and Major Andi-ews, he next 
entcx'ed the camp of the Thirty -Sixth Ohio, to assist them in drilling that regi- 
ment. Fearing accompanied it to West Virginia, serving in the double capacity 
of Acting Adjutant-General to Inspector-General Slemmer, and as Adjutant to 
Major Andrews, then in command of the Thirty-Sixth. While in this service 
he received the appointment of First-Lieutenant and Adjutant to the Sixty- 
Third Ohio, and sOon after an appointment as Major, with orders ii'om Gov- 
ernor Dennison to report to Colonel Hildebrand, then recruiting the Seventy- 
Seventh Regiment at Marietta. While General Grant was in front of Fort 
Donelson orders came for the regiment to move at once to Paducah, Kentucky, 
and report to General Sherman, with a request to know "How soon?" The 
superior officers being absent, Major Fearing answered: "In an hour." By 
first train and first boat he was off, and his regiment was the first, out of the 
nine ordered from Ohio, to report. While General Sherman was making an 
expedition for destroying the bridges on the railroad near luka, sudden rains 



Benjamin D. Feaking. 941 

caused a rise in a bayou putting into Yellow Creek, which threatened to cut 
off the return of his division to the boats. Major Fearing was detailed to con- 
struct a bridge, and jDerformed his work so rapidlj^ as to elicit a complimentary, 
notice from the G-eneral. 

At the battle of Pittsburg Landing, Colonel Hildebrand being in command 
of a brigade, the command of the regiment devolved upon the Major, who was 
posted at Shiloh Church (the line of the regiment being across the main Corinth 
road), which was regarded by General Sherman as the key-point to his posi- 
tion. Eealizing the importance of his post he held it till the lines both upon 
his right and his left were broken. He repelled the charges of the enemy for 
the capture of Taylor's battery, till orders came for its withdrawal, when he 
protected its retirement to the new line. 

Major Fearing was now promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and 
being mustered out of the Seventy-Seventh for that purpose, reported to his 
new command in Ohio, the Ninety Second Ohio. Colonel Van Vorhes being 
compelled by ill -health to resign, Lieutenant-Colonel Fearing was promoted 
to the Colonelcy. He led his regiment in the fight at Hoover's Gap, and with 
it took part in the engagements of the Fourth Division, Fourteenth Corps. At 
the battle of Chickamauga his regiment formed a part of Turchin's brio-ade. 
While advancing to repel a charge of the enemy, Colonel Fearing was severely 
wounded, a Minnie-ball having passed through the front part of his right and 
the thick portion of his left thigh. When sufficiently recovered for partial duty 
he was detailed on several courts-martial at Cincinnati and Louisville, where he 
remained till March, 1864, when he returned to his command at Einggold, 
Georgia. In the subsequent engagements in the Atlanta campaign Colonel 
Fearing's regiment took a part, fighting in Turchin's brigade and Baird's divis- 
ion, as also in those following in the march to the sea. At Savannah he received 
a commission from President Lincoln as Brigadier-General by brevet, bearing 
date of December 2, 1864, for "gallant and meritorious service during the long 
campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta, and from Atlanta to Savannah." 

General Fearing was assigned to duty in General Morgan's division of the 
Fourteenth Corps, as commander of the Third Brigade, a body of ti'oops flimil- 
iarly known in the army as "Colonel Dan. McCook's Brigade." With it he 
participated in the campaign in the Carolinas, and at Averysboro' held the left 
of the line. General Davis ordered General Fearing "to check the enemy and 
hold them if it cost his whole brigade." The charge of General Fearing was 
made with spirit and accompanied with hard fighting. The General had his 
horse shot under him, and was himself wounded, a Minnie-ball having passed 
through his right hand from the wrist forward, carrying away the thumb, fore 
finger, and left portion of the hand. Being permanently disabled by this 
wound General Fearing, now at the age of twenty-seven years, was mustered 
out of the service, having, as a private, taken part in the first, and as com- 
mander of a brigade, in the last important battle of the war. 



1 

942 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL HENRY F. DEVOL. 



HENEY F. DEYOL was born near Waterford, Washington County, 
Ohio, in 1831. At the age of nineteen he began to speculate in the South, 
and was in New Orleans in May, 1861. "With much difficulty he reached 
the North. Soon after arriving he commenced recruiting a company, and in 
August he was mustered into the service as Captain of Company A, Thirty- 
Sixth Ohio Infantry. 

He entered the field in West Virginia, and was engaged at Carnifex Ferrj^, 
and in the following spring at Lewisburg, when Crook's brigade routed the 
Eebels under Heath. In August, 1862, the regiment joined the Army of the 
Potomac at Warrenton Junction, and Captain Devol was engaged in the battle 
which soon ensued. He was present at South Mountain and Antietam, and in 
September he accompanied the regiment to Clarksburg, where he was promoted 
to Major, and soon after to Lieutenant-Colonel. He was transferred, with the 
regiment, to the West, joining the Army of the Cumberland at Carthage, Ten- 
nessee. At Chickamauga he was in Turchin's brigade, Eeynold's division. Four- 
teenth Corps, and was warmly engaged. For gallantry in this battle he was 
made Colonel. He participated in a reconnoissance in front of Chattanooga in 
which he was slightly wounded ; and was also in the affair at Brown's Ferry. 
He was again transferred to West Yirginia with his command, and after an ex- 
pedition against the enemy's communications by the Vii-ginia and Tennessee 
Eailroad, in which he was engaged at Cloyd's Mountain, he joined General 
Hunter on the Lynchburg raid. Then followed a series of battles with Early's 
force at Snicker's Ford and Kearnstown. In the campaign of the valley Colo- 
nel Devol was engaged at Berryville and Opequan, where he was given a bri- 
gade, which he commanded during subsequent operations, including the battle 
of Cedar Creek. This was the end of his active field service. He was mustered 
out at Wheeling on the Slst of July, 1865, and soon after was brevetted Briga- 
dier-General, "for gallant and meritorious services during the war." 

During four years he had but twenty -five days' leave of absence, and never 
missed a march, scout, skirmish, or battle in which the regiment was engaged. 



Israel Gaeeaed. 943 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL ISRAEL GARRARD. 



TSEAEL G-AKEARD was born in Cincinnati, and is the eldest son of 
Jeptha D. Garrard and Sarah Bella Ludlow, his wife. He is a descend- 
ant on the paternal side of James Gai-rard, one of the earliest settlers 
and Governors of Kentucky; and on the maternal side of Israel Ludlow, one 
of the original proprietors of the town site of Cincinnati. 

He was a pupil of Ormsby M. Mitchel; afterward was student at Gary's 
Academy and at Bethany College in "West Yirginia. He read law with Judge 
Swayne at Columbus, and graduated in the Law School at Cambridge. Being 
fond of an adventurous life, he sought pleasure and occupation in the West, and 
spent much time in Missouri, Texas, and Minnesota. In May, 1856, he married 
the eldest daughter of George Wood, a distinguished lawyer in New York. The 
war found him deeply engaged in property interests in Minnesota. 

During the siege of Cincinnati he served on the staff of Major McDowell, 
commanding the organization of the city and State forces. On the 18th of Sep- 
tember he was appointed Colonel of the Seventh Ohio Cavalry, and from that 
time until the close of the war he was absent from the field but eight days, and 
then his command was in camp recruiting. He commanded a brigade much of 
the time, and after the capture of Stoneman on the Macon raid before Atlanta, 
he commanded a division. He was promoted to Brigadier-G-eneral by brevet on 
the 21st of June, 1865, and on the 4th of July of the same year he was mus- 
tered out. 

On taking leave of his regiment he was presented with a cavalry standard, 
on which was embroidered the following epitome of his service : Carter Eaid, 
I>utton Hill, Monticello, West's Gap, Buffington Island, Cumberland Gap, Blue 
Springs, Blountsville, Eogersville, Morristown, Cheek's Cross Eoads, Bean's Sta- 
tion, Dandridge, Massy Creek, Fair Garden, Cynthiana, Atlanta, Duck Eiver, 
Nashville, Plantersville, Selma, and Columbus. On a plate on the staff is an 
inscription, expressing the regiment's confidence in him as a leader and its re- 
spect for him as a patriot and a gentleman. 

General Garrard is now enjoying the quiet retirement of agricultural life 
at Frontenac, on Lake Pepin, Minnesota. 



944 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL DANIEL McCOY. 



DANIEL McCOY Avas born at Eainsboro', Highland County, Ohio, 
of humble parentage. He received but little more than an oi'dinary 
common-school education, and on the 1st of June, 1861, he was sworn 
into the service as a private soldier. The company was assigned to the Twenty- 
Fourth Ohio Infantry. Private McCoy was appointed Third-Sergeant, and in 
that capacity he participated in the battles of Greenbriar and Cheat Mountain. 
The regiment was transferred to the West, and Sergeant McCoy was promoted 
to First-Sergeant. In the battle of Stone Eiver his company officers were dis- 
abled, and he commanded the company through the principal part of the battle. 
Sergeant McCoy was struck in the knee, but he immediately struggled to his 
feet, and remained on the field until the close of the battle. For gallantry upon 
this occasion he was promoted to Second-Lieutenant. 

He was soon promoted to First-Lieutenant, and he continued in command 
of the company until after the battle of Chickamauga. In that engage- 
ment, he received nine bullet holes through his clothing, and at last he was 
struck in the leg by a minnie ball, which brought him down. He received a 
short leave, and soon started again, crutch in hand, for his command. By order 
of General Sherman, he was placed in charge of the exchange barracks at Nash- 
ville, where he remained until June 24, 1864, being promoted in the mean time 
to the rank of Captain. 

He was mustered out at the expiration of his term of service, but he immedi- 
ately commenced organizing the One Hundred and Seventy-Fifth Ohio Infantry, 
and on the 10th of October, 1864, he returned to the field in command of the reg- 
iment, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The regiment went on duty at 
Columbia, Tennessee, and Lieutenant-Colonel McCoy was placed in command 
of the post. Here he remained until the advance of Hood's army; and upon 
the retreat of the Union army, Lieutenant-Colonel McCoy was charged with 
the duty of covering the withdrawal of the troops. This he did with skill, and 
by rare good management he was able to rejoin his command. In the battle of 
Franklin, Lieutenant-Colonel McCoy held the regiment firmly to its place, and 
put it through the manual of arms under fire. He received three severe wounds, 
and was borne from the field insensible. 

After the battle of Nashville Lieutenant-Colonel McCoy received a leave, 
and spent a short time in Ohio recuperating his health. He was recommended 
for promotion to the rank of Brevet Brigadier-General by General George H. 
Thomas and by General Eousseau. The Tennessee Legislature made a similar 
recommendation, which was approved and forwarded by Governor Brownlow, 



W. p. Richardson. 945 

and accordingly Lieutenant-Colonel McCoy was aj^pointed Brigadier-General of 
volunteers by brevet, "for gallant and meritorious services during the war, par- 
ticularly in the battles before Nashville, Tennesse." 

General McCoy was now but twenty-four years of age, being one of the 
youngest officers of his rank in the army. He was assigned to the command of 
the forces at Columbia, Tennessee, where he remained until July 8, 1865, when 
he was honorably mustered out of service, having passed through twenty- 
seven battles, having been wounded severely five times, and having been struck 
in his clothes and person fourteen times. After muster-out he went into busi- 
ness at Wheaton, Du Page County. Illinois. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL W. P. RICHARDSON. 



"TXT P. EICHARDSON was born in Washington County, Pennsylva- 
W Ilia, May 25, 1824, and was educated at Washington College, in that 
' " * county. In 1846 he enlisted as a private in the Third Ohio In- 
fantr}-, and served out the term of his enlistment in the Mexican War. He was 
admitted to the bar of Cadiz, Ohio, in August, 1852, and in 1853 he commenced 
the practice of the law at Woodsfield, Monroe County, Ohio. In 1855 he was 
elected prosecuting attorney, and he continued to hold that office until he en- 
tered the service in 1861. He was also, at the breaking out of the rebellion, a 
Brigadier- General in the Ohio Militia. 

Immediately after the attack on Fort Sumter, he raised two companies, 
but Ohio's quota was filled before he could get them accepted. They, however, 
changed the term of their enlistment from three 'months to three years, and 
were assigned to the Twenty-Fifth Ohio Infantry, of which regiment W. P. 
Eichardson was appointed Major. On the 10th of June, 1861, he was promoted 
to Lieutenant-Colonel, and with that rank he went to the field. On the 10th of 
Ma}', 1862, he was promoted to the Colonelcy of his regiment. On the 2d of 
May, 1863, he was wounded severely through the right shoulder at the battle of 
Chancellorsville. This wound deprived Colonel Eichardson of the use of his 
right arm, which he has never faWy recovered. He "svas not on duty again until 
January, 1864, when he was detailed as president of a court-martial at Camp 
Chase. On the 11th of February he was placed in command of that post, 
where he remained until the last of August, 1865. 

In the fall of 1864, Colonel Richardson was elected Attorne3"-General of the 
State of Ohio, and it Avas his intention to retire from the army; but upon the 
representations and solicitations of Governor Brough he remained in the service, 
and in December, 1864, he was brevetted Brigadier-General. In September 

Vol. L— 60. 



946 Ohio in the War. 

1865, General Eichai'dson joined his command in South Carolina, and was 
placed over a sub-district, with head-quarters at Columbia. He was afterward 
placed in command of the District of East South Carolina, with head-quarters 
at Dai'lington. 

As a commanding officer General Eichardson possessed the confidence and 
esteem of his men. His service in detached positions has been frequently com- 
mended, and during his five years service no charges or complaint of any kind 
has ever been made against him. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL G. F. WILES. 



GF. WILES entered the service on the 26th of October, 1861, as 
First-Lieutenant in the Seventy-Eighth Ohio Infantr3^ He soon be- 
* came the best drill officer in the regiment, and in Maj', 1862, was ap- 
pointed regimental drill-master. He was promoted to Captain in May, 1862, 
and soon after was detailed by General John A. Logan to command the division 
engineer corps. The long marches and tedious sieges in Avhich the army was 
engaged made his position very arduous, but he displayed sjjirit and ability, 
and won the confidence and applause of all. 

On the morning of the 16th of May, 1863, he received his commission as 
Lieutenant-Colonel. He immediately took command of the regiment, and an 
hour later he was in the thickest of the fight at Champion Hills. His coolness, 
skill, and bravery in that engagement were particularly noticed b}^ his com- 
manding officer. He was present at the "siege of Yicksburg, and contributed 
his share to the capture ,of the city. He accompanied General Sherman to 
Jackson, but the communications being threatened, he was ordered to Clinton 
to hold the place against an}^ force that might come against him. He had 
barely posted his command when he was attacked by superior numbers, but the 
enem}^ was repulsed. 

He was pi'omoted to Colonel, September 1, 1863, and was in command o: 
the regiment from that time until July 22, 1864, when he took charge of a bri- 
gade, which he continued to lead most of the time until the close of the war. 
He was brevetted Brigadier-General for meritorious conduct. 

He has participated in the following battles : Pittsburg Landing, Corinth, 
Bolivar, luka, Thompson's Hill, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, Bushy 
Mountain, Kenesaw Mountain, Atlanta July 21st, 22d, and 28th, Jonesboro', 
Savannah, and Pocotaligo. He was mustered out July 15, 1865. 

General Wiles possesses a stentorian voice, and is of pleasing personal ap- 
pearance ; being over six feet tall, well proportioned, erect, and eminently mili- 
tary in form and feature. 



Thomas M. Vincent. 947 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL THOMAS M. VINCENT. 



THOMAS M. VINCENT was born in Green Township, near Cadiz, 
Harrison County, Ohio, November 15, 1832. At the age of sixteen he 
entered West Point, and in 1853 graduated eleventh, in a class of fifty- 
f;ve. While at the Militar}^ Academy he passed through the grades of private, 
corporal, sergeant. Lieutenant, and Captain of Cadet Inftintry Battalion, and 
during the academic year 1852-53 he was Chief Cadet Officer of Cavahy. 

Among his classmates from Ohio were James B. McPherson, Joshua W. 
Sill, William S. Smith, William McE. Dye, Philip H. Sheridan, Elmer Otis, and 
Robert F. Hunter. 

His first service was against the Indians in Florida, sometimes with his 
regiment, and sometimes on the staff, as Assistant Adjutant- General, Assistant 
Quartermaster, and Assistant Commissary. He Avas stationed at Fort Hamil- 
ton and Plattsburg, New York, from December, 1856, until August, 1859, when 
he was detached as Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geologj' 
at West Point. 

In 1861 he served against the rebellion in the Army of North-Eastern Vir- 
ginia as Assistant Adjutant-General, and was engaged in the battle of Bull Eun, 
July 21, 1861. He was in the War D.epartment, Adjutant-General's office, in 
charge of the recruiting service for the regular army until June, 1862, and after 
that was in charge of the organization, recruiting, and miscellaneous business 
of the volunteer armies of the United States. 

The following is the record of his promotion : 

Second-Lieutenant, Second Artillery, October 8, 1853. 
, First-Lieutenant, Second Artillery, October 20, 1855. 

Captain, Eighteenth Infontry, May 14, 1861 (declined). 

Regimental Quartermaster, Second Artillery, June 1, 1861. 

Brevet Captain, staff (Assistant Adjutant-General), Jiily 3, 1861. 

Captain, staff (Assistant Adjutant-General), August 3, 1861. 

Major, staff Assistant Adjutant-General), July 17, 1862. 

Captain, Second Artillery, July 25,1863; vacated regimental commission, by resignation, 
June 11, 1864. 

Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, United States Army, for "faithful and meritorious services during 
the war," September 24, 1864. 

Brevet Colonel, United States Army, for " faithful and meritorious services during the war," 
September 24, 1864. 

Erevet Brigadier-General, United States Army, for " faithful and meritorious services during 
the war," March 13, 1865. 



948 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL J. S. JONES. 



JOHN S. JONES was born in Champaign County, Ohio, February 12, 
1886. He was educated at the Ohio Wesleyan University, and after gradu- 
ating studied law with Judge Powell of Delaware, and was admitted to 
the bar in June, 1857. He was elected prosecuting attorney in 1860, but in 
1861 he resigned his office and enlisted as a private in the Fourth Ohio Infantry 
He was soon appointed First-Lieutenant, to rank from April 16, 1861. 

Upon the reorganization of the regiment for the three years' service, Lieu- 
tenant Jones retained his position, and with his regiment entered the field in 
West Virginia. He was at Eich Mountain and at Romney. At the latter j)laco 
lie participated in a charge made by the infantr}'^ through the bridge, and upon 
a battery posted on the opposite side. In March, 1862, he was detailed upon the 
staff of General Shields, and was by the General's side when he was Avounded 
at Winchester. At Mount Jackson he received the special thanks of General 
Shields for leading a cavalry charge against Ash by. He participated in the en- 
gagements at Front Eoyal and Port Republic, and finally joined his regiment at 
Harrison's Landing, on the 22d of Julj^, 1862. He was promoted to Captain on 
the 5th of September, 1862, and Avas next engaged in the battle of Fredericks- 
burg. At Chancelloi'sville he acted as Major of the regiment, and was specially 
mentioned in brigade orders. He was engaged at Gettysburg, at Bristow Station, 
and at Mine Eun, where he was wounded. On the 22d of Januarj^, 1864, ho 
was detailed for recruiting service, but he rejoined the regiment in May, and 
was px-esent at the North Anna River, at Prospect Hill, and at Cold Harbor 
He was mustered out with the regiment on the 21st of June, 1864. 

He was nominated by the Union Convention for the Legislature, but he 
declined the nomination, and was mustered into the service as Colonel of the 
One Hundred and Seventy-Fourth Ohio Infantry, on the 21st of September, 
1864. The regiment entered the field in the South-west, and was engaged at 
Overall's Creek near Murfreosboro', and in the battle of Wilkison's Pike. In 
this latter engagement it was complimented bj' General Rosseau in special orders. 

Colonel Jones was transferred with his command to the East, and after par- 
ticipating in the battle of Kingston, joined Genei-al Sherman at Goldsboro'. He 
remained with Sherman's army until after the surrender of Johnston, when he 
was ordered to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was President of an Ex- 
amining Board for a time, and then was in command of the post, and then of a 
brigade. He was brevetted Brigadier-General on the 27th of June, 1865, for 
gallant and meritorious conduct during the war, and discharged at Columbus, 
July 7, 1865. 






Stephen B. Yeoman. 949 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL STEPHEN B. YEOMAI. 



IlHIS officer is a native of Washington, Fayette County, Ohio. His great- 
grandfather served with credit as Captain in the Eevohition, and nis 
- grandfixther as First-Lieutenant in the War of 1812. At the age of fifteen 
Stephen B. Yeoman shipped as a sailor. He visited New Zealand, and different 
points in South America, Asia, and Africa. After enjoying many adventures 
and undergoing many hardships, he finally returned to the United States. 

At the outbreak of the rebellion he volunteered as a private in Company F, 
Twenty-Second Ohio Infantry. He was appointed First-Sergeant of his com- 
pany, and with this rank he made a three months' campaign under Eoseerans 
in West Virginia. At the expiration of liis term of service be immediate!}' 
commenced recruiting, and he returned to the field in September, 1861, as Cap- 
tain of Company A, Fifty-Fourth Ohio Infantry. Captain Yeoman was slightly 
wounded in the breast and left leg at the battle of Pittsburg Landing; at Eus- 
sel's House he was again wounded in the left leg; on the picket-line he was 
wounded in the arm and abdomen; and in the battle of Arkansas Post his right 
arm was struck by a shell, and amputation became necessary. For distinguished 
services he was promoted to Major, but his wound prevented him from return- 
ing to the field, and accordingly he declined promotion and resigned. 

He was appointed Captain in the Veteran Eeserve Corps, and in May, 1864, 
he was made Colonel of the Forty-Third United States Colored Infantry. He 
was detailed at Camp Casey as Superintendent of Eecruiting Service, and Chief 
Mustering Officer of the North-East District of Virginia. He joined his regi- 
ment November 29, 1864, on the Bermuda Front, and led it in all subsequent 
engagements until the capture of Eichmond. During a portion of the time he 
commanded the Third Brigade, First Division, Twenty-Fifth Corps. He was 
brevetted Brigadier-General "for gallant and meritorious services during the 
war." 

General Yeoman has participated in the following engagements: Pittsburg 
Landing, Eussel's House, Easel's House, Corinth; July, 1862, Holly Springs, 
July, 1862, Chickasaw Bayou, Arkansas Post, Siege of Vicksburg, and capture 
of Eichmond ; and in at least fifteen skirmishes. He possesses by nature many 
of the qualities necessary for a soldier, and among them his personal bravery is 
by no means the least. His empty sleeve will ever be touching evidence of his 
loyalty and courage, and his sure title to the regard bf his fellow-citizens. 



950 ■ Ohio ik the Wab. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL F. W. MOORE. 



AT the first call for volunteers in April, 1861, the subject of the present 
sketch assisted in organizing company G- of the Fifth Ohio Yolunteer 
Infantry, and was chosen Second-Lieutenant of the same company. 
With the Fifth Ohio Infantry he went to Western Virginia, and subsequently 
to the Army of the Potomac — in the meantime being promoted to First-Lieu- 
tenant and Captain. In the spring of 1862, with his regiment, he took part in 
the campaign of Banks and Shields in the Yalley of Yirginia. For his conduct 
in the battle of Port Republic, the Governor appointed him Colonel of the 
Eighty-Third Infantry. At that time (July, 1862), he was about the youngest 
officer of the grade of Colonel in the army, having just attained the age of 
twenty-one. In September following he led his regiment into Kentucky to 
resist the Rebel forces of Kii'by Smith. In November his regiment became part 
of Genei-al Sherman's army operating against Vicksburg; and took part in the 
first assault of the works in December, 1862; and subsequently in the siege and 
final assault of that place. His conduct throughout the whole was such as to 
elicit the commendation of the General officers in command. 

The record of his career, from the fall of Vicksburg to the end of the year 
1864, shows him to have been engaged in all the campaigns of the Department 
of the Grulf, and in the Red River expedition under General Banks. Part of the 
time he commanded the Fourth Division, Thirteenth Army Corps. 

Earl}' in the sjjring of 1865 Colonel Moore was placed in command of the 
Third Brigade, Second Division, Thirteenth Army Corps — a new organization 
which composed a part of the army under General Canby, operating against the 
defenses of the City of Mobile. In that campaign General C. C. Andrews 
speaks of him in a voluntary recommendation to the War Department as follows : 
"In the campaign of Mobile — involving severe marches, the siege of the works 
at Blakely, Alabama, and final taking of them by assault — he, as a brigade com- 
mander, was equal to all his duties. He was always punctual, reliable, ener- 
getic; never cast down or despondent on account of obstacles, but addressed 
himself to critical and difficult duties with the alacrity of a true soldier; and 
in the triumphant assault of the enemy's works on the 9th instant, his personal 
conduct was gallant and praiseworthy." 

He was made Brevet Brigadier-General, and sent with his brigade to Gal- 
veston, Texas; where he remained in command of the post till mustered out in 
August, 1865. He subsequently studied and entered upon the practice of law. . 



Thomas F. Wildfs. 951 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL THOMAS F. WILDES. 



THOMAS F.' WILDES was born at Eacine, Canada West, June 1, 1834. 
His parents, who were natives of Ireland, emigrated to America in 1832. 
His grandfather, Thomas Wildes, was an ardent revolutionist, and for 
this otfense suffered confiscation of his goods and had to flee to France to save 
his life. Young Wildes came with his father to Portage Count}^ Ohio, in 1839, 
where he remained on a farm until he was seventeen yeai-s of age. At this 
time he left home with an education limited to reading and writing. For some 
years he worked during the summers for farmers near Eavenna, and went to 
school in the winter time. He was also aided in efforts for an education b}^ a 
daughter of one of his employers, Miss Elizabeth M. Eobinson, to whom he was 
afterward (1860) married. He attended the Twinsburg Academy and also an 
academy at Marlboro', Stark County, Ohio. He afterward (1857-58) spent 
two years at Wittenburg College, Springfield. He became the Superintendent 
of the Woostcr Graded School during the years 1859 and 1860. On the 1st of 
I January, 1861, he purchased from Nelson H. Van Yorhes, the "Athens Messen- 
' ger," at Athens, Ohio, which paper he edited until August, 1862, when he en- 
tered the service as Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Sixteenth Ohio 
Infantry. With this command he served in Virginia at Moorefield, Eomney, in 
the Shenandoah Yalley under Sigel, participating in the battles of Piedmont, 
Snicker's Gap, Berry ville, Opequan, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek. During 
all this time Colonel Wildes was with his regiment in every march, skirmish, 
and battle, in which it was engaged. At the battle of Piedmont he was injured 
by concussion from a shell, and at Winchester he was seriously hurt by being 
thrown from bis horse. 

During a portion of the Shenandoah campaign, including the battle of 
Cedar Creek and other minor engagements, he commanded the First Brigade, 
First Division, of the Army of West Virginia. He retained this command until 
February, 1865, when he was promoted to Colonel of the One Hundred and 
Eighty-Sixth Ohio. With this regiment he went to Nashville and afterward to 
Cleveland, Tennessee, where he received his commission as Brevet Brigadier- 
General "for gallant conduct at Cedar Creek, Virginia, October 19, 1864," to 
date from March 11, 1865. He was appointed to the command of a brigade at 
Chattanooga, which he retained until his muster out in September, 1865, 

General Wildes entered the Law School at Cincinnati, and graduated in 
1866, after which he entered upon the practice of his profession at Athens, 



952 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL C. H. GROSVENOR. 



CHAELES H. GEOS\^ENOE was born in Pomfret, Connecticut, Sep- 
tember 20, 1833, and five years after was brought with his father's 
familj^ to Athens County, Ohio. His grandfather, Colonel Thomas Gros- 
vcnor, was an officer in the Eevolutionary "War, serving first as a Lieutenant 
under Putnam, then on the staff of General Warren (he was wounded at Bunker 
Hill), then as Colonel of the Second Connecticut Eegiment of the Line, and 
finally as a member of the staff of General George Washington. 

Major Peter Grosvenor, the father of Charles H. Grosvenor, served as a 
private soldier in the war of 1812. His title as Major was from militia service. 

General Grosvenor entered the service July 30, 1861, as Major of the 
Eighteenth Ohio Infantry; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel March 16, 
1863, and to Colonel April 8, 1865. He served first under General Mitchel until 
he was relieved, then in the campaign to Nashville and Huntsville. He was 
not in the battle of Stone Eiver with his regiment, being then in Ohio to obtain 
recruits. 

At the beginning of the Atlanta Campaign, his regiment being in garri- 
son at Chattanooga, General Grosvenor obtained permission to accompany' the 
army, and was assigned to duty on the staff of General Turchin of Baird's divis- 
ion in the Fourteenth Corps. He remained with the army until in June, Avhen 
he returned to Chattanooga, and participated with General Steed man in his cam- 
paign in East Tennessee, and afterward was engaged against Forrest at Pulaski, 
Tennessee. 

At the battle of Nashville, in December, 1864, he was in command of a 
brigade and made an assault in which he lost two hundred and twenty-eight 
men in fifteen minutes. 

He was for some time commander of the post at Chattanooga. When Gen- 
eral Steedman was assigned to the command of the Department of Georgia, 
General Grosvenor was detailed as Provost-Marshal General on his staff, in which 
position he remained until mustered out October 28, 1865. His brevet rank 
dates from March 13, 1865. 

He Avas in the service from the beginning to the end, and throughout the 
war proved himself worthy of the fighting stock from which he came. 



Isaac R. Sherwood. 9o3 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL ISAAC R. SHERWOOD. 



ISAAC E. SHEEWOOD entered the army on the 18th of April, 1861, 
and served as a private for four months in West Virginia, participating 
in skirmishes at Laurel Mountain and Cheat Eiver, and in the fight at 
Carrick's Ford. 

He received a commission as FirsL-Lieutenant in the One Hundred and 
Eleventh Ohio Infantry, was appointed Adjutant, and served in that position 
through the Buell campaign in Kentucky. On the 1st of February, 1863, at 
the unanimous request of the field and line officers, he was promoted from Ad- 
jutant to Major. He participated in Morgan's campaign, and in the East Ten- 
nessee campaign. He commanded the skirmishers of Burnside's army on the 
retreat from Huff's Ferry to Lenox, and commanded the regiment at Huff's 
Ferr}^ Siege of Knoxville, Campbell's Station, Blair's Cross-Eoads, Dandridge, 
Strawberry Plains, Mossy Creek, and Loudon. He was pi*omoted to Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel on the 12th of February, 1864, and from that time until the close of 
the war was constantly in command of the regiment. 

He was engaged at Eocky Face, Eesaca, Burnt Hickory, Dallas, Pine Mount- 
ain, Lost Mountain, Kenesaw Mountain, Chattahoochie, Decatur, Peachtree 
Creek, Utoy Creek, Atlanta, Lovejoy, Columbia, Duck Eiver, and Franklin. 

For gallantry in the latter engagement he was made a Brevet Brigadier- 
General. He was transferred to the East, and was through the North Carolina 
campaign. At Saulsbury he went before a board of officers and was recom- 
mended for promotion and retention in the service. Accordingly he was made 
Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty-Third Ohio Infantry, and was ordered 
by the War Department to report to Major-General Saxton for duty, according 
to brevet rank, as Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau for the State of 
Florida. The General, however, immediately tendered his resignation and left 
the service. 



9oi Ohio in the Wab. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL R. N. ADAMS. 



"pvOBERT N. ADAMS was born in Fayette County, Ohio, near Green- 

Rv field, in 1835. He is a descendant of the Douglas familj^, coming 

from the Scottish Presbyterian stock, whose traditional firmness of 

purpose and uprightness of character he inherits. His early life was spent on 

the farm, and in preparing himself for college at the Greenfield school. 

In 1858 he entered Miami University, whei*e he remained until near the close 
of his junior year, when the rebellion broke out, and he joined the "University 
Rifles," a companj- organized at Oxford, in which he served as a private in the 
Twentieth Ohio through the three months' service. In August, 1861, he organ- 
ized a company at Greenfield, of which he was made Captain. It joined the 
Eighty-First Ohio Infantry. On May 7, 1862, he was promoted to Lieutenant- 
Colonel, and August 8, 1864, to Colonel of the regiment. In these different grades 
he served with his regiment, first in Missouri, under Fremont, and afterward 
with the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Corps, of the the Army of the Tennessee. 
During the latter portion of the Atlanta campaign, and through the march to 
Savannah, and to Washington, he commanded a brigade. His appointment as 
Brevet Brigadier-General was made in May, 1865, to date from March 13, 1865. 

In July, 1865, he Avas mustered out with his regiment. He participated in 
the battles of Pittsburg Landing, Corinth, Town Creek, Eesaca, Dallas, Kene- 
saw Mountain, Nicojack Creek, Atlanta, July 22d and 28th; Jonesboi'o' (at 
which place he was slightly wounded), and Hobkirk's Hill. 

After the war he entered upon the study of theology, a design which he 
had cherished for years. 



B. B. Eggleston. 955 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL MOSES B. WALKER. 



M 



OSES B. WALKEE was born in Fairfield Countj^ Ohio, July 16, 
1819. He was educated at Yale College, and after graduating studied 
and practiced law in Montgomery County for twenty years. 

At the opening of the war he was appointed Captain in the Twelfth 
United States Infantry. On the 4th of August, 1861, he was commissioned 
Colonel of the Thirty-First Ohio Infantry, and in September he led the regi- 
ment to Camj) Dick Eobinson, Kentucky. In the spring of 1862 he was placed 
in command of the First Brigade, First Division, Fourteenth Corps, which he 
continued to command until after the fall of Atlanta. He was then at home for 
twenty days on leave, and upon returning to the field served as President of 
the Militar}^ Commission of the Department of the Cumberland for seven 
months. 

He was brevetted Brigadier-General of volunteers, and also Major and 
Lieutenant-Colonel in the regular army, "for gallant and meritorious service 
during the war." He w\as wounded by a shell at the battle of Chickamauga, 
by which his spine and left shoulder were injured permanently; and in conse- 
quence of this he has been retired from active duty in the regular army, and is 
now at his home in Findlay, Ohio. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL B. B. EGGLESTON. 



THE subject of this sketch was born in Corinth Township, Saratoga County, 
New York. He entered the armj- as private at Circleville, Ohio, in the 
First Ohio Cavalry, on the 8th of August, 1861, and was promoted to Cap- 
tain on the 1st of September. On the 25th of July, 1862, he was captured, and 
upon rejoining his regiment was promoted to Major, and soon after to Colonel. 
After the re-enlistment of his regiment as veterans. Colonel Eggleston was 
placed in command of a brigade, which he continued to command at intervals 
until after the Atlanta campaign. He participated in the cavalry campaign 
under General Wilson, and by order of that officer received the surrender of 
the post of Atlanta. He then proceeded to Orangeburg, South Carolina, and 
was appointed by General Gillmore Chief of Stuff for the Department, which 
position he held until mustered out, September 13, 1865. He was brevetted 
Brigadier-General on the 6th of March, 1865. 



956 Ohio in the War. 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERAL ISAAC MINOR KIRBY. 



ISAAC MINOE KIEBY was born at Columbus in 1834. He enlisted 
April 18, 1861; was elected Captain and mustered into the Fifteenth Ohio 
Volunteer Infantry. He served with that regiment in Western Virginia, 
and then in Buell's Army of the Ohio. He marched with it to Pittsburg Land- 
ing and participated in the battle there, assisting Major Wallace in commanding 
the regiment. He resigned in May, 1862, and in July raised another company 
for the One Hundred and First Ohio, in which he was again commissioned 
Captain. He joined Buell's army at Louisville, and in October, 1863, was pro- 
moted Major. 

Colonel Stem and Lieutenant-Colonel Wooster fell early in the morning of 
the first day's fight at Stone Eiver. Major Kirby thus succeeded to the com- 
mand of the regiment during the remainder of that battle. Immediately after- 
ward he was promoted to Colonel. He continued in command of the regiment 
until the early part of the movement on Atlanta, when he Avas given command 
of the First Brigade, First Division, Fourth Army Corps, which he led through- 
out the campaign. Colonel Kirby was now recommended by superiors in 
oflScial reports for promotion. He commanded the brigade during the retreat 
of Thomas's army before Hood to Nashville, and through the battles of Franklin 
and Nashville. In the latter he led the first assault on the enemy's main line 
of works. He was now again recommended for promotion, and he finally re- 
ceived a commission as Brevet Brigadier-General. 

General Kirby continued in command of the First Brigade, First Division, 
Fourth Army Corps, until the close. He was mustered out of the service at 
Nashville in June, 1865, having been constantly in the field from the commence- 
ment till the end of the war. 



Askew— Baldwin. !)57 



BREVET BRIGADIER-GENERALS; 

MOSTLY OF LATE APPOINTMENTS, AND NOT EXERCISINO- COMMANDS 
IN ACCORDANCE "WITH THEIR BREVET RANK. 



Franklin Askew was born at St. Clairsville, Ohio, January 9, 1837. He 
^fradualed at Michigan University in 1859, and then began the study of the law. 
When the war broke out he entered the Seventeenth Ohio Infantry — three 
months' regiment — in which he served as Second-Lieutenant and First-Lieu- 
tenant. He then organized a company for three years, and entered the Fif- 
teenth Ohio as Captain, September 13, 1861. He was promoted to Lieutenant- 
Colonel October 24, 1862, and to Colonel July 22, 1864. 

He participated in every battle and skirmish in which his regiment was 
engaged. At Stone River he was severel}^ wounded, and he received a slight 
wound at the battle of Nashville. He accompanied his regiment to Texas, and 
for a short time Avas in command of the post of San Antonio. His appointment 
as Brevet Brigadier-G-eneral dates from July 14, 1865. 

William H. Baldwin was born at New Sharon, Maine, in 1832. His 
father was once a member of the State Legislature, and at various times held 
several other offices of trust in the State. His grandfather, Nahum Baldwin, 
was a soldier throughout the Revolutionary War. 

He graduated at Union College, New York, in 1855, and in the Law Depart- 
ment of Harvard University in 1858. Soon after he commenced the practice 
of law in Cincinnati, but in 1860 he went to Europe, and was with the army 
of Garibaldi in most of its important movements. 

He returned home upon hearing of the war of the rebellion, and was com- 
missioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Eightj'-Third Ohio Infantr}^ in September, 
1862. He served with this regiment in the expedition down the Mississippi; 
was engaged at Chickasaw Bluffs, Arkansas Post, Yicksburg, and Jackson. He 
also participated in the Red River expedition, and in the severe service which 
the Eighty-Third Ohio performed in Louisiana in 1864. In 1865 he was with 
his regiment in the operations about Mobile, arriving in the vicinity of Blakely 
on the 2d of April. The storming of the enemy's works at this place was 
attended with peculiar difficulties. The approach was protected with heavy 
abattis, and with rifle-pits, in addition to which the enemy had planted torpe- 
does in the way. 

Colonel Baldwin asked permission to take his regiment into the works in 



958 Ohio in the War. 

his front, as the advanced line, which was granted. He sent for axes and gave 
one to each company, putting them in the hands of musicians to cut through 
abattis. Giving orders to form in single rank and to align by the colors, he 
ordered the color-bearers to follow him. At the appointed signal the order of 
advance w-as given and the regiment sprang forward, led by their commander. 
The Confederate rifle-pits were soon reached, but there was no delay to take 
prisoners. The guns of those who were captured were broken, and the men 
were left to be taken up by those following. On the line went, preserving 
its alignment as well as could be until the abattis was reached. The axes were 
used, and then the line moved on, and in a short time reached redoubt No. 4. 
In an instant the works were scaled and Colonel Baldwin cried out, "Surren- 
der!" "To whom?" asked the Confederate commander. "To the Eighty- 
Third Ohio," was the reply. " I believe we did that once before," said he, which 
was true, as this was Cockerill's Missouri brigade, which had stacked arms 
in front of the Eighty-Third Ohio at Vicksburg. 

Colonel Baldwin placed Captain Garry, who was the first officer inside the 
works, in charge of the prisoners, and hastened in pursuit of the Eebels who 
were attempting to escape. Seven hundred and ninety-nine prisoners were 
captured by the regiment, besides a quantity of artillery and small arms. The 
loss of the Eighty-Third in this assault was seven killed and twenty-one 
wounded. Both flag-staffs were shot oif and the flags riddled with balls. The 
rest of the brigade came up afterward, losing but four killed and seventeen 
wounded out of four regiments ! 

For his gallantry at this place he was brevetted Colonel, and subsequently 
Brigadier General. The latter commission was "for gallant services in the 
charge against the Kebel works at Blakely, Alabama," and bore date from 
August 22, 1865. 

After the fall of Mobile he served at Selma and Mobile, Alabama, and Gal- 
veston, Texas, until mustered out in August, 1865. General Baldwin resumed 
the practice of law in Cincinnati in partnership with his brother. 

W. H. Ball was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty- 
Second Ohio October 8, 1862. He resigned February 3, 1865. His regiment 
served in the Army of the Potomac with Butler at Bermuda Hundred ; in 
New York at the time of the riots ; and in the Shenandoah Valley with 
Sheridan. His commission as Brevet Brigadier-General dates from October 
19, 1864. 

Gershom M. Barber was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hun- 
dred and Ninety-Seventh Ohio, April 12, 1865 (having previously served as 
Captain in the fifth company of independent sharp-shooters), and was mustered 
out with the regiment on the 31st of July following. The date of his appoint- 
ment as Brevet Brigadier- General is March 13, 1865. 

James Barnett was a resident of Cleveland engaged in successful business 
pursuits when the war broke out. He had taken great interest in the organi- 



Biggs— Bo YNTON. 959 

zation of the militia under Governor Chase's administration, and had been the 
Colonel of Avhat was callpd a regiment of light artillery, though it really com- 
prised only guns and men for one battery. He entered the service at the first 
call. One of his guns fired the first cannon shot in the war in the West — in the 
aff*air at Philippi, West Virginia. He re-organized his command for the three 
years' service and remained at its head throughout. Its varied and always hon- 
orable service is elsewhere (Vol. II) traced in detail. Colonel Barnett was 
besides employed on a great variety of detached and staff service, mostly relat- 
ing to artillery, and was always ranked as a cool, efficient, and very valuable 
officer. He was mustered out October 20, 1864. His rank as Brevet Brigadier- 
General dates from March 13, 1865. 

Egbert H. Bentley was born at Mansfield, Ohio, August 8, 1835. His 
grandfather, Eobert Bentley, was one of the earliest settlers in Eichland 
County, Ohio; was an officer in the war of 1812, and subsequently a Major- 
General of Ohio militia, and a member of the State Senate. 

General Bentley went into the service April 16, 1861, as a private in Cap- 
tain Wm. McLaughlin's company of the First Ohio Infantry. He came out of 
the three months' service a second sergeant, and was soon after appointed Eeg- 
imental Quartermaster of the Thirty-Second Ohio Infantry. After the capture 
at Harper's Ferry the regiment was reorganized, and he was made Lieutenant- 
Colonel. With this regiment he went through the Vicksburg campaign, and in 
the battles which preceded the capture of that city Avon the special commenda- 
tion of General Logan, his division commander. 

After the capture of Vicksburg he resigned his position in the »Thirty- 
Second Infantry, and Avas appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twelfth Ohio 
Cavalry, and remained with the regiment to the close of the war. In the raid 
upon the Virginia Salt-Works, and in the great Stoneman raid through 
Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas, he was in command of the regiment, and 
for services thus rendered was brevetted a Brigadier-General of volunteers. 
In July, 1865, he resigned his commission, and since that time has been in 
business at Washington City as an attorney for the prosecution of claims. 

J. Biggs, Erevet Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-Third Ohio, was 
appointed Brevet Brigadier-General, to date from March 13, 1865. 

John E. Bond was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Elev- 
enth Ohio, August 28, 1862; honorably discharged, October 18, 1864; appointed 
Brevet Brigadier-General to date from March 13, 1864. 

Henry Van Ness Boynton was born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, 
July 22, 1835. He removed with his father's family to Cincinnati in 1846. He 
graduated at the Kentucky Military Institute in 1858, and Avas Professor of 
Mechanics and Astronomy at this institution during the years 1859-60. 

He Avas commissioned Major of the Thirty-Fifth Ohio Infantry, July 29, 
1861 ; and promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, July 13, 1863. He commanded the 



960 Ohio in the Wak. 

regiment at Chickamauga, Mission Eidge, and Buzzard's Eoost. At the storm- 
ing of Mission Eidge he was severely wounded. ^ 

He was brevetted Brigadier-Greneral, March 13, 1865, "for good conduct at 
the battles of Chickamaugu and Mission Eidge." He resigned at Chattanooga, 
Tennessee, September 8, 1864, on account of disabilit}- arising from wounds, 
and returned from the field with the first detachment of the regiment mustered 
out immediately after the capture of Atlanta. 

General Boynton was in many respects a model officer — faithful to his men, 
devoted to the cause for which he fought, always at his post, thoroughly versed 
in his duties, gallant in action, and judicious in handling his troops. He was a 
man of singular sincerity of purj)Ose, and intense in his hostility to slavery and 
hatred of Eebels. At the request of the author of this work the General was 
appointed his successor, as chief Washington Correspondent of the Cincinnati 
Gazette, and of the Western Eepublican Press Association. Into this new field 
he carried the same ideas, for which he had fought and struggled for their ti-i- 
umph, with the same fervid zeal. He also displayed fine literary powers, and 
took high rank in the journalistic profession. He is a son of Eev. Dr. C. B. 
Boynton, Chaplain of the House of Eepresentatives at Washington, and Pro- 
fessor in the Naval School at Annapolis. 

EosLiFP Brinkerhoff was born in Cayuga Count}^, New York, June 28, 
1828. He belongs to one of the old Dutch families of that State, which date 
back for their origin in America to the earliest times in the New Netherlands. 
His ancestor on his mother's side (Louis Bouvier) was one of that noble band 
of Huguenot refugees, who fled from their native France after the revocation of 
the Edict of Nantes, and sought safety from religious persecution among the 
tolerant and sympathizing Hollanders of the New World. 

In 1850 he removed to Ohio, and completed a course of law studies with 
his kinsman, the Hon. Jacob Brinkerhoff, of Mansfield. In 1852 he was 
admitted to the bar, and continued the practice of his profession at Mansfield 
until the opening of the war. During this period, however, he varied the 
monotony of legal life by three or four years' experience as editor and propri- 
etor of the Mansfield Herald, in which capacity he won a State reputation as a 
writer and orator in the preliminary political contests which preceded the great 
rebellion. 

In September, 1861, he entered the military service as First-Lieutenant, 
and Eegi mental Quartermaster of the Sixty-Fourth Ohio Yolunteers. In No- 
vember of the same year he was promoted to the position of Captain and 
Assistant Quartermaster, and during the winter was on duty at Bardstown, 
Kentucky. After the capture of Nashville he was placed in charge of trans- 
portation, land and river, in that city. After the battle of Pittsburg Landing 
he was ordered to the fx-ont, and placed in charge of the field transportation of 
the Army of the Ohio. 

After the capture of Corinth he went home on sick furlough, and was 
thence ordered to Maine as Chief Quartermaster in that State. Subsequently 



Brown— Burnett. 961 

he Avas transferred to Washington Cit}^ as Post Quartermaster, and remained 
on that duty until June, 1865, when he was made Colonel and Inspector of the 
Quartermaster's Department. He was then retained on duty at the "War Office, 
by Secretary Stanton until November, when he was ordered to Cincinnati as 
Chief Quartermaster of that department. 

In September, 1866, he was brevetted a Brigadier-General of volunteers. 
Shortly after this he resigned his commission, and was mustered out of 
service on the 1st of October, having completed five years of continuous service 
in the army. 

General Brinkerhoff deservedlj^ ranks as one of the most competent officers 
of the staff corps of the army, having won every grade of his department 
below ifs chief, by meritorious and efficient service. 

General Brinkerhoff is the author of the book entitled "The Volunteer 
Quartermaster," which is still the standard guide for the officers and employees 
of the Quartermaster's Department. After his retirement from the army he 
returned to the practice of his profession at Mansfield. 

Charles E. Brown was born in Cincinnati, July 4, 1834. At the age of 
sixteen he entered Miami University, and gr£\duated in 1854. He studied law, 
and commenced the practice of his profession in Louisiana; but in 1859 he 
returned to Ohio, and opened an office in Chillicothe. 

On the 23d of October, 1861, he was commissioned a Captain, and was 
assigned to the Sixty-Third Ohio Infantry. He was under General Pope in 
Missouri, and participated in the movements which resulted in the capture of 
New Madrid and Island Number Ten. He was in the siege of Corinth, and was 
engaged at luka, and at Corinth, October 3 and 4, 1862. For gallant and sol- 
dierl}'' conduct in these engagements Captain Brown was particularly mentioned 
in the official rejiorts. At Corinth he was the only officer in the left wing of 
the regiment who was unhurt. 

He was promoted to Major for meritorious conduct, March 20, 1863, and to 
Lieutenant-Colonel, May 17, 1863. He commanded the regiment in the Atlanta 
campaign, and was engaged at Snake Creek Gap, Resaca, Dallas, and Kenesaw 
Mountain. On the 22d of July, in front of Atlanta, he lost his left leg, and 
while recovering from his wound served as Provost-Marshal of the Eighteenth 
Ohio District. 

He was promoted to Colonel, June 6, 1865, and was subsequently brevetted 
Brigadier-General, to date from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious 
conduct in the campaign before Atlanta, Georgia." He resumed the practice of 
law at Chillicothe. 

Jefferson Brumback was commissioned Major of the Nintey -Fifth Ohio, 
August 10, 1862 ; j^romoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, October 4th ; mustered out 
August 14, 1865. His appointment as Brevet Brigadier-General dated from 
March 13, 1865. 

Henry L. Burnett was appointed Judge Advocate, August 10, 1863, under 
the act of July 17, 1862. He conducted the famous treason trials at Indianap- 
VoL. I.— 61. 



962 Ohio in the Wak. 

olis, and was also associated with Hon. John A. Bingham, in the ti'ial of the 
assassination conspirators at Washington. His appointment as Brevet Briga- 
dier-General was "for meritorious service in the Bureau of Military Justice," 
to date from March 13, 1865. 

After leaving the army he resumed the practice of law in Cincinnati, in 
partnership with Hon. T. W. Bartley, late of the Supreme Court of Ohio. 

Joseph W. Burke entered the service as Major of the Tenth Ohio Three 
Months' Eegiment. He continued in the same rank in the three years' organi- 
zation ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, January 9, 1862, and to Colonel, 
January 20, 1863. He was mustered out June 17, 1864 ; but he afterward 
entered the Invalid Corps. His rank as Brevet Brigadier-General was from 
March 13, 1865. He was a gallant fighting officer, and was more than once 
severely wounded. He had great influence among his fellow Irishmen of Cin- 
cinnati, and used it well and wisely. 

John Allen Campbell was born in Salem, Ohio, October 8, 1835. He 
entered the service as Second-Lieutenant of the Nineteenth Ohio in April, 1861, 
and served in that capacity until the following August, when he was mustered 
out. He then entered the First Ohio Infantry as First-Lieutenant. He served 
as Ordnance officer on the staff of General A. M. McCook until after the evac- 
uation of Corinth, in 1862, then as Acting Assistant Adjutant-General until 
November 26, 1862, when he was promoted to Major and Assistant Adjutant- 
General. In March, 1863, he was transferred to the staff of General Schofield, 
where he served till the end of the war. He was promoted to Lieutenant- 
Colonel in January, 1865, and was brevetted Colonel and Brigadier-General 
March 13, 1865, "for courage in the field and marked ability and fidelity." 

He participated in the battles of Eich Mountain, Pittsburg Landing, Perry- 
ville. Stone Eiver, all the battles of the Atlanta campaign, Franklin, Nashville, 
and Wilmington. After being mustered out as a volunteer officer, he was 
appointed Second-Lieutenant of the Fifth United States Artillery. He is an 
earnest member of the Eepublican party. 

Charles Candy was commissioned Colonel of the Sixty-Sixth Ohio Novem- 
ber 25, 1861, and was honorably discharged December 16, 1864. His brevet 
rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

John S. Casement entered the three months' service May 7, 1861, as Major 
of the Seventh Ohio Infantiy. When the regiment was reorganized for the thi-ee 
years' service he held the same rank; resigned Maj^ 25, 1862. In August, 1862, 
he was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Third Ohio Infantry; 
resigned April 30, 1865. His brevet rank dates from January 25, 1865. 

Mendal Churchill entered the Twenty-Seventh Ohio as Captain, August 
6, 1861; was promoted to Major November 2, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel 
March 19, 1864; to Colonel June 27, 1864; he resigned September 15,1864. 
His brevet rank dated from March 13, 1865. 

Henry M. Cist was born in Cincinnati, and is a son of Charles Cist, Esq,;, 



COATES-COWEN. 963 

'well-known as an early journalist, and compiler of "Cincinnati in 1841," and 
Cincinnati in 1851.") He entered the Seventy-Fourth Ohio as First- Lieuten- 
ant October 22, 1861. May 22, 1864, he was appointed Captain and Assistant 
A.djutant-Grenei-al of volunteers, and afterward promoted to Major. He was 
brevetted Brigadier-General "for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battle 
Df Stone River, and in the campaign under General Eosecrans. terminating in 
the battle of Chickamauga, and for meritorious services generally throughout 
Ihe war," to date from March 13, 1865. 

Benjamin F, Coates was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninety- 
First Ohio, August 10, 1862; was promoted to Colonel December 9, 1864, and 
was mustered out with his regiment, June 30, 1865. His brevet rank was from 
March 13, 1865. 

James M. Comlt was born in Perry County, Ohio, Mai*ch 6, 1832. He 
entered the United States service in June, 1861, and on the 12th of August was 
appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty-Third Ohio Infantr3^ After some 
time spent at Camp Chase, he gave up the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the Forty- 
Third, for the appointment of Major of the Twenty-Third Ohio Infantry, then 
in the field, for the sake of getting more speedily into active service. He was 
mustered as Major on the 31st of October, 1861, and he commanded the regi- 
ment in every action in which it was subsequently engaged, except for a short 
time in the morning at the battle of South Mountain. He was eventually made 
Colonel of the regiment, and Brevet Brigadier-General (to date from March 13, 
1865), the latter position having been earned by gallant and faithful service in 
the field. General Coml}^, after the war, became editor of the Ohio State 
Journal, at Columbus, where he displaj^ed marked abilit}^ as a writer and poli- 
tician, and came to exert large influence. His history in the field may be best 
read in the history of the regiment he commanded so long, and led to so 
much honor. During the war he was married to a daughter of Surgeon -General 
Smith, of Columbus. 

Henry S. Commager was commissioned Captain of the Sixty-Seventh Ohio 
Infantry, IS'ovember 10, 1861; promoted to the rank of Major July 29, 1862; 
to Lieutenant-Colonel August 28, 1862 ; Colonel of the One Hundred and 
Eighty-Fourth Ohio Februarj^ 22, 1865. Brevet rank dates from February 
27, 1865. 

H. C. CoRBiN was appointed Second-Lieutenant in the Seventj'-Ninth 
Ohio November 12, 1862; promoted to First-Lieutenant in 1863; he resigned 
November 15, 1863, and afterward became Colonel of the Fourteenth United 
States Colored Infantry. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Benjamin Rush Cowen was born August 15, 1831, in the village of Moore- 
field, Harrison County, Ohio, to which place his jDarents had emigrated in 1825, 
from "Washington County, New York. His mother was a daughter of Judge 
Wood, of the latter county. His father. Judge B. S. Cowen, gave up the prac- 
tice of medicine for that of law, and has, since 1832, resided at St. Clairsville, 



964 Ohio in the War. 

Ohio. An uncle, Hon. Esek Cowen, was Chief Justice of the New York Court 
of Appeals, and was the author of "Cowen's Treatise," Cowen's Eeports," and 
other legal works. 

General Cowen received an English and classical education at "Brooks' 
Institute," and another school of like character in St. Clairsville. This wa 
supplemented by a pi-actical printer's education in the office of the Belmon 
Chronicle. He became local editor of that paper at the age of seventeen, an( 
four years later became sole editor and proprietor. During this time he alsc 
studied medicine with Dr. John Alexander, but he never practiced in that pro. 
fession. In September, 1854, he married Miss Ellen Thoburn, of Bel mom 
County. Three years afterward he disposed of the Chi'onicle, and removed t( 
Bellair. There he was in mercantile business until 1860, having, in the mean 
time, served as member of the Legislature, and Clei"k of the House of Eepre 
sentatives. 

His first military appointment was that of Engineer-in-Chief, Avith th< 
rank of Colonel, on Governor Dennison's staff. This post he resigned upon ihi 
fall of Fort Sumter, and enlisted as a private in Captain Wallace's company, ii 
the Fifteenth Ohio. He did not, hoAvever, sever his connection with the Legis 
lature, which was then in session, until its adjournment, when he joined hii 
regiment at Zanesville. He was commissioned First-Lieutenant May 24th, an( 
assigned to duty as Assistant-Commissary of Subsistence. In the summer of 
1861 he received the appointment as Additional Paymaster, dating from Jum 
1. He served at Washington and in West Tirginia in this capacity. He al8( 
served at the same time as Pay Agent for Ohio, in forwarding soldiers' pay t( 
their friends at home. 

In December, 1863, he was ordered to New Orleans, as chief paymaster oi 
the Department of the Gulf; but before leaving for that post he was tendered? 
the position of Adjutant-General of Ohio, by Governor Brough. He accepted 
this, and having obtained leave of absence, with suspension of pay and allow- 
ances, he entered upon his new duties in January, 1864. In this position there 
was the greatest need of a man thoroughly systematic and prompt, as well as 
untiringly energetic, to accomplish its manifold duties. To General Cowen's 
intelligent labors in this department is due much of the efficiency of the mili- 
tary force of Ohio. Perhaps the most striking instance of his ability was dis- 
played in his management of the calling out and equipment of the "National 
Guard;" where, in twelve days, thirty-five thousand nine hundred and eighty- 
two men were organized, mustered, clothed, equipped, and turned over to the 
United States military authorities. It was "for meritorious services while 
acting as Adjutant-General of the State of Ohio in organizing, equipping, and 
forwarding to the field, the troops known as the Ohio National Guards," that 
he received the successive appointments of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, Brevet 
Colonel, and Brevet Brigadier-General, to date from March 13, 1865. Gen- 
eral Cox retained General Cowen in the same position. 

In politics General Cowen was originally a Whig, having advocated the 
election of General Taylor in 1848, and having voted for General Scott in 1852. 



Cummins— Eaton. 965 

Upon the dissolution of tlie Wliig party he became a Republican. He was Sec- 
retary of the anti-Nebraska Convention which assembled in Columbus in 1854, 
and in 1856 was a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention which nominated 
General Fremont for President. He has since thut time acted with the Repub- 
lican party. 

' John E. Cummins was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninety- 
Ninth Ohio August 9, 1862. He was afterward transferred to the Fiftieth Ohio, 
and was promoted to Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty-Fifth Ohio 
Februar}'' 15, 1865. His brevet rank dates from November 4, 1865. 

i' 

J. R. CocKERiLL was commissioned Colonel of the Seventieth Ohio, to rank 

from October 2, 1861. He resigned April 13, 1864. His brevet rank dates 

from March 13, 1865. 

Andrew R. Z. Dawson entered the Fifteenth Ohio Infantry as Captain 
September 11, 1861 (having served as First-Lieutenant in the same regiment 
in the three months' service). He was promoted to Major July 22, 1864, and 
was mustered out at the expiration of his term of service. On March 2, 1865, 
he was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty-Seventh Ohio, 
and was mustered out with his regiment in January, 1866. His brevet rank 
dates from November 21, 1865. 

AzARiAH N. DoANE entered the Twelfth Ohio in the three months' service, 
and on the 12th of Juri%, 1861, was promoted to Captain. He resigned October 
18, 1861. He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Seventy-Ninth Ohio 
August 19, 1862, and promoted to Colonel June 8, 1865, but was mustered out 
as Lieutenant-Colonel. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Francis Darr entered the Tenth Ohio as Second-Lieutenant June 3, 1861, 
and on the 3d of August following, he i-eceived the appointment of Commissary 
of Subsistence, wjth the rank of Captain. He was promoted to Lieutenant- 
Colonel January 1, 1863, and afterward to Brevet Colonel. He served with Gen- 
eral Rosecrans in West Virginia; then with General Buell in Kentucky, subse- 
quently with Rosecrans again in Kentucky, and afterward on the Atlantic 
coast, alwa3^8 ranking as an efficient and very capable officer. His appointment 
as Brevet Brigadier-General was "for meritorious conduct in the Subsistence 
and Provost-Marshal-General's Departments," to date from March 13, 1865. 

Charles G. Eaton entered the Seventy-Second Ohio as Captain November 
30', 1861; was promoted to Major April 6, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel Novem- 
ber 29, 1862, and to Colonel April 9, 1864. He was mustered out with his regi- 
ment in September, 1865. His bi-evet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

John Eaton, Jr., entered the service August 15, 1861, as Chaplain of the 
Twenty-Seventh Ohio. He was appointed Colonel of the Sixty-Third United 
States Colored troops October 10, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 
1865. After the war he settled in Tennessee, became editor of a new Radical 
Republican journal called the Memphis Post, and rose to be one of the leaders 



966 Ohio in the War. 

of the dominant Eadical party of Tennessee. He was elected Superintendent 
of Public Education in 1866, on the State Eadical ticket. 

John J. Elwell was born in "Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, June 22, 
1820. In the year 1846 he graduated as a Doctor of Medicine, and soon after 
removed to Orwell, Ashtabula County, Ohio, where he pi'acticed for about nine 
years. In 1855 he was admitted to the bar, and removed to Cleveland, where 
he established "The Western Law Monthly." He also wrote a work on Medi- 
cal Jurisprudence. 

He was appointed Assistant- Quartermaster August 3, 1861, and began his 
duties at Cleveland, in equipping several cavalry regiments with horses. In 
the summer of 1862 he was appointed a Division-Quartermaster in the Depart- 
ment of the South. Immediately after the battle of Secessionville he was ele- 
vated to the post of Chief-Quartermaster of that department, with the rank of 
Lieutenant-Colonel. Besides attending to his regular duties in this department 
he acted at the battle of Secessionville as volunteer aid-de-camp to Genera^ 
Benham, and at the assault on Fort Wagner he aided in rallying the men. 

In the spring of 1864, being reduced in health, he was transferred tc 
Elmira, I^ew York, where he had charge, as Quartermaster, of the great "draf 
rendezvous," and of the prison camp, and was, besides, connected with th< 
Cavalry Bureau, in which connection he purchased and forwarded to Washing- 
ton seventeen thousand horses. 

In the early part of 1866 he resigned his commj^sion, and returned tc 
Cleveland. His rank as Brevet Brigadier-Greneral dates from March, 1865. 

J. M. Frizell organized the Ninety-Fourth Ohio, and was commissionec 
Colonel August 14, 1862. He resigned February 22, 1863. He had previously 
served us Lieutenant-Colonel of the Eleventh Ohio from April 29, 1861, to De- 
cember 21, 1861. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Joseph S. Fullerton, a native of Eoss County, Ohio, and a graduate of 
Miami University, was a resident of St. Louis at the outbreak of the war. H( 
was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General with the rank of Major March 11 
1863. He served on the staft' of General O. O. Howard in the Atlanta cam- 
paign. His brevet rank was confei-red "for gallant and meritorious conduct 
during the Atlanta campaign," to date from March 13, 1865. His last military 
service was in a tour of inspection of the Freedmen's Bureau, ordered by Pres 
ident Johnston, in which he assisted Major-General Steedman. 

Edward P. Fyfpe was appointed Colonel of the Twenty-Sixth Ohio Kegi- 
ment June 10, 1861. He was honorably discharged December 18, 1863, and 
afterward appointed in the Yeteran Reserve Corps. His brevet rank dates 
from March 13, 1865. 

Horatio G. Gibson was appointed Colonel of the Second Ohio Heavy Artil 
lery August 15, 1863. He was mustered out with his regiment, August 23, 
1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 



Gibson— Hamilton. 967 

Wm. H. Gibson was appointed Colonel of the Forty -Ninth Ohio August 31, 
1861. He was mustered out on expiration of his term of service, September 5, 
1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. His career was active and 
honorable, and he was highly esteemed by his superior officers. He entered the 
service under a cloud, having been Treasurer of the State of Ohio, and been 
ejected from his office by Governor Chase for a defalcation of nearly three-quar- 
ters of a million dollars. His fault was not in taking the money, but in 
concealing the fact that it had been taken, before his entry into office, by his 
predecessor and relative, Mr. Breslin. General sympathy was felt for him, and 
it was felt that his entry into the military service was a manly effort to wipe 
out the stigma which weakness rather than intentional guilt had placed upon 
him. His career did this, and gave him an honored name among the soldiers 
of the State. 

Samuel A. Gilbert was appointed Colonel of the Forty-Fourth Ohio Octo- 
ber 14, 1861. He resigned April 20, 1864. His brevet i-ank dates from March 
13, 1865. 

JosiAH Given entered the service June 3, 1861, as Captain of the Twenty- 
Fourth Ohio. He was transferred to the Eighteenth Ohio, and promoted to 
Lieutenant-Colonel August 17, 1861 ; was transferred to the Seventy-Fourth 
Ohio, and promoted to Colonel May 16, 1863. He resigned September 29, 1864. 
His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

William Given was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Second 
Ohio August 18, 1862, and was mustered out with his regiment, June 30, 1865. 
His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

James H. Godman entered the service as Major of the Fourth Ohio April 
26, 1861. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel January 9, 1862, and to Colo- 
nel November 29, 1862. He was honorably discharged (after receiving severe 
wounds) July 28, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. He was 
elected Auditor of Ohio on the Eadical Eepublican ticket in 1863, and re-elected 
at the elections in 1865 and 1867. As a State official he fully sustained the high 
character which his conduct in the field had won him. 

Henry H. Giesy entered the Forty-Sixth Ohio as Captain, December 26, 
1861, and Avas promoted to Major September 16, 1862. He was killed May 28, 
1864, at Dallas, Georgia; and " for gallant and meritorious services at the battle 
of Dallas," he was given the brevet rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, and 
Hrigadier-General, to date from May 28, 1864. 

William Douglas Hamilton was born in Scotland May 24, 1832. He 
emigrated to this country in 1838, and settled in Muskingum County, near 
Zanesville. He was educated at the Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio, and 
subsequently studied law in the Cincinnati Law School, graduating in the class 
of 1859. 

At the opening of the rebellion he was practicing law in Zanesville, but ho 



988 Ohio in the War 

abandoned his profession and raised the first three years' company in that part 
of the State. He was assigned to the Thirty-Second Ohio Infantry, and served 
through the West Virginia and Shenandoah campaigns, but, fortunately, was at 
home on recruiting service when his regiment was surrendered at Harper's Ferry. 
In December, 1862, Captain Hamilton was directed by Governor Tod to 
recruit the Ninth Ohio Cavalry, and of this regiment he was appointed Colonel. 
He served in the Atlanta campaign, on the march to the sea, and in the 
campaign of the Carolinas. His military services extend over a period of 
four years; one with infantry and three with cavalry. He was made Brevet 
Brigadier-General " for gallant and meritorious services rendei'ed during the 
campaign ending in the surrender of the insurgent armies of Johnston and 
Lee." 

Andrew L. Hakris was Captain in the three months' organization of the 
Twentieth Ohio. He was commissioned Captain in the Seventy-Fifth Ohio 
November 9, 1861; was promoted to Major January 12, 1863; to Colonel May 
3, 1863 ; and was mustered out Januaiy 15, 1865. His brevet rank dates from 
March 13, 1865. 

James H. Hart was commissioned First-Lieutenant of the Seventy-First 

Ohio October 7, 1861 ; promoted to Captain ; to Major April 6, 1862; to 

Lieutenant-Colonel April 2, 1864 ; and to Colonel November 29, 1865. His bre- 
vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

KussELL Hastings was commissioned Second-Lieutenant in the Twenty- 
Third Ohio Infantry June 1, 1861 ; pi'omoted to First-Lieutenant March 23, 
1862; to Captain August 8, 1863; and to Lieutenant-Colonel March 8, 1865. 
He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 

14, 1865, and was given "for gallant and meritorious services at the battle of 
Opequan, Virginia." 

Thomas T. Heath was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifth Ohio 
Cavalry August 26, 1861 ; promoted to Colonel August 11, 1863 ; and mustered 
out with the regiment October 30, 1865. His brevet rank dates from December 

15, 1864. 

George W. Hoge was born in Belmont County, Ohio, on the 22d of Feb- 
ruary, 1832. During the early part of the war he was chief clerk to the Secre- 
taiy of the State of Ohio, but in August, 1862, he <^ave up his position and 
accepted an appointment as First-Lieutenant in the One Hundred and Twenty- 
Sixth Ohio Infantry. In June of the next year he was promoted to Captain. 
With his regiment he participated in the following battles: Wilderness, Spott- 
sylvania, Cold Harbor, Monocacy, Winchester, Opequan, Fisher's Hill, and Cedar 
Creek. During the whole or a portion of six of these engagements Captain 
Hoge commanded the regiment. He was struck five tinies by the enemy's balls, 
and several times was mentioned favorably in official reports. 

On the 17th of November, 1864, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hun- 
dred and Eighty-Third Ohio Infantry. He at once assumed command of the 



HoLLOWAY— Jones. 969 

regiment, and twelve days later was engaged at Spring Hill and Franklin, Ho 
M-as again engaged in the battle of Nashville, and after that was transferred to 
the East, joining General Sherman's army at Goldsboro', North Carolina. He 
was mustered out in July, 1865. His brevet rank bears date from March 
13, 1865. 

E. S. HoLLOWAY was commissioned First-Lieutenant in the Forty-First 
Ohio October 10, 1861; promoted to Captain Septembers, 1862; to Major No- 
vember 26, 1864; to Lieutenant-Colonel March 18, 1865, and to Colonel May 31, 
1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Marcellus J. W. HoLTON was commissioned First-Lieutenant in the Fifty- 
Ninth Ohio September 27, 1861 ; was promoted to Captain May 9, 1864 ; mus- 
tered out October 29, 1864. He entered the One Hundred and Ninety-Fifth 
Ohio as Lieutenant-Colonel March 16, 1865, and was afterward appointed Bre- 
vet Colonel. His rank as Brevet Brigadier-General dates from March 13, 1865. 

Horace N. Howland was commissioned Captain in the Third Ohio Cav- 
alry August 15, 1861 ; promoted to Major January 5, 1863; to Lieutenant-Colo- 
nel November 23, 1863, and to Colonel April 8, 1865. He was mustered out 
with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from Max"ch 13, 1865. 

Lewis C. Hunt was commissioned Captain in the Sixtj'-Seventh Ohio Reg- 
iment September 1, 1862; pi-omoted to Lieutenant-Colonel March 18, 1865, and 
was mustered out September 1, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 
13, 1865. 

Samuel H. Hurst was commissioned Captain in the Seventy-Third Ohio 
Infantry November 1, 1861 ; was promoted to Major June 21, 1862; to Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel February 17, 1864, and to Colonel July 13, 1864. He was mustered 
out with his regiment July 20, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

R. P. HuTGHiNS was commissioned Captain of the Ninety-Fourth Ohio July 
22, 1862 ; was promoted to Major February 22, 1863, and to Lieutenant-Colonel 
October 8, 1863. He was mustered out with his regiment June 6, 1865, His 
brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Walter F. Herrick was commissioned Major of the Forty-Third Ohio 
January 21, 1862; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel October 12, 1862, and 
afterward to Brevet Colonel. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

John S. Jones entered the service April 16, 1861, as First-Lieutenant of the 
Fourth Ohio Infantry in the three months' service. When the regiment was 
reorganized for the three years' service, he went into the new organization, and 
was promoted to Captain June 25, 1862. He was mustered out with the regi- 
ment in 1864. In September of the same year he was appointed Colonel of the 
One Hundred and Seventj'-Fourth Ohio, a regiment organized for one year's 
service. He was mustered out with the regiment June 28, 1865. His brevet 
rank dates from June 27, 1865. 



970 Ohio in the War. 

Theodore Jones was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the' Thirtieth 
Ohio Infantry August 2, 1861 ; was promoted to Colonel November 29, 1862, in 
which rank he was mustered out with his regiment, August 13, 1865. His bre- 
vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Wells S. Jones entered the service as Captain in the Fifty-Third Ohio In- 
fantry October 4, 1861, and was promoted to Colonel April 18, 1862. He was 
mustered out with his regiment August 11, 1865. His brevet rank dates from 
March 13, 1865. 

John H. Kelly was appointed Major of the One Hundred and Fourteenth 
Ohio, August 22, 1862 ; promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel February 6, 1863, and to 
Colonel September 20, 1863, in which rank he was mustered out with his reg- 
iment in July, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, " for gallant 
and meritorious services during the campaign of Mobile and for faithful serv- 
ices during the war." 

E. P. Kennedy was at college in Connecticut at the commencement of the re- 
bellion. He hastened to his home in Ohio and joined the Twenty-Third Ohio as 
Second-Lieutenant, June 1, 1861. On February 9, 1862, he was promoted to First- 
Lieutenant, and served as Assistant Adjutant-General on General Scammon's 
staff at the battles of Cub Eun, South Mountain, and Antietam. On October 7, 
1862, he was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General of United States volunteers, 
with the rank of Captain, and assigned to duty on General Crook's staff. He 
served in this capacity during the campaign of the Army of the Cumberland, 
from immediately after the battle of Stone Eiver until after the battle of Mis- 
sion Eidge, in November, 18G3. 

Captain Kennedy served on General Kenner Garrard's staff through the At- 
lanta Campaign, and at the close of it was ordered by General Grant to the De- 
partment of West Virginia, and was made Adjutant-General of that department. 

On November 17, 1864, he was pi-omoted to Major and Assistant Adjutant- 
General of volunteers, and Lieutenant-Colonel by brevet. He served in this 
capacity on the staff of General Crook, commanding the department, until 
March, 1865, when, for gallant services, he was made Colonel of the One Hun- 
dred and Ninety-Sixth Eegiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He was mustered 
out September 10, 1865, after which he began the practice of law at Washing- 
ton, Fayette County, Ohio. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Egbert L. Kimberly was commissioned Second-Lieutenant in tlie Fort}-- 
First Ohio Infantry ; was promoted to First-Lieutenant January 21, 1862; to 
Captain, March 17, 1862 ; to Major, November 20, 1862 ; to Lieutenant-Colonel, 
January 1, 1865; to Colonel of the One Hundred and Ninety-First Ohio, March 
9, 1865. His brevet rank dates March 13, 1865. 

Henry D. Kingsbury entered the three months' service April 27, 1861. as 
First-Lieutenant in the Fourteenth Ohio Infantry. When the regiment was re- 
organized for the three years' service he was promoted to Captain, August 17, 
1861 ; to Major, July 17, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel, December 21, 1862; mus- 



Lane— Langdon. 971 

tered out November 7, 1864. He was commissioned Colonel of the One Hun- 
dred and Eighty-Ninth Eegiment March 7, 1865. Brevet rank dates from 
March 10, 1862. 

John Q. Lane was appointed Colonel of the Ninety-Seventh Ohio, Septem- 
ber 2, 1862, and Avas mustered out with the regiment June 12, 1865. His brevet 
rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

E. Bassett Langdon was born February 27, 1827, near Linwood, a station 
on the Little Miami Railroad, about three miles from the corporation line of 
Cincinnati. His father, Rev. Oliver Langdon, died in Septeinber of the follow- 
ing year. Bassett Langdon spent his boyhood on the farm where he was born, 
but he displayed such a fondness for intellectual pursuits that his mother often 
said of him: "Bassett was never intended for a farmer." He attended the pub- 
lic school in the neighborhood for a short time, and then was sent to Woodward 
(College, in Cincinnati, where he passed three years. After this he entered Mi- 
ami University, where he remained two years, but did not graduate. He then 
returned to the farm, and, notwithstanding his mother's prediction, he remained 
in charge of it until he was twent^'^-five years of age, when he was placed on 
the Democratic ticket for member of the Legislature, and was elected. He was 
twice re-elected to the same office, and afterward he served one term as Senator 
from Hamilton County. During the leisure hours of his legislative career, he 
pursued the study of the law, and at its close was prepared by Hon. "William S. 
G-roesbeck for admission to the bar. He entered upon the practice of his pro- 
fession, in which he was engaged at the time of the breaking out of the rebellion. 

Upon the organization of the First Ohio Infantry for the three-years' serv- 
ice, he was commissioned its Major. In this capacity he served in all the move- 
ments of the regiment until after the evacuation of Corinth, in 1862, when, at the 
urgent request of General A. M. McCook, he accepted the position of Inspector- 
General on McCook's staff. After the battles of Perryville and Stone River, 
upon the promotion of Colonel Parrott to the command of a brigade, Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Langdon (he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel June 2, 1862) 
returned to the command of his regiment. He retained this command through 
the battles of Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, and Lookout Mountain. He was 
mustered out with his regiment, and was afterward brevetted Brigadier-Gen- 
eral "for gallant and meritorious services at the battles of Pittsburg Landing, 
Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and Mission Ridge," to date from March 13, 1865. 
After the war he received the appointment of Assessor of Internal Revenue in 
the First District of Ohio. His nomination was opposed, and it was not until 
the third effort that it was confirmed by the Senate. This opposition embit- 
tered the last days of his life. He held the office at the time of his death. May 
30, 1867. 

This is a brief record of his life of forty years. Of his character no word 
of reproach was ever spoken. It is related of him that no act of un kindness 
or of disobedience ever pained the heart of his widowed mother. That he pos- 
sessed a tender and thoughtful regard for the members of his household, and 
that he was actuated by the highest motives in entering the service of his coun- 



972 Ohio in the War. 

try, maybe seen, by thisestract from aprivate letter written to his sister, but sent 
to his brother, with directions to give it to her only in case he was killed in the 
war. It is dated at Camp Wood, near JMunfordsville, Kentucky, December 18, 
1861 : "But the realities of war are around me, and I am not insensible to its 
dangers, and have thought over the whole subject again and again. If I felt 
sure that death would be the only portion I should reap from this war, I should 
not the less be satisfied, and even glad that I had taken uj) arms in defense of 
my country in the hour of her extreme need. I could not feel that I had per- 
formed m}' duty to that country, which, in peaceful times, has honored and 
trusted me, nor to the parents who gave me birth — to you who live now, nor to 
those who are to come after all of us shall have passed the dread trial that 
comes but once, but must come to all, if I had done otherwise than I have in 
this matter." As a soldier General Langdon was conspicuous for his bravery. 
At Pittsburg Landing his commanding form made him a mark for the enemy's 
sharp-shooters. One of their balls tore his hat fx-om his head and knocked him 
from his horse. At Perryville and at Stone Eiver, while acting as a staff-officer 
for General McCook, his horse was shot under him, and he was specially men- 
tioned for gallant conduct by both Rosecrans and McCook. Elsewhere in this 
Avork is recorded the story of his gallant conduct at Mission Ridge; where, not- 
withstanding he received an almost mortal wound, he still kept with his men, 
and was among the first within the enemy's works. From this wound he never 
full}' recovered. The shock to his system induced an affection of the heart. His 
death, though not unexpected, was sudden. On the morning of May 30, 1867, 
he rose early ; his breakfast was brought to him by his devoted sisters, but it 
was not touched. Near dinner-time one of them brought him some mulled 
wine as a reviving drink. On rising up to receive it his head fell forward, and 
when it was lifted by his sister's hand life had passed awa3\ To the number 
of brave men who yielded their lives at Mission Ridge was added one more, ir 
the person of E. Bassett Langdon, who as truly died for his country as if he 
had fallen in that historic charge. 

John C. Lee was residing at Tiffin, Ohio, at the beginning of the rebellion, 
engaged in successful practice of the law. On the 25th of November, 1861, he 
was commissioned Colonel of the Fifty-Fifth Ohio Infantrj^, and soon after was 
ordered to West Virginia. He served for a short time as president of a court- 
martial convened by order of General Rosecrans at Charleston, and then joined 
his regiment at Romney. Being the senior officer he was placed in command 
of the district of the South Potomac by order of General Schenck. He marched 
under command of Schenck to the relief of Milroy at McDowell, in May, 1862. 
He also participated in the Shenandoah campaign which culminated in the 
battle of Cross Kej^s. He was in the battles of Freeman's Ford, White Sulphur 
Springs, Warrenton, Bristow's Station, New Baltimore, New Market, Thorough- 
fare Gap, Gainesville, Chantilly, and the Second Bull Run, in all which he re- 
ceived the special commendation of his suijerior officei's. At Chancellorsvillc, 
in 1863, he was on the right when the enemy made such a furious assault on the 
Eleventh Corps, and by his determined efforts, aided by Orland Smith of the 



Lister— McCleary. 973 

Seven tj- -Third Ohio and McGrroartj^ of the Sixty-First, did much to stay the 
tide of Eebel success. On account of severe illness in his family General Lee 
unwillingly tendered his resignation, which was received May 18, 1863. When 
the National Guard was called out he was commissioned Colonel of the One 
Hundred and Sixty -Fourth Ohio, which did service around the fortifications of 
Washington. He was mustered out August 27, 1864, and brevetted Brigadier- 
General March, 1865. He was placed by the Executive Committee on the 
Republican ticket for Lieutenant-Governor, on the declination by Hon. Samuel 
Galloway of the nomination of the convention to that office, and he was elected 
in October, 1867. 

Frederick W. Lister was commissioned Major of the Thirty-First Ohio 
September 28, 1861; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel February 28, 1862; to 
Colonel of the Fortieth United States Colored Troops April 29, 1865. His 
brevet rank dates from March 1.3, 1865. 

Charles F. Manderson entered the Nineteenth Ohio Three Months' Regi- 
ment May 30, 1861. He was commissioned Captain in the thi*ee years' organiza- 
tion of the same regiment September 1, 1861; was promoted to Major April 7, 
1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel January 19, 1863, and to Colonel March 15, 1863. 
His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

William H. Martin was a conductor on the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and 
Dayton Railroad. He organized a company and was commissioned Captain in 
the Ninety-Third Ohio; was promoted to Major February 2, 1863, and to Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel March 1, 1863. He was honorably discharged on account of 
wounds, December 2, 1863. His brevet rank dates from June 8, 1865. 

Edwin C. Mason served as Captain in the Second Ohio Three Months' Reg- 
iment. He was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Seventy-Sixth 
Ohio September 21, 1864, with which he served until mustered out June 18, 
1865. His brevet rank dates from June 3, 1865. 

O. C. Maxwell Avas commissioned Captain in the Second Ohio Infiiutry 
August 31, 1861; was promoted to Major December 24, 1862; to Lieutenant- 
Colonel December 31, 1862. He was honorably discharged on account of wounds 
February 1, 1864. He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred 
and Ninety-Fourth Ohio March 14, 1865; Avas jiromoted to Colonel October 22, 
1865, and was mustered out with the regiment October 24, 1865. His brevet 
rank dates from Mai-ch 13, 1865. He afterward received a lucrative appointment 
from President Johnson in the Internal Revenue service. He resides at Lebanon. 

James McCleary entered the Fortj'-First Ohio as Second-Lieutenant, 
August 20, 1861 ; was promoted to First-Lieutenant, January 9, 1862; to Cap- 
tain, September 16, 1862, and to Major, November 23, 1865. He received the 
appointment of Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel, to date from March 13, 1865, "for 
gallant and meritorious services at the battles of Pittsburg Landing and Stone 
River, Tennessee," and of Brevet Colonel from the same date, "for gallant and 



974 Ohio in the War. 

distinguished services in the battles of Stone Eiver, Chickamauga, and Mission 
Kidge, East Tennessee, and for marked faithfulness during the war." His rank 
as Brevet Brigadier-General dates from the same time, '-for gallant and meri- 
torious services at the battles of Pittsburg Landing, Stone Eiver, Chiekamauga, 
and Mission Eidge, East Tennessee, and for faithful services during the war." 

Henry K. McConnell was commissioned Captain in the Seventy-First 
Ohio, November 13, 1861, and Avas promoted to Colonel, May 30, 1863. He was 
mustered out with his regiment in January, 1866. His brevet rank dates from 
March 13, 1865. 

Anson G. McCook Avas born at Steubenville, Ohio, October 10, 1835. He 
is a nephew of the lamented General Eobert L. McCook, and of the other 
brothers, George W. and Alexander M. McCook. He received his education in 
the common schools of Jeiferson County; and, at the age of fourteen, he was 
forced to rely upon his own efforts for a living. In 1854 he crossed the plains 
to California, and remained there until 1860, when he returned to Ohio. 

Upon the call for troops, in the spring of 1861, he raised the first company 
in Eastern Ohio, and was mustered into the three-months' service as Captain 
in the Second Ohio Infsmtry. He thus served thrbugh the campaign with the 
first troops in the field from Ohio, and was present at the first battle of Bull 
Eun. When the regiment was reorganized for the three-years' service he was 
commissioned as Major, and was promoted successively to Lieutenant-Colonel 
and Colonel. He served with the Army of the Cumberland, and Avas engaged 
alwaj'S with ci-edit, and sometimes with distinction, at Stone Eiver, Chieka- 
mauga, Mission Eidge, and in the numerous hard-fought battles of the Atlanta 
campaign. He was mustered out with the regiment, October 10, 1864. 

In March, 1865, the Governor of Ohio tendered him the Colonelcy of the 
One Hundred and Ninety-Fourth Ohio Infantry. He accepted the position, 
and took the regiment to the Valley of Virginia, where it performed valuable 
guard-duty until the close of the war. In the summer of 1865 Colonel McCook 
was made Brevet Brigadier-General "for meritorious services," in the language 
of the order announcing the promotion, to date from March 13, 1865. In No- 
vember of the same year he was discharged, to accept the office of Assessor of 
Internal Eevenue for the Seventeenth Ohio District. 

J. E. McGowAN served as Second-Lieutenant in the Twenty-First Ohio 
Three Months' Eegiment, from the 27th of April, 1861. He entered the One 
Hundred and Eleventh Ohio, August 6, 1862, as Captain. He was mustered 
out, March 24, 1864, and was appointed Colonel of the Fii-st United States 
Heavy Artillery (colored troops). His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Stephen J. McGroarty was a member of the bar of Hamilton County. 
He was commissioned Captain of the Tenth Ohio Three Months' Eegiment, 
April 18, 1861 ; promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of the Sixty-First Eegiment, 
April 23, 1862; to Colonel, September 23, 1862; transferred to the Eighty-Sec- 
ond Ohio, March, 1865, when the Sixty -First and Eighty-Second were consol- 



Meyer— MussEY. 975 

idated. He lost an arm in the service. His brevet rank dates from May 1, 
1865. He was a consjjicuously gallant and efficient officer; and, by reason of 
his birth, had groat influence in securing the support of the war by the masses 
of Irish citizens in Cincinnati. 

Edward S. Meyer was commissioned Captain of the One Hundi-ed and 
Seventh Ohio, November 11, 1862, and was promoted to Major, November 3, 
1864. He resigned, January 1, 1865. He afterward entered the Fifth Eegi- 
ment of the First Army Corps, in which he received the appointments of Bre- 
vet Lieutenant-Colonel and Brevet Colonel. His brevet rank as Brigadier- 
General dates from March 13, 1865. 

Granville Moody was a noted minister of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, of fervid patriotism, and with a gift of inspiring enthusiasm among 
those with whom he came in contact. He was commissioned Cblonel of the 
Seventy -Fourth Ohio, December 10, 1861 ; and, after having command of Camp 
Chase for a time, took the field with his regiment. He won the title of " fight- 
ing parson " by his gallantry at Stone Eiver. He resigned. May 16, 1863. 
His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. More particular mention of some 
of his services may be found in other parts of this work. 

John C. Moore served as Captain in the Eighty-Fifth Ohio, a three 
months' regiment, partially organized in June, 1862. On the 24th of Septem- 
ber, 1862, he was commissioned Captain in the Eighty-Eighth Ohio, from which 
he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighteenth 
United States Colored Troops. He was afterward promoted to Colonel. His 
brevet rank dates from November 21, 1865. 

August Moor, an officer of German birth and Cincinnati residence, was 
commissioned Colonel of the Twenty-Eighth Ohio, June 10, 1861. He was 
mustered out with his regiment, July 23, 1864. His brevet rank dates from 
March 13, 1865, " for gallantry at the battles of Droop Mountain and Pied- 
mont, Virginia." 

Marshall F. Moore was appointed Colonel of the Sixty-Ninth Ohio, De- 
cember 31, 1862, and was honorably discharged, November 7, 1864. His brevet 
rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious services during 
the war, and especially at the battle of Jonesboro', Georgia." 

Samuel R. Mott was commissioned Captain in the Fifty-Seventh Ohio, 

October 20, 1861 ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, April 16, 1863, and 

Colonel, August 10, 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment. His bre- 
vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Eeuben Delavan Mussey is the son of E. D. Mussey, the well-known sur. 
geon Avho in his day stood at the head of his profession in America. He was 
born May 30^ 1833, at Hanover, New Hampshire. He graduated at Dartmouth 
College in 1854, after which he became a teacher for a short time. He went to 
Cincinnati in 1856, and was connected with the Cincinnati Gazette. He 



970 Ohio in the Wae. 

retm'ned to New England in the autumn of the same year and became con- 
nected with the Boston Courier and Bee. In the spring of 1858 he again took 
a position on the Cincinnati Gazette. During the political campaign of 1860 he 
took an active part as a public speaker, and was also commandant of tlie "Wide 
Awake" organization in Cincinnati. In the spring of 1861, being on a visit to 
"Washington City, he aided in the organization of the " Clay Guards " for the 
defense of the Capital after the fall of Sumter and until the arrival of troops 
from New York. He at once received an appointment as Captain in the Nine- 
teenth United States Infantry, and was ordered on recruiting duty until Octo- 
ber, 1861, when he went into the field in Kentucky with companies A and B of 
his regiment. He served in the Department of the Ohio until November, 1862, 
when he was ordered on recruiting duty in Cleveland. In the following spring 
he rejoined the army at Murfreesboro', and was appointed Commissary of Mus- 
ters of the Twenty-First Army Corps. In September, 1863, he was sent from 
Chattanooga to Nashville to assist in the organization of negro troops ; first as 
mustering oflEicer under Major George L. Stearns, and afterward as the ofiicer in 
charge of the whole matter of the organization of colored troops in East and 
Middle Tennessee, which command he retained until March 1, 1865. In June, 
1864, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundredth Eegiment of colored 
troops, which was the first regiment of that class openly enlisted in Kentucky. 
During his command he organized about ten thousand troops. Daring his stay 
at Nashville he wrote the following letter to the Mayor of that city, in response 
to an invitation to take part in a Fourth of July celebration. His troops were 
not invited, but the commanders of white troops were requested to parade with 
their commands. 

" Head-Quakters Commanding OKOANizATioiir U. S. Coloked Troops,") 

" Nashville, July 3, 1864. ) 

"Mr. W. S. Cheatham, Chairman Committee, etc.: 

" Sir : I have the honor to acknowledge an invitation for 'the pleasure of my company at the 
celebration of our National anniversary on the ensuing Fourth of July at Fort Gillene, on Jef- 
ferson Street extended,' 

"The invitation was dated June 30th. I answer it at this late moment because I have been 
disposed to give you all possible opportunity to invite also the troops with whose organigation I 
liave been connected, and who to-day form the largest portion numerically of the forces at Nash- 
ville. Your committee has seen fit to omit them from its invitation to parade. With that omit- 
ted portion you know I am connected ; the title by which you addressed me comes from my con- 
nection with them. As these troops are orderly, present a good appearance, and are, considering 
their opportunities, well drilled, your conduct in omitting them and inviting me, who am nothing 
but by virtue of my connection with them, either is studiedly insulting or betrays a lamentably 
limited experience of honorable sensibilities. I can not, sir, accept any invitation to a military 
display where other Colonels march their troops, while mine are excluded. 

"The Declaration of Independence, whose formal adoption makes the Fourth of July sacred, 
affirms as an axiom, that all men are created equal, and until you, sir, and your committee learn 
this fundamental truth, till you can invite all the defenders of their country to participate in 
your celebration, be they black or be they white, your 'celebrations of our National anniversary' 
are mocking farces, insults to tlie illustrious dead, and blasphemy to Him who hath made ' of one 
blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.' I do not think my presence 
would be ' pleasurable ' to you ; I know yours would not be to me, so long as you make distinc- 
tions between the defenders of their country, which are alike discreditable to your humanity, 
your patriotism, and your Christianity ; distinctions which show that you do not know the letter 



Xeff — Nettleton. 977 

nor comprehend the spirit of the document whose ratification you propose to celebrate ; or, that 
knowing and comprehending both letter and spirit, you designedly ignore the one and violate the 
other. I am, sir, your obedient servant, R. D. MUSSEY, 

" Colonel 100th U. S. Colored Inf 't., Comd'g Org. U. S. C. T." 

At the time of the assassination of President Lincoln he was in Washing- 
ton, making arrangements with the Secretary of War for the relief of the wants 
of the freeclmen in Tennessee. At the request of Mr. Johnson he remained as 
his confidential secretary until the following November, when he resigned, 
partly to settle some unfinished military business in Tennessee, and partly 
because of dissatisfiiction with the tendencies of Mr. Johnson's policy. In De- 
cember of the same year he resigned his position in the ai*my, at which time he 
was holding the rank of Captain and Brevet Colonel United States army, and 
Colonel and Brevet Brigadier-General of volunteers. He afterward settled in 
Washington, and went into the practice of the law. General Mussey is said by 
Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas to have been the first regular officer who 
asked permission to raise negro troops. He submitted to the War Department, 
in the winter of 1862-63, a plan therefor, the essential feature of which — raising 
them, not as State, but as United States troops — was adopted by the Govern- 
ment. 

George W. Nefp was born in Cincinnati January 5, 1833. He was the 
youngest son of George W. 'Neff, who settled in Cincinnati in 1824. He received 
his education in the old Cincinnati and Woodward colleges, and, after the death 
of his father in 1850, he became a partner with his brother in business. He 
was one of the original members of the "Eover Guards," a much-admired mili- 
tary company, which was among the first to volunteer under the call of the 
President. In April, 1861, after a few days' service as commandant of Camp 
Harrison, near Cincinnati, he organized the Second Kentucky Infantiy (com- 
posed almost exclusively of Ohio troops), and was commissioned Lieutenant- 
Colonel. With this regiment he served in West Virginia but a few days, until 
he was captured at the battle of Scarry Creek July 17, 1861. From this cap- 
tivity he was not released until in August of the following year, having, in the 
meantime, suffered terrible hardships in bad treatment and starvation at Eich- 
mond, Charleston, South Carolina (where Colonels Neff, Wilcox, Corcoran, 
Woodruff, and Major Potter, were thrust into cells in the county jail, four feet 
square, as hostages for the pirates captured by our navy); Columbia, Eich- 
mond again, Salisbury, North Carolina; and Belle Isle. Soon after being 
exchanged, and while at home in Cincinnati on leave of absence, Ivirb}' Smith's 
raid was made, and Colonel ISTeff volunteered his services to General AYallace 
and served on his staff. He was afterward assigned to the command of Camp 
Dennison, where he had the opportunity of defending the place against John 
Morgan. He was commissioned Colonel of the Eighty-Eighth Ohio Infantry 
July 29, 1863, and was mustered out with his regiment July 3, 1865. His bre- 
vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

A. B. Nettleton entered the Second Ohio Cavalry as Captain May 10, 
Vol. L— 62. 



978 Ohio in the War. 

1862; was promoted to Major June 25, 1863; to Lieutenant-Colonel November 
4, 1864, and to Colonel April 22, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 
13, 1865. 

Edward Follensbee Notes was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, October 
3, 1832. His parents having both died in his infancy, at the age of thirteen 
years he was apprenticed by his guardian as a printer-boy in the office of the 
Morning Star, a religious newspaper published at Dover, New Hampshire. In 
this position he remained four and a half years, and then began preparing for 
college, at Kingston Academy, Eockingham County, New Hampshire. He 
entered Dartmouth College in 1853, and four years after he graduated, ranking 
fourth in a class numbering fifty-seven. He immediately removed to Cincinnati, 
and studied law with M. E. Curwen, Esq., graduating in the Cincinnati Law 
School in 1858. The same year he began the practice of law, and was in the 
successful prosecution of his profession at the breaking out of the rebellion. 
On the 8th of July, 1861, his law office was changed to recruiting head-quarters, 
and in less than one month a full regiment was raised and ready for the field. 
Of this regiment (the Thirty -Ninth Ohio Infantry) he was commissioned Major, 
to rank from July 27, 1861. In this rank he continued with the command 
during all its marches in Missouri, and under General Pope during the advance 
upon and final capture of New Madrid and Island No 10. Still under Pope's 
command, he took part in all the skirmishes and engagements of General Hal- 
leck's left wing in front of Corinth, and on the heights of Farmington. Upon 
the resignation of Colonel Groesbeck, and the promotion of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Gilbert, he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel July 8, 1862, and in this rank 
took part under General Rosecrans in the battle of luka September 19, 1862, 
and in the bloody engagements at Corinth October 3d and 4th. On the 1st of 
October, 1862, he was commissioned Colonel, vice Gilbert resigned, and in De- 
cember following he commanded the regiment in the battle of Parker's Cross 
Eoads, where the Rebel forces under General Forrest were defeated with great 
loss. From this time until the beginning of the Atlanta campaign, he com- 
manded his regiment in its various movements and its garrison -duty at Cor- 
inth, Memphis, and its bridge building on the railroad in Middle Tennessee. 

While engaged in this latter duty at Prospect, Tennessee, the subject of 
veteran re-enlistment began to engage the attention of the troops. Colonel 
Noyes, with a quick perception of its necessity, threw the whole weight of his 
influence into the work of re-enlisting his regiment. He was so earnest in the 
matter, and so industriously advocated it that he fully aroused the spirit of his 
excellent regiment, and as a result the Thirty -Ninth Ohio gave to the country a 
much larger number of veterans than any other Ohio regiment. His zeal had 
its effect also on other officers in the command, and was doubtless instrumental 
in rendering the veteran movement so popular in General Dodge's district. In 
the Atlanta campaign he took part until July 4, 1864, being in the engage- 
ments at Resaca, May 9th, 14th, 15th, and 16th ; at Dallas, and at Kenesaw Mount- 
ain. On the 4th of July, while in command of an assault on the enemy's works 



O'Dowd-Parky. 979 

near Euff's Mills, on Nicojack Creek, he received a wound which resulted in 
the loss of a leg. This compelled him to relinquish for the first time his active 
connection with his command. After having partially recovered from two am- 
putations, and while yet on crutches, he reported for duty to Genei*al Hooker, 
and was by him assigned to the command of Camp Dennison, where he remained 
until April 22, 1865, when he resigned to accept the position of attorney (city 
solicitor) for the city of Cincinnati, an oflSce to which he had been elected while 
absent in the army. In October, 1866, he was elected Probate Judge of Hamil- 
ton County on the Rejjublican ticket. Colonel JS'oyes was with his regiment 
on every march, and in every battle and skirmish in which the command was 
engaged from the time of entering the service, in July, 1861, until he lost a leg 
in battle, July 4, 1864. That he had the love and respect of his men is evident 
from the fact already stated that he induced so many of them to re-enlist. He 
enjoyed the confidence of his superior oflScers, as is shown by the warm recom- 
mendations he received for promotion from Generals John Pope, "W. S. Eose- 
crans, D. S. Stanley, G. M. Dodge, and W. T. Sherman. The latter says : " I 
was close by when Colonel Noyes was shot. We were pressing Johnston's army 
back from Marietta when he made a stand at Smyrna camp ground, and I 
ordered his position to be attacked. It was done successfull}' at some loss, and 
Colonel i^oyes lost his leg. He full}'- merits this honorable title." Colonel 
Noyes was a strict disciplinarian, and it was said of him that he in some way 
managed to have a greater number of men "jDresent for duty" than any other 
equal regiment in the command. Yet he was impartial and uniformly kind to 
all who were disposed to do their duty. While he insisted upon being implicitly 
obeyed by his subordinates, he was always ready to obey without questioning 
the commands of his superiors, and he had the satisfaction of knowing, when 
the war was over, that his regiment never turned their backs to the enemy in 
any battle or skirmish from first to last. 

Having been recommended for promotion to the full rank of Brigadier- 
General before he was wounded, he received, after he was disabled for active 
service, a commission as Brevet Brigadier-Genei-al, to date from March 13, 1865. 

John O'Dowd entered the Tenth Ohio as Captain April 19, 1861. He 
remained in the regiment until July 13, 1862, when he resigned. In October, 

1864, he aided in organizing the One Hundred and Eighty-First Ohio, and was 
appointed Colonel October 15, 1864. He was honorablj^ discharged May 27, 

1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant conduct in the 
defense of Murfreesboro', Tennessee, at the attack of General Hood's forces dur- 
ing the siege of Kashville, and for highly meritorious services during the war." 

Augustus C. Parry was of English parentage, but was born at Trenton, 
New Jersey, in 1828. He removed with his parents to Cincinnati when quite 
young, and soon after was left an orphan. He was apprenticed b\"his guardian, 
Dr. Enimert, to learn the trade of a tinner, and afterward established himself in 
that business, in which he was engaged when the war began. He entered the 
service April 16, 1861, as Major of the Second Ohio Infantry, and was at once 



980 Ohio in the Wak. 

ordered to Washington City. At the battle of Bull Eun he was placed in com- 
mand of his regiment early in the action, and on the retreat of the army he 
repelled the attacks of the enemy's cavalry. On the 30th of July, 1861, he 
returned to Ohio, and on reaching Cincinnati in command of his troops, received 
such a welcome as the overflowing patriotism of the people promj^ted. It was 
estimated that one hundred thousand people took part in the reception exer- 
cises. On August 23, 1861, he was commissioned Major of the Forty -Seventh 
Ohio Infantry, and before the close of the month he again entered the field in 
West Virginia, joining the command of General Eosecrans. He participated in 
the battle of Carnifex Ferry, and afterward, in the fall and winter of 1861-62, 
was engaged in a number of minor engagements and reconnoissances in the 
vicinity of Cotton and Sewall Mountains. In August, 1862, he was promoted 
to Lieutenant-Colonel. In September following he was sent to dislodge the 
enemy from Cotton Mountain, and to relieve the garrison at Faj^ette C. II., 
which was successfully done. The troops at Fayette C. H. were enabled to join 
the main body in the retreat down the Kanawha. During this retreat Colonel 
Parry had charge ©f the rear-guard nearly all the time, and successfully checked 
the advance of the enemy until the stores were all secured or burned. At 
Charleston he maintained his position in the front line for six hours against a 
superior force. 

In January, 1863, he was promoted to Colonel. The regiment was then 
transferred to Vicksburg, where Colonel Parry's practical abilities were of much 
benefit to the command. At one time, having been called on by Ceneral Stuart 
for a plan of a bridge across a break in a levee, he submitted one, according to 
which he built a bridge in fourteen hours, on which the troops crossed. During 
the advance via Port Gibson to the rear of Vicksburg he was temporarily in 
command of a brigade in the absence of General Ewing. In the assaults on 
the works at Vicksburg on the 19th and 22d of May. Colonel Parry took a 
prominent part, being in the advance line. In the fall of 1863 he marched 
with his command to Chattanooga, where he took part in the battle of Mission 
Eidge and in the pursuit of Bragg. He also moved to Knoxville to the relief 
of the forces there, and subsequently returned to Larkinsville, Alabama, where 
the regiment went into winter-quarters. At this place Colonel Parry took com- 
mand of the brigade, and subsequently was appointed temjDorarily to the com- 
mand of the Second Division, Fifteenth Army Corps. He went with his 
regiment in the Atlanta Campaign, in 1864, through the battles of Eesaca, 
Dallas, and Kenesaw Mountain. At the latter place he was severely wounded, 
but recovered in time to go on the march to the sea. He was the first field offi- 
cer who entered the enemj^'s works at the storming ot Fort McAllister by Gen- 
eral Hazen's division. He was brevetted Brigadier-Geaeral, to date from March 
13, 1865. 

In the fall of 1865 he was elected Treasurer of Hamilton County, on the 
Republican ticket, and had been engaged but a few days in the duties of his 
office, when he died, December, 1866, of consumption. 



Pardee— Raynoe. 981 

Don a. Pardee was commissioned Major of the Forty-Second Ohio, Sep- 
tember 5, 1861 ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel March 14, 1862, and was 
mustered out October 26, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Oliver H. Payne was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and 
Twentj'-Fourth Ohio January 1, 1863. He was wounded at the battle of Chick- 
amauga, and resigned November 1, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 
13, 1865. 

John S. Pearce was commissioned Major of the Ninety-Eighth Ohio, 
August 13, 1862 ; was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel October 7, 1862, and to 
Colonel November 5, 1863. He was mustered out with his regiment June 3, 
1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

William S. Pierson was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the One 
Hundred and Twenty -Eighth Ohio, August 25, 1863. This regiment was en- 
gaged in guard-duty at Johnson's Island, Ohio. Colonel Pierson resigned July 
15, 1864. His bi'evet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Orlando M. Poe, a native of Ohio, and then a young Lieutenant of Engi- 
neers, six years out of West Point, was the first regular officer from Ohio to 
oifer his services to Governor Dennison. He was sent to make some examina- 
tions as to the defensibility of sundry exposed points along the Ohio Eiver, and 
was then assigned to engineer duty on General McCIellan's staff. After some 
West Virginia and Eastern service, he was sent to the Western armies in the 
same capacity, and hj the close of the Atlanta Campaign he had risen to be the 
Chief Engineer to General Sherman. He was repeatedly offered a Brigadier- 
General's command, but he preferred his engineer's position, and remained in it 
to the end, maintaining a high place in the confidence of Sherman, the Engineer 
Corps, and the Government. He was made a Brevet Brigadier-General in the 
regular army, and a Brigadier-General of volunteers. He rose, by the close of 
the war, to be next to the ranking Captain of his corps, standing just below 
Godfrey M. Weitzel. 

Eugene Powell was commissioned Major of the Sixty-Sixth Ohio, October 
22, 1861, having previously served in the Fourth Ohio; Avas promoted to 
Lieutenant-Colonel, May 24, 1862. He was discharged to accept the Colonelcy 
of the One Hundred and Ninety-Third Ohio, his commission being dated April 
25, 1865. He was mustered out with his regiment August 4, 1865. His brevet 
rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Pt. W. Eatliff was commissioned Colonel of the Twelfth Ohio Cavalry 
November 24, 1863; was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank 
dates from March 13, 1865, " for gallant and meritorious services under Generals 
Burbridge and Stoneman in South-west Virginia. " 

W. H. Eaynor was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifty-Sixth 
Ohio,- September 28, 1861; was promoted to Colonel April 2, 1863. He was 
mustered out with his reo-iment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 



982 Ohio in the Wak. 



Americus Y. Eice entered the service April 27, 1861, as Captain of the > 
Twenty-First Ohio Infantry in the three-months' service, was mustered out Au- 
gust 12, 1861, by reason of expiration of term of service. September 2, 1861, 
commissioned Captain of the Fifty-Seventh Ohio Infantry, it having just began 
its organization. February 8, 1862, was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and 
April 16, 1863, to Colonel of the regiment. His brevet rank dates from May 
31, 1865. 

Orlando C. Risdon was commissioned First-Lieutenant of the Forty-Sec- 
ond Ohio, October 7, 1861, but was afterward appointed Colonel of the Fifty- 
Third United States Colored Infantry. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 
1865, for "gallant and meritorious services in the battles of Rich Mountain, 
Middle Creek, Tazeville, Arkansas Post, Chickasaw, Port Gibson, Champion 
Hills, Big Black Bridge, and the siege of Yicksburg." 

TH03IAS W. Sanderson was appointed Major of the Tenth Ohio Cavalry, 
January 15, 1863; was promoted to Lieutenant -Colonel April 20, 1864, and to 
Colonel January 30, 1865, and was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet 
rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Franklin Sawyer entered the Eighth Ohio Infantry as Captain, April 20, 
1861 ; he was promoted to Major July 8, 1861 ; to Lieutenant-Colonel Novem- 
ber 25, 1861, and was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates 
from March 13, 1865. 

Lionel A. Sheldon was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty-Second 
Ohio, September 6, 1861 ; was promoted to Colonel March 14, 1862, and mus- 
tered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Thomas C. H. Smith entered the service August 23, 1861, as Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the First Ohio Cavahy. Was promoted to Colonel December 31, 
1862. This promotion was revoked, as he had been appointed Brigadier-Gen- 
eral by the President, November 29, 1862. He served on the staff of Major- 
General John Pope, sharing the varied fortunes of that officer till sometime 
after the close of the war, when he was mustered out of the service. 

G. W. Shurtlipp entered the Seventh Ohio Three Months' Regiment as 
Captain, April 22, 1861, and resigned March 18, 1863. He was afterward ap- 
pointed Colonel of the Fifth Regiment United States Colored Troops. His bre- 
vet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Patrick Slevin was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hun- 
dredth Ohio, August 8, 1862; was promoted to Colonel, May 13, 1863, and 
was honorably discharged, November 30, 1864. His brevet rank dates from 
March 13, 1865. 

Benjamin F. Smith was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and 
Twenty-Sixth Ohio, September 10, 1862, having previously served as Colonel 
of the First Ohio ; was mustered out with his regiment, June 25, 1865. He 
was an officer of the regular army, and a fine disciplinarian. 



Slocum— Steadman. 983 

WiLLARD Slocum entered the Twenty-Third Ohio June 1, 1861, as Cap- 
tain, and resigned July 17 following. He was appointed First-Lieutenant of 
the One Hundred and Twentieth Ohio August 25, 1862; promoted to Major 
February 18, 1863, and to Lieutenant-Colonel September 8, 1863. He was 
mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Orland Smith was appointed Colonel of the Seventy-Third Ohio October 
3, 1861. He resigned, February 17, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 
13, 1865. He was, both before and since his military service, connected with 
the Marietta and Cincinnati Eailroad. 

Orlow Smith entered the service as a Captain of the Sixty-Fifth Ohio 
November 25, 1861 ; was promoted to Major September 23, 1863 ; to Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel October 10, 1865, and to Colonel November 24, 1865. He was 
mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

JoAB A. Stafford served in the First Ohio Infantry from the beginning 
of its organization as a three months' regiment, and was mustered out as Major 
in 1864. He was commissioned Colonel of the One Hundred and Seventy- 
Eighth Ohio September 26, 1864. He was mustered out after the discharge of 
the regiment in June, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Anson Stager served as additional aid-de-camp, reaching the rank of 
Colonel. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. He is the Superintend- 
ent of the Great "Western Union Telegraph Company, and through the war 
was the superintendent of military telegraphs. His relations were necessarily 
of the most confidential nature with the President, the Secretary' of War, and 
the General-in-Chief His thorough knowledge of telegraphing, his earnest- 
ness, prudence, and devotion, made his services in this capacity invaluable; and 
his brevet rank is due to the high estimate placed upon them by the leading 
officers of the Administration. He was in the war from the very first, having 
accompanied General McClellan to the field in the first West Yii-ginia cam- 
paign. He resides in Cleveland. 

Timothy 11. Stanley was Colonel of the Eighteenth Ohio in the three 
months' service, his commission bearing date May 29, 1861. He was re-com- 
missioned Colonel of the same regiment in the three years' service, August 6, 
1861. He was mustered out November 9, 1864. His brevet rank dates from 
March 13, 1865. He is an influential politician of the Eepublican party in his 
district, and has represented it in the State Senate. 

William Steadman was commissioned Major of the Sixth Ohio Cavalry 
October 21, 1861; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel August 3, 1863; to 
Colonel Januaiy 1, 1864; mustered out October 6, 1864. His brevet rank 
dates from March 13, 1865. General Steadman is one of the Western Eeserve 
Eadicals, and has been repeatedly required b}^ his fellow-citizens to serve them 
in the State Legislature. 



984 Ohio in the War. 

William Stough was commissioned Captain in the Ninth Ohio Cavahy ; 
was promoted to Major September 8, 1864, and to Lieutenant-Colonel October 
1, 1864. He was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from 
March 13, 1865, " for gallant and meritorious services in the battle of Fayette- 
ville, North Carolina." 

Silas A. Strickland was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fiftieth 
Ohio August 17, 1862, and was promoted to Colonel October 16 following. He 
was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from May 27, 1865. 

Edgar Sowers was commissioned Captain in the One Hundred and Eigh- 
teenth Ohio August 13, 1862; was promoted to Major October 12, 1864; to 
Lieutenant-Colonel January 6, 1865, and to Colonel June 20, 1865. He was 
mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Peter J. Sullivan was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Forty- 
Eighth Ohio November 23, 1861, and was promoted to Colonel January 23, 
1862. He resigned August 7, 1863. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Jacob E. Taylor was commissioned Captain of the Thirtieth Ohio Au- 
gust 22, 1861 ; was promoted to Major of the Fortieth Ohio October 29, 1861 ; 
then to Lieutenant-Colonel; and, on February 5, 1863, to Colonel, and was mus- 
tered out October 7, 1864. On the 4th of March, 1865, he was commissioned 
Colonel of the One Hundred and Eighty -Eighth Ohio, with which he served 
till September, 1865, when he was mustered out. His brevet rank dates from 
March 13, 1865. 

Thomas T. Taylor was commissioned Captain of the Forty-Seventh Ohio 
August 28, 1861 ; was promoted to Major December 30, 1862 ; to Lieutenant- 
Colonel June 15, 1865, and to Colonel August 10, 1865. His brevet rank dates 
from March 13, 1865. 

David Thompson was commissioned Captain in the Eightj^-Second Ohio 
November 14, 1861; was promoted to Major April 9. 1862; to Lieutenant- Col- 
onel August 29, 1862. He was afterward appointed Brevet Colonel, and was 
mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank as Brigadier-Greneral dates 
from March 13, 1865. 

John A. Turley, of Portsmouth, Ohio, was commissioned Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the Twenty-Second Ohio April 23, 1861. Ho served with this regi- 
ment till the close of the three months' servie. He was appointed Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the Eighty-First Ohio August 19, 1861, but resigned December 1st 
of the same year. He was appointed Colonel of the Ninety-First Ohio August 
22, 1862, with which regiment he served until November 4, 1864, when he 
was discharged on account of wounds received in action near Lynchburg, June 
17, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and faithful 
services at the battle of Cloyd's Mountain, Yirginia." 

Lewis Von Blessingh served as Captain in the Fourteenth Ohio in the 



Von Schraeder— Wakd. 985 

three months' service. He was commissioned Captain in the Thirtj'-Seventh 
Ohio September 6, 1861 ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel October 2, 1861, 
and was mustered out with his regiment. His brevet rank dates from March 
13. 1865. 

Alexander Yon Schraeder was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the 
Seventy-Fourth Ohio December 10, 1861. He Avas appointed Colonel May 16, 
1863, but he declined promotion. He resigned April 8, 1865. He was appointed 
Major and Assistant Adjutant-General February 1, 1865, which position he held 
until after the close of the war. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, 
"for gallant and meritorious conduct at the battles of Stone River, Chicka- 
mauga, during the Atlanta campaign, and particularly for the battle of Jones- 
boro'." He was a German of military education, soldierly disposition, and 
noble birth. In this country, however, he had been reduced to great povertj-, 
and had for some time before the outbreak of the war earned his livelihood as 
the conductor of a car on one of the street-railroads of Cincinnati. He died 
some time after the close of the war. 

DuRBiN Ward was born at Augusta, Kentuckj^, February 11, 1819. His 
father served in the war of 1812, and was under the flag which furnished the 
occasion for Kej-'s poem, " The Star-Spangled Banner." His grandfather (his 
mother's father) also served in the same war, with the Kentuck}^ troops who 
fought in the North-west. In 1823 his his father removed to Fayette County, 
Indiana, where Durbin received a limited common school education. He after- 
ward spent two years at Miami University, supported by his own exertions, but 
left the institution without graduating. He then took up the study of the law 
at Lebanon, Ohio, first with Judge Smith, and afterward with Governor Corwin, 
with whom he formed a partnership in 1843. In 1845 he was elected Proseeu- 
ting-Attorney of Warren County, an oflSce to which he was re-elected succes- 
sively for six 5'ears. He was a member of the Legislature in 1851-52. In 1855 
he gave up his ancient Whig faith, and united with the Democratic part}'. He 
was a bitter opponent of "Know-Nothingism." In 1856 he was defeated as' a 
candidate for Congress, and in 1858 he was again defeated as a candidate for 
the office of Attorney-General of the State on the Democratic ticket. At the 
Charleston and Baltimore Conventions, of which he was a member, he was a 
firm adherent to Douglas, whose doctrine of popular sovereignty Mr. Ward sup- 
ported in a pamphlet published in the fall of 1860. 

Durbin Ward claims to have been the first volunteer in his district, having 
begun to raise a company before President Lincoln's proclamation, in the belief 
that war would ensue upon the attack on Fort Sumter. He served through the 
three months' service as a private in the Twelfth Ohio, though during a portion 
of the time he was detailed as a member of the staif of General Schleich. At 
the end of his three months' term he was appointed Major of the Seventeenth 
Ohio, Avith which, in October, 1861, he took the field in Southern Kentuck}-. 
He participated in the battles of Wild Cat, Mill Springs, Corinth, Perryville, 
Stone Eiver, Hoover's Gap, Tullahoma, Chickamauga, and throughout the 



986 Ohio in the War. 

Atlanta campaign, during which he commanded his regiment with his left arm 
in a sling, from the effect of the very severe wound he received at the battle of 
Chickamauga. Having accidentally injured this arm at the close of that cam- 
paign and fearing the effect upon it of Sherman's march to the sea, he resigned 
ISTovember 8, 1864. Nevertheless he remained at Nashville when Hood threat- 
ened it, and acted as volunteer aid on the staff of General Schofield. He was 
promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in February, 1863, and to Colonel the following 
November. His brevet rank dates from October 18, 1865, "for gallant and 
meritorious conduct at the battle of Chickamauga." 

After the war he opened an office in Washington City for the prosecution 
of claims. Being a supporter of the policy of President Johnson he took part 
in the National Union Convention at Philadelphia, and the Soldiers' Convention 
at Cleveland in 1866. He was placed in nomination for Congress in the Third 
Ohio District against General Schenck, but was defeated. On October 18, 1866, 
he received the appointment of District-Attorney for the Southern District of 
Ohio. He was married November 27th of the same year to Miss Elizabeth 
Probasco. Throughout his military career he was a bold, zealous, fighting 
officer, having the full confidence of his men. In political action he then sym- 
pathized with the Union party; and some of the most fervid and effective 
addresses from the army to the voters at home came from his pen. His belief 
in the intellectual inferiority of the negro race, and his hostility to negro suf- 
frage, had much to do with his return to the Democratic party after the close 
of the war. 

Darius B. Warner was commissioned Major of the One Hundred and Thir- 
teenth Ohio September 8, 1862; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel April 
29, 1863, and to Colonel February 23, 1865. He resigned June 6, 1865. His 
brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for gallant and meritorious services at 
the battle of Kenesaw Mountain." 

George E. Welles was commissioned First-Lieutenant of the Sixty-Eighth 
Ohio October 29, 1861; was promoted to Major July 5, 1862; to Lieutenant- 
Colonel May 16, 1863, and to Colonel January 16, 1865. He was mustered out 
with the regiment July 10, 1865. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Henry E. West entered the service October 3, 1861, as Second-Lieutenant 
in the Sixty-Second Ohio Infantry. He was promoted to First-Lieutenant De- 
cember 18, 1861; to Captain September 18, 1862; to Lieutenant-Colonel October 
16, 1864 ; to Colonel April, 1865, and finally to Brevet Brigadier-General. He 
has participated in the following engagements: Winchester, March 23. 1S62; 
Port Eepublic, Fort Wagner, Port Waltham Junction, Deep Eun, Deep Bottom, 
New Market Eoad, Darbytown Eoad, and Petersburg. He received three 
wounds — one at Fort Wagner, one at Deep Eun, and one at Eice's Station. He 
was mustered out of the service on the 15th of December, 1865. 

Horatio N. Whitbeck was commissioned Captain of the Sixty-Fifth Ohio 
November 2, 1861; was promoted to Major October 7, 1862; and to Lieuten- 



White-Wood. 987 

ant-Colonel March 22, 1863. He resigned August 16, 1865. His brevet rank 
dates from March 13, 1865. 

Carr B. White was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twelfth Ohio 
June 28, 1861, and was promoted to Colonel Septeinber 10th following. He was 
mustered out July 11, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865, "for 
gallant and faithful services at the battle of Cloyd's Mountain, Yirginia." 

James A. Wilcox was born at Columbus, September 23, 1828. He is the 
son of P. B. Wilcox, Esq., for many years a distinguished lawyer in Ohio. He 
graduated at Yale College and commenced the practice of law at Columbus in 
1852. In September, 1862, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and 
Thirteenth Ohio Infantry. In the following December he took the regiment to 
Kentucky, and for some time was engaged in guarding the bridges over Big Run 
and Sulphur Fork, on the Louisville and Nashville Eailroad. In February, 
1863, the regiment moved to IvTashville, and thence to Franklin, where it con- 
stituted a part of the reserve of the Army of the Cumberland. In April, 1863, 
Colonel Wilcox, on account of domestic affliction and impaired health, was com- 
pelled to resign and return home. In May, 1863, he was appointed Provost- 
Marshal of the Seventh District of Ohio; in which capacity he served until 
September 3, 1864, when he was made, by the War Department, Acting Assist- 
ant Provost-Marshal General, Chief Mustering Officer, and Superintendent of 
Recruiting for Ohio, and, when General Cox took his seat as Governor of the 
State, he was assigned to the command of the District of Ohio. On the 19th of 
October, 1865, Colonel Wilcox was brevetted Brigadier-General "for meritorious 
services in the recruitment of the armies of the United States." 

Aquila Wiley was a Captain in the Sixteenth Ohio in the three montlis' 
service; was commissioned Captain of the Foi'ty-First Ohio September 19, 1861; 
he was promoted to Major March 1, 1862 ; to Lieutenant-Colonel November 20, 
1862, and to Colonel November 29 following. He was honorably discharged 
June 7, 1864. His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865 "for gallant and meri- 
torious services at the battles of Mission Ridge, Stone River, Chickamauga, and 
Chattanooga, and faithful services during the war." 

William T. Wilson was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fifteenth 
Ohio August 6, 1861, and resigned August 11, 1862. On the 26th of September, 
1862, he was appointed Colonel of the One Hundred and Twenty-Third Oliio, 
with which regiment he served until it was mustered out June 12, 1865. His 
brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. 

Oliver Wood served during the three months' service as First-Lieutenant 
in the Twentj'-Second Ohio; entered the same regiment in the three years' 
service as Captain August 21, 1861; was promoted to Major May 9, 1862, and to 
Colonel September 22, 1862. After the expiration of the term of service of the 
regiment heserved as Colonel of the Fourth United States Veteran Volunteers 
His brevet rank dates from March 13, 1865. • 



988 Ohio in the Wak. 

Thomas L. Young was born on the 14th of December, 1832, near Belfast, in 
north of Ii-eland. He came to this country when very young, received a com- 
mon school education, and was graduated at the law school of the Cincinnati 
College. When not quite sixteen years of age he entered the United States 
regular armj^ during the last year of the Mexican War. During his ten j^ears 
service in the armj^ — five years of which time he was Orderly Sergeant of com- 
pany "A," Third Regiment of Artillery, commanded most of that period by 
Captain and Brevet Major John F. Reynolds (afterward Major-General com- 
manding the First and Second Corps, and killed at Gettysburg) — he was con- 
nected with an exploring expedition through the Western Territories of Kansas, 
Nebraska, Montana, Utah, Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona, and served several 
years on the frontiers among the Indians. Becoming tired of the aimless life of 
a soldier in time of peace, he returned to Pennsylvania and engaged in mercan- 
tile pursuits until 1859, when he removed to Cincinnati, and was soon afterward 
appointed Assistant Superintendent of the House of Refuge Reform School, 
which position he held until the breaking out of the late rebellion. 

Mr. Young claims to have been the first volunteer from Hamilton County, 
as on the 18th of March, 1861, twenty-five days before the Rebels fired on Fort 
Sumter, foreseeing the inevitable result of the state of feeling between the people 
of the North and the leaders of the South, he wrote a letter vohinteering his 
military services as an assistant to help organize the volunteer forces, to Lieu- 
tenant-General Winfield Scott, to whom he was personally known ; and to which 
letter he received the following replj^, in the handwriting of the old chieftain : 

"Head-Quarters of the Army, i 
"Washington, March 22, 1861. | 
"Dear Sir: I have received your friendly patriotic note of the 18th inst. • I appreciate the 
sentiments of your communication which are worthy of a faithful old soldier, but I sincerely 
trust that no occasion may arise to require your military services. Peace is the interest of all 
our countrymen, and it is my prayer that peace may be preserved. 

"I remain your friend and fellow-citizen, 
"Thomas L. Young, Esq., Cincinnati, Ohio. WINFIELD SCOTT." 

On the 18th of April Mr. Young assisted in the organization of a volunteer 
comjDan}^ of Home-Guards, and drilled it, but as a companj- it never went into 
service. In August, 1861. he received the appointment of Captain in Fremont's 
Bodj'^-Guard, and served in it until about the 1st of January, 1862, when the 
organization was disbanded by General Halleck. Returning from Missouri, in- 
censed at the Administration for removing General Fremont in whose honesty 
of purpose and military genius Mr. Young had at that time great confidence, he 
became the editor of a Democratic paper at Sidney, Ohio, and while he opjDosed 
many of the acts of the Administration, and condemned the weak-kneed policj^ 
then pursued toward the Rebels, he never swerved nor faltered in advocating 
a vigorous prosecution of the war. He had been identified with the Democratic 
party from the time he was old enough to have political oj^inions until the fall 
of 1862, when he considered that the Democracy ignored their principles, and 
took a stand against the country, he then united with the Union party. 

In August, 1862, he*again volunteered and was appointed Captain to recruit 



Zahm— Zeiglek. 989 

a company for the One Hundred and Eighteenth Eegiment, and in the organi- 
zation of the regiment he was its first Major. While holding this rank he was 
detached to act as provost-marshal at several points in Kentucky, where his 
name was held in fear and detestation by the Eebels and their sympathizers. 
In February, 1863, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. The Colonel of his 
regiment being in command of a brigade, Lieutenant-Colonel Young commanded 
the regiment through the whole campaign in East Tennessee. In April, 1864, 
his Colonel having resigned, he was commissioned Colonel and served as such 
until the 14th of September following, when he was honorably discharged for 
disability caused by disease contracted during. the Atlanta campaign. 

At the battle of Eesaca Colonel Young led the first charge on the center of 
the enemy's works, where his regiment was repulsed with great slaughter, losing 
one hundred and sixteen men out of two hundred and seventy in a few minutes. 
For this and other acts of gallantry the President, on the 13th of March, 1865, 
brevetted him Brigadier-General of volunteers. After the close of the war he 
was elected from Hamilton County to the State Legislature, where he took an 
important part especially in military legislation. In October, 1867, he was 
elected Eecorder of Hamilton County. 

Lewis Zahm was commissioned Colonel of the Third Ohio Cavalry August 
6, 1861, and was honorably discharged January 5, 1863. His brevet rank dates 
from March 13, 1865. 

George M. Zeigler was commissioned Second-Lieutenant of the Forty- 
it 
Seventh Ohio Infantry August 28, 1861; was promoted to First-Lieutenant De- 
cember 6, 1861 ; to Captain December 28, 1862 ; and to Colonel of Fifty-Second 
Eegiment United States Colored Troops December 22, 1864. His brevet rank 
dates from March 13, 1865. 



OUR HEROIC DEAD. 



COLONEL MINOR MILLIKIN. 



THUS far references to personal knowledge by the author of his sub- 
jects has been in the main avoided ; but I can not bring myself to 
write impersonally of Minor Millikin. He was my long-time friend— 
his death was the cruellest personal bereavement which the war brought to me. 
If I write of him, therefore, with a disproportionate warmth, I must beg that 
the excuse be therein found. 

Colonel Millikin was the eldest son of Major John M. Millikin, formerly a 
lawyer of Hamilton, and long known as the President of the State Board of 
Agriculture, and one of the foremost among that body of retired professional men 
of wealth and culture who adorn the vocation of Ohio farmers. Minor was 
bom on the 9th of July, 1834. His early education was acquired in the high 
schools of Hamilton, and under the watchful eyes of his parents. In 1850 he 
was sent to Hanover College, Indiana, Avhere he passed through the course of 
study of the Freshman and Sophomore classes. In 1852 he went to Miami Uni- 
versity, and there completed his collegiate education. 

He ranked foremost among all the students then in that honored old insti- 
tution. He was not known as a remarkable scholar, nor was he ever popular. 
But there was about him an individuality so intense and so striking that 
wherever he was placed be was the center of attention. Nothing could exceed 
his personal independence, his uniform regard for the rights and feelings of 
others, his peremptory requirement that under all circumstances, in all places, 
from all persons a similar regard should be extended to his own. Professor or 
President might infringe upon them, but never without an instant and indig- 
nant protest, which proceeded upon the simple basis that he was a gentleman, 
and no college official could be more. Colleges not yet being perfection, it was 
quite natural that all this should involve him in difficulties. He was repeatedly 
brought before the Faculty, and more than once threatened with suspension or 
worse, but he never failed to maintain his position and carry his points. He 
was known as the athlete of the institution— the best jumper, foot-ball player, 
boxer, fencer, rider. He was the most nervous and original writer, and alto- 
C990) 



oX5^ HE^t i>^^^ 




MiNOE MiLLIKIN. 991 

gether the most striking debater in his society. Withal he was a ladies' man, 
I but after an independent fashion of his own that brought down upon him the 

i wrath of the respectable Doctor of Divinitj' at the head of the Female College. 
Students of Miami, of those days, still recall with amusement the revenge of the 
young Senior. He Avas the "honor orator" of his society at the winter exhi- 
bition then about to be given. The President of the Female College was in 
attendance with large numbers of his fair pupils. Thereupon the orator aban- 
doned his announced speech, took prevailing sj^stems of female education for his 

I subject, and made perfectly courteous, but all the more delicious, fun of the good 
doctor's methods for an hour, before his pupils. To these traits of Young Milli- 
kin's college life it should be added that he was an unaffectedly devout Chris- 
tian ; and that in the delicate refinement of his language and habits, and even 
in the faultless elegance of his toilet, he was more like a lad}- than the muscular 
cliampion of his class. 

He was graduated with high, though not distinguished, standing in 1854. 
He went immediately to the Harvard Law School. Here he came to be best 
known by his prominence in the exciting discussions of the slavery questions 
of the time in the Law School Moot Congress. An attempt was made by the 
Southern students to adopt the bullying tone then prevalent at Washington, and 
to break up the debates. Two young men led the firm and successful opposi- 
tion to this attemjDt. One was Geo. W. Smalley (son-in-law to Wendell Phillips), 
the other. Minor Millikin. 

The next year he returned to Cincinnati and entered the law office of his 
father's friend, Thomas Corwin. A year later he married Miss Mollyneaux, of 

[ Oxford, to whom he had been engaged while at college, and started to Euroi)e 
on a bridal tour, which was prolonged for a twelvemonth. 

On his return he purchased the Hamilton Intelligencer, the Eepublican 
organ of his native count}', and for the next two years edited it. He had never 
intended to practice his profession, but he improved the opportunities of leisure 
now afforded him to review and extend his studies. Then, disposing of his 
newspaper, he retired to his farm, near that of his father, in the vicinity of 
Hamilton, and was engaged in impi^oving it, and building, M'hen the war broke 
out. He was a young husband and a father ; he was comparatively wealthy ; 
was engaged in the pursuits most to his taste ; was less exposed to the allure- 
ments which the chances for advancement in the army offered than the most. 
But from the day on which the war was begun he gave himself up to it. 

His tastes and his superb horsemanship naturally inclined him to the cav- 
alry service. There was great difficulty at first in getting cavalry companies 
accepted, and recruiting was consequently discouraged. But he enlisted him- 
self as a private, and soon had the nucleus of a companj-. The Government 
could not be induced to furnish horses in time, and, to get the company off for the 
West Yirginia campaign, he advanced the funds to jDurchase twenty-four out of 
his own pocket. His recruits were united to Captain Burdsall's Cincinnati com- 
pany, and Millikin presently became sergeant, and then Lieutenant. He re- 
turned from the three months' campaign in West Virginia with the confidence 



992 Ohio in the War 

of his men, and the indorsement of his commanders as the best of the cavahy 
officers on dut}^ in that department. Thus recommended he was soon ap- 
pointed a Major in the first regiment ot Ohio cavahy raised for the three years' 
service. 

Here Major Millikin's old habits of personal independence and frank ex- 
pression of opinions, coupled with his unconcealed distaste of the coarse habits 
of some of his associates, bred troubles from which he escaped only a little be- 
fore his death. Of the way in which these troubles arose, this unique letter to 
his Colonel may aflPord a suggestion : 

"Colonel O. P. Eansom — Dear Sir: It is with extreme reluctance I bring myself to write 
this letter. In the beginning I beg you to believe that nothing but the strong sense of duty, too 
long smothered by a desire to avoid even a suspicion of fault-finding or disaffection, now movea 
me to its compositon. At last thoroughly convinced of the necessity of my acting on the convic- 
tions I have for weeks entertained, I shall no longer try to avoid any pain these convictions may 
bring. 

"Your habits, Colonel Eansom, your intemperate excesses, are of such a character as entirely 
to negative my faith in, and respect for your other good qualities. Since in command of this 
regiment they have oftener than twice or thrice brought all your ability into contempt, all your 
nobleness into humiliation, all your dignity into ridicule. Even while commandant of this post, 
you, my Colonel, have been so beneath and unlike yourself as to share alike the sneers of your 
inferiors and the blushes of your friends. For while your enemy has had no absolute rule over 
you, it has incapacitated you from advance and crippled all your energies. The genuine admi- 
ration which your many brilliant and attractive qualities have drawn from the officers under you 
(amounting in my own case to something like aflection), has been by your unfortunate conduct 
first checked and latterly changed into misgivings and distrust. Even the privates make you an 
excuse for conduct you would be the first to condemn, while officers of other regiments and citi- 
zens make such comments, suggest such sneers, and often ask such questions as your subalterns 
dare not answer with truth, or pass unnoticed with self-respect. Over all, I have the terrible re- 
flection (gathered from your easy yielding to temptation in camp, which I know will be a hun- 
dred-fold increased in the field), that when my reliance on your invariable self-command ought 
to be greatest, my mistrust of my superior officer will be most painful and pernicious. 

"Under the circumstances I do not consider it my duty to serve under you. I believe it 
would be unjust to you, unjust to my own character, unjust to those who love my life, unjust to 
the many lives under us, unjust to the great cause for which we fight. Either my Colonel or my 
Colonel's habits must be changed. I have only, then, to say that on any recurrence of your un- 
fortunate habit I, with other officers of the regiment, will prefer charges against you in such a 
manner as will be efi"ectual. 

"I do not fear, Colonel Eansom, that you will find any touch of unkindness or disrespect in 
this. You are too generous for that. Though far your junior in years, I have seen too much of 
life to be very self-righteous — far too much, dear sir, to feel any otherwise than charitable and for- 
giving toward your misfortune. God has been too good to me that I should put in a single shade 
of conceit or severity toward my fellows. Besides you have all my past conduct since with you 
as the best interpreter of my present words. Neither will you suspect me of any selfish or sinis- 
ter designs. I was put here without solicitation, without even knowing of my promotion, until 
it was made, and I certainly have nothing to gain or lose by anything which may happen you. 

"Your conduct toward me has always been of the kindest. I recognize in you the bearing 
of a genuine gentleman. I have not one single objection to make here to your management of 
the regiment as Colonel, and if I have, I have too much respect for strict discipline even to 
allow it expression. You must always have seen in me, sir, a strong desire to please you. I am 
glad to say here that I shall always be proud to deserve your good opinion — both as an officer 
and a man. I hope the uniform pleasant relations between us will always continue, and I par- 
ticularly hope our military relations will remain unchanged, when I consider the utter incompe- 
tency of your Lieutenant. But, Colonel, in this matter all other considerations are merged in 
one — the defect is fatal ; my duty imperative. 



MiNOK MiLLIKIN. 993 

" With many misgivings, but with a firm faith in my own honesty and your magnanimity, I 
subscribe myself, very faithfully your friend, MINOR MILLIKIN." 

If more manly and touching words were addressed by any subordinate to 
his superior during the war, I have failed to see them. 

After a time the Colonel of the regiment resigned. Minor Millikin, the junior 
Major of the regiment, was promoted to the vacant Colonelcy. The promotion 
was based upon his acknowledged merits, but it wrought him great harm. One 
of the officers over whose heads he was thus lifted was brother to the Grovernor 
of the State, another had such influential friends as presently to secure a Brig- 
adier-General's commission, all were older than himself. Dissatisfaction of 
course arose, all manner of complaints were made, officers threatened to resign 
by wholesale, and finally the charge was made that Colonel Millikin was too 
young and too ignorant of cavahy tactics to lead Ohio's fii'st cavaly regiment. 
The result was that he was ordered before a board of regular officers for exam- 
ination. Some delays ensued, but when at last the examination was held, he 
passed it triumphantly, and received the warmest compliments of the examiners. 

While the matter was pending. Colonel Millikin served on the staff of Gen- 
eral George H. Thomas, who was, throughout, his warm personal friend. 
When at last his regiment was returned to him he found it much demoralized 
by bickerings among the officers, and the general uncertainty as to its control. 
What he did with it may be elsewhere read. 

But he was not long to lead the disciplined organization he had created. 
In the battle of Stone Eiver he was sent to repel attacks of Eebel cavalry on the 
rear of the army. Seeking to protect a valuable train he ordered a charge, and 
himself lead it. The force of the enemy at that point was superior, and he 
presently found himself, with a small part of his regiment, cut off. He refused 
to surrender, and encouraged his men to cut their way out. A hand-to-hand 
encounter followed. Colonel Millikin's fine swordsmanship enabled him to pro- 
tect himself with his saber. After a contest for some minutes with several 
assailants, one of them, enraged at his obstinate resistance, shot him wnth a 
revolvei-, while he was engaged in parrying the strokes of another. The regi- 
ment charged again a few minutes later and recovered the body, but not before 
it had been stripped of sword, watch, and purse. 

Let me show something more of the character of the young hero thus 
cruelly cut off, by this sad fragment that was found among his papers. Some 
of its phrases would seem to indicate that he intended it for circulation among 
the men of his command: 

THE SOLDIER'S CREED. 

" I have enlisted in the service of my country for the term of three years, and have sworn 
faithfully to discharge my duty, uj hold the Constitution, and obey the officers over me. 

"Let me see what motives I must have had when I did this thing. It was not pleasant to 
leave my friends and my home, and, relinquishing my liberty and pleasures, bind myself to hard- 
ships and obedience for three years by a solemn oath. Why did I do it?. 

"1. I did it because I loved my country. I thought she was surrounded by traitors ana 
struck by cowardly plunderers. I thought that, having been a good Government to me and my 

Vol. 1.— 63. 



994 Ohio in the Wak. 

fathers before me, I owed it to her to defend her from all harm; so when I heard of the insults 
offered her, I rose up as if some one had struck my mother, and as a lover of my country agreed 
to fight for her. 

"2. Though I am no great reader I have heard the taunts and insults sent us working-men 
from the proud aristocrats of the South. My blood has grown hot when I heard them say labor 
was the business of slaves and 'mudsills;' that they were a noble-blooded and we a mean-spirited 
people; that they had ruled the country by their better pluck, and if we did not submit they would 
whip us by their better courage So I thought the time had come to show these inso- 
lent fellows tliat Northern institutions had the best men, and I enlisted to flog them into good 
manners and obedience to their betters. 

"3. I said, too, that this war would disturb the whole country and all its business. The 
South meant 'rule or ruin.' It has Jeff. Davis and the Southern notion of Government; we our 
old Constitution and our old liberties. I could n't see any peace or quiet until we had whipped 
them, and so I enlisted to bring back peace in the quickest way. 

"I had other reasons but these were the main ones. I enlisted and gave up home and com- 
fort and took to the tent and its hardships. I have suffered a great deal— been abused some- 
times—had my patience tried severely — been blamed wrongly by my officers — stood the carelessness 
and dishonesty of some of my comrades, and had all the trials of a volunteer soldier; but I 
never gave up, nor rebelled, nor grumbled, nor lost my temper, and I'll tell you why : 

" 1. I considered I had enlisted in a holy cause with good motives, and that I was doing my 
duty. I believe men who are doing their duty in the face of difficulties are watched over by 

God. 

" 2. I felt that I was a servant of the Government, and that as such I was too proud to quar- 
rel and complain. 

"3. I know if with such motives and such a cause I could not be faithful, that I could never 
think of myself as much of a man afterward. 

"And so I drew up a set of resolutions like this: 

"1. As my health and strength had been devoted to the Government, I would take as good 
care of them as possible— that I would be cleanly in my person and temperate in all my habits. 
I felt that to enlist for the Government and then by carelessness or drunkenness make myself 
unfit for service, would be too mean an act for me. 

"2. As the character I have assumed is a noble one, I will not disgrace it by childish quar- 
reling, by loud and foolish talking, by profane swearing, and indecent language. It struck me 
that these were the accomplishments of the ignorant and depraved on the other side, and I, for 
one, did not think them becoming a Union soldier. 

"3. As my usefulness in a great measure depends on my discipline, I am determined to keep 
my arms in good order— to keep my clothing mended and brushed, to attend all the drills, and 
do my best to master all my duties as a soldier, and make myself perfectly acquainted with all 
the evolutions and exercises, and thus feel always ready to fight— it seems to me stupid for a 
man to apprentice himself to as serious a trade as war, and then try by lying and deception to 
avoid learning anything." 

This was his own creed. How well he lived up to it let that best t3'pe of 
an American soldier, George H. Thomas, tell. After Colonel Millikin's death 
General Thomas addressed a letter to the bereaved ftither, in which are these 
words: "It affords me the most sincere pleasure to express to you and to Mrs. 
Millikin ui}' utmost confidence in him, both as a friend, and as a brave, accom- 
plished, and loyal officer— one on whose judgment and discretion I placed the 
greatest reliance. By his judicious, forbearing, and yet firm course of conduct, 
he was enabled to overcome all prejudice against him in his regiment, and his 
death is sincerely regretted by all. While mourning his loss, you have the con- 
solation of knowing that he fell a Christian and patriot, gallantly defending the 
honor of his country." 



LoKiN Andrews. 995 

I must not prolong this sketch. And yet I can not feel that I have done 
justice to the memory of my dead friend, without adding the conviction that 
by no single blow during the war did the Country lose, among her younger 
officers, one braver, more devoted, more unselfish, more cultured, purer in char- 
acter, or loftier in honorable ambition. No one on the sad lists of the Nation's 
slain seems more nearl}^ to resemble him than Theodore Winthrop. Like that 
lamented officer he was in some respects of too sensitive and peculiar an organ- 
ization for the rough ways of common life. But in the fire of our great strug- 
gle his true character shone out; and in the halo from Stone Eiver that now 
surrounds the name, none, even of his enemies, fail to do tender justice to his 
worth, or to cherish as a sacred possession the memorj^ of Minor Millikin. 



COLONEL LORIN ANDREWS. 



LOEIN ANDEEWS was one of the earliest and costliest offerings of 
Ohio to the war. He was not permitted to develop fully his military 
ability, but there was no reason to doubt, from his known character, 
and his zeal in the distinguished positions he had filled, that as a soldier he 
would have reached as high a rank as he had already w^on in civil life. 

He was born in Ashland County, Ohio, April 1, 1819. His early life was 
passed on his father's farm, and in obtaining a good common school education. 
He afterward took a collegiate course, and spent some time in common school 
teaching. He became an efficient and intelligent laborer in the cause of common 
schools in Ohio, and was prominent as a leader of the movement for inaugu- 
ratino- man}^ of the present excellent features of our common school system. He 
was the agent and "missionary" of the Ohio Teachers' Association in 1851-52. 
In 1853 he was its choice for State School Commissioner, and in 1854 he was its 
President. 

At the height of his reputation and influence in the cause of general edu- 
cation, he was chosen to the Presidency of Kenyon College. Bishop Mcllvaine, 
in his funeral sermon, said of this appointment : "The condition of the college 
demanded just the qualities for which he was so distinguished — the talent for 
administration, a verj- sound judgment, a prompt and fii-m decision, united with 
a special drawing of heart toward young men in the course of their education. 
All the highest expectations of his administration were more than 
fulfilled." 

Of his entrance into the military service, the Bishop says: "When the first 



996 Ohio in the War 

call of the President of the United States for quotas of volunteer troops from 
the several States was made, he was the first man in Ohio, whose name Gover- 
nor Dennison received. He did it for an example. . . . He sought no mili- 
tary distinction. He led to the camp a company of his neighbors, expecting 
only to be allowed to lead them in the war. But his talents and character were 
appreciated, and he was placed in command of the regiment — the order and 
discipline of which soon became conspicuous, as also did his devotedness to the 
interests and comfort of his men." 

He was commissioned Colonel of the three months' organization of the 
Fourth Ohio Infantry. When, in June, the organization was changed to a three 
years' regiment, he was retained in the same command. 

His faithfulness in whatever position he was placed, united with his ability 
to master whatever he chose to learn, made him very soon an able and efficient 
commander and disciplinarian. He went Avith his command to Westei-n Vir- 
ginia, where he soon fell a victim to the exposure incident to camp life. In the 
beginning of his sickness he could not be prevailed on to leave the camp, say- 
ing, "My place is with my men;" but as he grew worse, he was at last removed 
to Gambier, Ohio, where, amid the scenes of his labors in the best years of his 
life and among his weeping friends, he breathed his last, September 18, 1861. 



Feed C. Jones. 997 



I 



COLONEL FRED C. JONES. 



FRED C. JONES was born at Parrott's Grove, Green County, Pennsyl- 
vania, December 16, 1834. He was of Welch and German descent, and 
his maternal grandfather was a soldier in the Revolution. In 1846 his 
father removed to Cincinnati, and the son entered the public schools. In 1848 
he was admitted to the Central High School, and in 1851 he was transferred to 
the Woodward. Fred Jones was always an acknowledged leader among the 
boys in the debating club, in the school-room, and on the play -ground. During 
his school days a military epidemic seized Old Woodward. All other games 
were neglected, and the entire grounds were covered with incipient soldiers, 
marching and counter-marching. Fred Jones was elected Caj)tain of a com- 
pany. The one company increased to four, and Captain Jones was chosen Colo- 
nel of the battalion. Ten years later, and the play-ground was exchanged for 
the battle-field, and the boy-battalion furnished three Colonels, eight Captains, 
and twelve Lieutenants to the National army. 

After graduating, Fred Jones went to Illinois, whither his father had re- 
moved some time previous. During the summer he was occupied on the farm, 
and during the winter in teaching school. In 1855 he returned to Cincinnati, 
and was employed by Thomas Spooner, Esq., in the county clerk's oflSce. Here 
his duties familiarized him with law forms, and brought him into contact with 
some of the most prominent lawyers of the city and State. His evenings were 
spent in select reading, and he attended a course of lectures in the law school. 
After performing faithfully the duties of an office clerk for several years, he 
entered the law office of Messrs. King & Thompson, where he continued his 
studies until admitted to the bar. He was soon elected by a large majority to 
the office of prosecuting attorney of the police court. 

At the opening of the war nothing but the fairest prospects in civil life lay 
before Fred Jones; but -'the call of the country was to him as the voice of 
God." In a letter to his parents dated April 28th, 1861, he said, "I feel a great 
desire to go to this fight, because I think it the duty of every man, without the 
cares of a family, to serve his country wherever and whenever she may need 
his services." The only struggle seemed to be between patriotism and filial af- 
fection, for a few weeks later he writes, " I am gratified that my proceedings so 
far have met with the approval of yourself and mother. I am willing to leave 
the enjoyments of this place for the service of my country, when assured that 
I go with the permission of my father and mother. I have learned from your 
early instruction that he is wholly unworthy of home and friends who would 



998 Ohio in the Wak. 

not defend and protect them. My country is my home, and her people are my 
friends." He was appointed Aid to General Bates, with the rank of Captain, 
and was very serviceable in the organization of raw troops at Camp Dennison. 
After several months General Bates resigned and Captain Jones resumed the 
practice of law. A few days after, while he was busy at court, he received a 
dispatch containing his appointment as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Thirty-First 
Ohio Infantry, with orders to report immediately to Colonel Walker, and one 
hour later he was leading his new regiment toward the enemy. 

In March, 1862, Lieutenant-Colonel Jones was transferred to the Twenty- 
Fourth Ohio Infantry, and such was the attachment of the officers of the -old 
brigade and division for him that they, headed by Generals Schoepf and 
Thomas, united in a petition to have him returned to his former regiment, but 
the exigencies of the service compelled him to remain with the Twenty-Fourth. 
He was frequently engaged in skirmishes, but his first great battle was Pittsburg 
Landing. The regiment was in the advance brigade of General Buell's army, 
'and was about ten miles from the field when the battle began. It hastened for- 
ward, and arrived in time to assist in checking the enemy on the first day. On 
the next day the Twenty-Fourth, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Jones, re- 
ceived the attack of an entire brigade, and finally drove it back. Lieutenant- 
Colonel Jones was commended for coolness and bravery, and soon after he was 
promoted to Colonel for gallantry on the field of battle. 

In October, 1862, while at Wild Cat, Kentucky, the command of the Tenth 
brigade devolved upon Colonel Jones. The march from Wild Cat to Nashville 
was almost one continuous skirmish, and for his able leadership Colonel Jones 
received the thanks of his superior officer, and of every field-officer in the bri- 
gade. On the first day of the battle of Stone Eiver the Twenty-Fourth was on 
the front and left of .the line. In the afternoon, when the enemy assaulted the 
left fiercely, Colonel jQ.nes ordered the regiment to lie down and hold fire. 
When the enemy was within point-blank range the regiment raised at the com- 
mand of the Colonel, poured in a deadly volley, and rushed forward in a chai'ge. 
In this charge, almost an entire Eebel regiment was caj)turea, and Colonel 
Jones was killed. The fatal ball struck him in the right side, and passed en- 
tirely through the body. He was borne to the rear, two of the bearers being 
shot while in discharge of the task, and some of the best surgeons in the divis- 
ion Avere soon in attendance. He received the intelligence that his wound was 
mortal with apparently no surprise, replying, " I know it; I am dying now. 
Pay no attention to me, but look after my wounded men." Ten hours after re- 
ceiving his Avound he died. His body was brought to Cincinnati, and was 
buried at Spring Grove with military and civic honors. Thousands of sad 
hearts joined in the mournful pageant, and his deeds and virtues were embalmed 
in the memory of a host of friends. 



William G. Jones. 99D 



COLONEL WILLIAM G. JONES. 



WILLIAM G. JONES was born in Cincinnati, February 23, 1837. 
He was the son of John D. Jones, and the maternal grandson of Col- 
onel John Johnston, who was widely known as an Indian Agent and 
an entliusiastic pioneer. 

In 1855 he entered West Point, and upon graduating he was apjiointed 
Brevet Second -Lieutenant in the Eighth United States Infantry. He was at 
once ordered to Arizona, where he arrived in December, 1860. In February, 
1861, Genei-al Twiggs surrendered the troojDS under his command to the State 
authorities in Texas. Lieutenant Jones was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, and 
he moved with the troops to the coast, ostensibly for tlie purpose of embarking 
for the North; but upon arriving at Adam's Hill, near San Antonio, they were 
compelled to surrender to Earl Van Dorn. 

During his prison-life Lieutenant Jones received many favors from Charles 
Anderson, late Acting G-overnor of Ohio, but at that time a resident of San 
Antonio. He was exchanged in February, 1862, and he immediately hastened 
to Washington, and declining a leave, joined the Army of the Potomac in the 
first advance upon Eichmond. He served on the staff of Brigadier-General An- 
drew Porter, Provost-Marshal General of the Army, and shared in all the excite- 
ments and privations of the Peninsular campaign. On the 24th of June, 1862, 
he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the First California, or Seventy-First 
Pennsylvania Infantry; and with his regiment he participated in the battles of 
Fair Oaks, Peach Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, and Malvern 
Hills. After this he resigned and accepted the position of Aid-de-Camp on the 
staff of Major-General Sumner; and in that capacity he served through the 
battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg. Upon the death of the General he 
was appointed Colonel of the Thirty-Sixth Ohio Infantry, and was thus trans- 
ferred to Tennessee. His ambition now seemed satisfied; for he had always 
expressed a desire to command a regiment from his native State. 

In June, 1863, he moved upon the campaign which closed with the battle 
of Chickamauga. The Thirty-Sixth Ohio formed jjart of Turchin's brigade of 
the Fourteenth Corps, commanded by General Thomas. At twelve o'clock, 
September 19th, Colonel Jones wrote in his pocket-diarj^: "Ofi" to the left; 
merciful Father have mercy on me and my regiment, and protect us from in- 
jury and death!" At five P. M. he received the fatal Avound, and expired at 
eleven o'clock that night on the battle-field. His remains fell into the hands of 
the Rebels, but in December, 1863, the body was exhumed, conveyed to Cincin- 



1000 Ohio in the Wae. 

nati, and laid finally to rest in Spring Grove Cemetery. The officers on duty in 
Cincinnati, and the Seventh Ohio National Guard, commanded by Colonel 
Harris, formed the escort at the funeral. "The brave die in battle," is the sadly 
appropriate epitaph to mark the graves of such self-sacrificing patriots. 






LIEUTENANT-COLONEL BARTON S. KYLE. 



BARTON S. KYLE was born in Miami County, Ohio, April 7, 1825. 
He was the son of Elder Samuel Kyle, who was favorably known for 
twenty-five or thirty years as a minister of the Gospel in Ohio and 

Indiana. 

Barton S. Kyle obtained a good English education, and at an early age 
studied law. Having acquired a competent knowledge of his profession, he 
was appointed chief clerk in the auditor's office, where he remained some six 
years; and in 1848, under the Taylor-Fillmore administration, he was appointed 
Deputy United States Marshal for Miami County. He also held various im- 
portant positions in the Masonic Fraternity, and in 1849 he was appointed by 
the Grand Lodge of Ohio to visit and to lecture before the various lodges in the 
State. In 1856 he was a member of the National Convention which met at 
Philadelphia, and during the Presidential campaign he was untiring in his sup- 
port of John C. Fremont. He was President of the Union School Board in 
Troy, and his zeal and energy made that school one of the best in the State. 

The Seventy-First Ohio Infantry owes its existence mainly to the patriotic 
exertions of Barton S. Kyle. He organized the regiment in August, 1861, but 
feeling himself inexperienced in military affairs, he declined the Colonelcy and 
was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel. He reported with the regiment at Paducah 
in February, 1862, and soon after he moved up to Pittsburg Landing. Here he 
was appointed president of a court martial, which position he held at the time 
of his death. On Sunday morning, April 6, 1862, Lieutenant-Colonel Kyle 
accompanied his regiment in the battle of Pittsburg Landing. The regiment 
made an obstinate resistance, but was forced back by overwhelming numbers 
from one position to another. While Lieutenant-Colonel Kyle was at the post 
of duty encouraging the men, he received a bullet in his right breast, and fell 
mortally wounded. He was conveyed to a hospital boat, where, after about five 
hours, he died as calmly as though falling asleep. A writer who was on the 
field of battle, and who was well acquainted with the man and the circumstances 
of his death, said: "Ohio lost no truer, braver man that day than Lieutenant- 
Colonel Kyle." 



John H. Patkick. 1001 



COLONEL JOHN H. PATRICK. 



JOHN HALLIDAY PATEICK was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, 
March 11th, 1820. He learned and followed the trade of a tailor, and 
in 1848 emigrated to this country, arriving in Cincinnati on the 19th 
of June. Having a liking for military tactics, he became a member of a volun- 
teer organization called the Highland Guards. 

At the first call for men upon the ojjening of the war, the Guards reorgan- 
ized for the field. John H. Patrick was chosen Captain, and the company was 
the first to occupy Camp Harrison. The Guards were attached to several differ- 
ent regiments, but finally was ordered to Camp Dennison, and incorporated 
with the Fifth Ohio Infantry. The regiment went to the field in West Virginia, 
and in July, 1861, Captain Pati'ick was made Lieutenant-Colonel, and in Sep- 
tember, 1862, Colonel. He led the regiment at Cedar Mountain, Chancellors- 
ville, and Gettysburg, and upon being transferred to the West, he had the honor 
of ojjening the battle of Lookout Mountain. 

In the Atlanta campaign, Colonel Patrick, with his regiment, was actively 
engaged until May 25, 1864, when, at Dallas, while charging a masked battery, 
he was struck in the bowels by a canister shot, and a half an hour after he 
expi-red. 

During the war he was the recipient of many marks of regard, both from 
his regiment and from friends at home. At one time, while on a visit to Cincin- 
nati, he was tendered a banquet at the Burnet House, which he accepted. It 
was largely attended, and during the festivities he was presented with a beauti- 
ful gold medal, on which was engraved, among other things, the following list 
of battles : " Winchester, Port Eepublic, Cedar Mountain, Antietam, Dumfries, 
Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Lookout Mountain." Colonel Patrick's manly 
deeds will long live in the grateful recollections of his soldiers and his fellow- 
citizens- 



1002 Ohio in the War. 



COLONEL JOHN T. TOLAND. 



JOHN T. TOLAND was a native of Ireland, but he came to this 
country at an early age. He struggled for a time with poverty and 
obscurity, laboring on a farm for days' wages. By the aid of friends, as 
well as by the force of his own character, he eventually succeeded in establish- 
ing himself in the business of selling dental goods in Cincinnati, in which he 
was engaged when the war broke out. In connection with A. S. Piatt he 
assisted in organizing and equipj^ing the Thirty-Fourth Ohio regiment, some- 
times called "Piatt Zouaves." He was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel August 
2, 1861, and Colonel, May U, 1862. 

His regiment went into Western Virginia, where it performed a series of raids 
and marches. In September, 1862, at Fayetteville, Virginia, while on the skir- 
mish line, Colonel Toland had three horses shot under him, but was himself 
uninjured. From this time it is said he had a feeling that he bore a charmed 
life which Eebel bullets could not reach. After the retreat from the Kanawha 
Valley Colonel Toland was assigned to the command of a brigade, in General Q. 
A. Gillmore's division, and took an active part in the movements which resulted 
in driving the Eebels from the Valley, leading the advance. 

But the spell which this brave man fancied would protect his life was soon 
broken. In July, 1863, he was placed in command of a mounted brigade, in- 
cluding his own regiment, and was directed to attemjjt the destruction of the 
Virginia and Tennessee Railroad. By forced marches he reached the railroad 
at Wytheville, Virginia, on the afternoon of the 18th of July. With his usual 
bravery he pushed into the town with his regiment, determined to drive the 
enemy out. Taking advantage of shelter in houses, the Rebels were enabled to 
pour a murderous fire into the National troops. Colonel Toland was at the 
head of his command on horseback, as he always w^as on such occasions, and 
presented a fair mai*k to the concealed sharp-shooters. One of these, after 
several efforts, succeeded in sending a bullet with fatal certainty. Colonel 
Toland fell forward on the neck of his horse, but was caught by the tender 
hands of his faithful orderly. As he was lifted to the ground he could only 
gasp — "Mj^ horse and my sword to my mother!" So, with the word on his 
lips which is the synonj-m of all gentleness, fell one, Avho, in his military career, 
had shown himself to be a man without fear. "A man of strong, fierce will," 
writes one of his oflicers about him, "he did the best he knew for his regiment, 
though not well versed in much pertaining to military matters, save the feature 
of hard fighting." During the first year of his service the men of his regiment 
hated him. Finally they almost forgot his violent temper in their admiration of 
his braver}'. He was a member of the Roman Catholic Church. 



GrEOKGE P. WeBSTEK. 1003 



COLONEL GEORGE P. WEBSTER. 



GEOEGE PENNY WEBSTEE was born near Middletown, Butler 
County, Ohio, December 24, 1824, and was the son of John Webster, Esq. 
His early education was such as the common schools at that time afforded. 
At the age of sixteen he went to Hamilton, and for two years was deputy clerk 
in the office of the clerk of court. At that time he commenced the study of 
law with Thomas Milliken, Esq. He was a diligent student, and in the early 
part of 1846 he was admitted to the Butler County bar. 

At the breaking out of the Mexican war he enlisted as a private in Captain, 
recently Brevet Brigadier-Ceneral, Ferd. Van Derveer's company of the First 
Ohio Infantr}'. He was promoted to Sergeant-Major, and served with credit 
throughout the war, being wounded in the right shoulder at the storming of 
Monterey in September, 1846. 

Uponr the declaration of peace he returned to Ohio, married a daughter of 
John McAdams, of Warrenton, Jefl'erson County, Ohio, and a year later re- 
moved to Steubenville and commenced the practice of law. Two years after he 
was elected clerk of the court. He held the office for six years, when he re- 
sumed the practice of his profession in partnership with Martin Andrews, and 
quickly rose to rank among the foremost lawyers of the citj^. Though a strong 
Democrat, yet when the rebellion opened he was the first man in the city to 
take a stand for the Government, and when the call for seventy-five thousand 
men was issued, he was instrumental in raising and forwarding two companies. 
Under the three years' call he offered his services to Governor Dennison, and 
was appointed Major of the Twenty-Fifth Ohio Infantry. He joined the regi- 
ment at Camp Chase, and shortly afterwai-d was sent into West Virginia. In 
May, 1862, he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel, and in July was offered the 
Colonelcy of the Ninety-Eighth Ohio. He accepted it, and came home to or- 
ganize the regiment. While in Virginia he commanded four expeditions, all of 
which were successful, and fought in five battles, gaining the name of " the 
righting Major." 

The Ninety-Eighth left Steubenville for Covington, Kentucky, August 23d. 
From there it marched to Lexington, and thence to Louisville. Here Colonel 
Webster was placed in command of the Thirty-Fourth Brigade, Jackson's 
division, McCook's corps. In the battle of Perryville he fell from his horse 
mortally wounded, and died on the field of battle. A man of high social posi- 
tion, and of rare and genial qualities, his place was not easily filled. 

His personal appearance was imposing. He was six feet two inches high, 
and weighed two hundred pounds. 



1004 Ohio in the Wab. 



COLONEL LEANDER STEM. 



LEANDEE STEM was born in Carroll County, Maryland, in August, 
1825. He emigrated to Tiffin, Ohio, with his father in 1829, and con- 
tinued to reside there until his decease. At an early age he was sent 
to a University in Maryland, and after completing his collegiate course, he com- 
menced the study of law under the direction of an elder brother. In due time 
he entered upon the practice of his profession, and was regarded as a rising 
member of the bar. 

At the opening of the rebellion he accompanied a body of the first volun • 
teers to Columbus, intending to enter the service, but he was suddenly sum- 
moned to the bedside of a dying daughter, and it was not until the summer of 
1862 that he entered the field. He was apjDointed Colonel of the One Hundred 
and First Ohio Infantry, and the regiment was mustered into the service August 
30, 1862. On the 1st of September it was ordered to the defense of Cincinnati 
against Kirby Smith. When the Eebel army withdrew the regiment went 
to Louisville and was assigned to the Thirty-First Brigade, Ninth Division, 
Twenty-First Army Corps. 

The battle of Perryville soon followed, in which Colonel Stem, by courage 
and coolness under fire, won for himself and his regiment the admiration of the 
division commander, General Mitchel. His friends entertained the highest 
anticipations of his success; but he seemed to have premonitions of a difi'erent 
sort; and, on the evening before the advance of the army on Murfreesboro', in 
conversation with one of his most intimate friends he said: "I am a doomed 
man ; and will not survive my first regular engagement." 

On the afternoon of December 26th, an engagement occurred at Knob G-ap, 
in which Colonel Stem with his regiment charged and captured a Eebel battery 
and several prisoners. The army closed around Murfreesboro', and on the 
evening of the 30th the One Hundred and First was engaged in a demonstra- 
tion against the enemy, in order to develop his position. During this move- 
ment the Colonel took out his pipe, lighted it, and commenced to smoke, when 
a shell came crashing through the timber, exploded near him, and covered him 
with dirt. He never moved a muscle, but smoked on, apparently as un- 
concerned as if sitting in his office. The next morning the battle of Stone 
Eiver began in earnest, and almost immediately it was evident that the right 
of the Union line would be forced back. When Colonel' Stem's regiment began 
to waver under a severe cross-fire, he called out, "Stand by the flag now, for 
the good old State of Ohio!" and instantly fell, mortally wounded. 



Jonas D. Elliott. 1005 

He was captured and conveyed to Murfreesboro', where he died on the 
morning of January 5th, 1863, just as the advance of the Union army entered 
the place. The intelligence of his death created a profound regret among a 
wide circle of friends. He was buried with military and Masonic honors, and 
the funeral will long be remembered as the most sorrowful event in the history 
of that community. The regiment, upon being mustered out of service appro- 
priated a handsome sum for the erection of a monument, which now stands over 
the Colonel's grave, bearing touching inscriptions of love and admiration. 



LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JONAS D. ELLIOTT. 



JONAS D. ELLIOTT was born in Milton, Wayne County, Ohio, July 
2, 1840. When about ten years of age he was sent to Canaan Academy, 
where he remained two or three years, and then went to Hayesville, Ashland 
County, Ohio, and fitted himself for college. He was engaged for some time in 
teaching at Memphis, Missouri, but the death of his father left him dependent 
upon his own resources, and he returned to Ohio and commenced the study 

of law. 

On the 23d of July, 1862, he was commissioned a Captain in the One Hun- 
dred and Second Ohio Infantry; and just before leaving for the field he was 
married to a daughter of Zenas Crane. He went into camp at Mansfield, Ohio, 
but was soon ordered into Kentucky. He was promoted to Major in May, 1863, 
and a year later was made Lieutenant-Colonel. 

In the summer of 1864 he commanded the left wing of the regiment at 
Dodsonville, Alabama, while the right wing was at Bellefonte under Colonel 
Griven. In September the entire regiment was sent in pursuit of Wheeler; but 
it was soon ordered into camp at Decatur. On the evening of the 23d of Sep- 
tember, all the available men at that place were ordered to re-enforce the garri- 
son at Athens against an anticipated attack by General Forrest. Lieutenant- 
Colonel Elliott was placed in command of three hundred men — all that could be 
spared— and when within three miles of Athens he was met by General Forrest 
with a greatly superior force. His little band fought and drove back many times 
its own number, and would have entered the fort had it not been surrendered 
before their arrival. When within a quarter of a mile of it the guns were 
turned upon Colonel Elliott, and he was met by a fresh brigade of Eebels under 
General Warren. His ammunition was gone and he was completely surrounded. 
At this juncture General Warren commanded his orderly to shoot that officer, 
pointing to Colonel Elliott; and a moment later he fell, mortally wounded in 
the head. He lingered for nineteen days, but the ball could not be extracted. 
Most of the time he was wildly delirious, talking almost constantly of wife and 



1006 Ohio in the War. 

home; but during his lucid intervals he gave good evidence that he was con- 
scious of his approaching death, and that he was "sustained and soothed by an 
unfaltering trust." He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, having made 
a profession of his faith in Februarj^, 1862. Colonel Elliott died on the 13th 
of October, in the twenty-fifth year of his age. He was buried in the cemetery 
at Athens, Alabama. 



LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JAMES W. SHANE. 



JAMES W. SHANE was born in Jefferson County, Ohio, January 18th, 
1830. By teaching and studying at the same time he became a thor- 
ough scholar, and when twenty-four years old was admitted to the bar. 
He was diligent in his profession, was a safe counsellor and an able advocate ; 
and for sevei-al years was prosecuting attorney of the county. 

When the war first opened, he was prevented by private reasons from en- 
tering the army, but in July, 1862, he recruited a company and was assigned to 
the Ninety-Eighth Ohio Infantry. He first saw service in Kentucky, being 
present on the retreat from Lexington to Louisville, and in the battle of Perry- 
ville. In this battle he was conspicuous for his intrej^id bravery, and was soon 
after promoted to Major, and in June, 1863, to Lieutenant-Colonel ; and from 
that time until his death he was almost constantly in command of the regiment. 

While on a brief leave of absence in May, 1864, he heard that the great 
campaign under Sherman had commenced, and at once hastened to the field. 
The campaign was almost a continuous action ; and in every danger Lieutenant- 
Colonel Shane bore his full share. On the 27th of June he fell, mortally wounded, 
in an assault on the enemy's works at Kenesaw, living only forty minutes. 
When told that death was inevitable, he exclaimed, "My jjoor wife! were it not 
for her — but, O Lord, thy will, not mine, be done." He said to those around 
him, "Turn my face to the foe, boys;" and then to the Surgeon, "Doctor, write 
to her. and tell her I die happy and will meet her in heaven." Thus the spirit 
parted, bearing aspirations for home and country with it to the Throne of the 
Great Infinite. 

Among the many beautiful traits in Lieutenant-Colonel Shane's character 
was his consistent Christian deportment. He united with the Pi'esbyterian 
Church in May, 1855, and from that day until the hour of his death, religion 
with him was a matter of earnest duty. There are many who can testify that 
throughout his entire army career, he wore the " breastplate of righteousness" 
■and carried the "shield of faith." 



Joseph L. Kirby Smith. 1007 



COLONEL JOSEPH L. KIRBY SMITH. 



JOSEPH L. KIEBY SMITH was of New England origin. His grand- 
father, Joseph L. Smith, was a lawj-er in Litchfield, Connecticut, who 
was a Major in 1812, and served during the Canada war, being promoted 
to Colonel, He was afterward United States Judge in Florida Territory, where 
he died. His son, Ephraim K. Smith, the father of Joseph L. Kirby Smith, was 
a CajDtain in the United States army, and was killed at the battle of Molino del 
Ray, in Mexico. Another son, Edmund K. Smith, was the Kirby Smith of the 
Confederate army. 

The subject of this sketch was born in 1836. He entered the military 
schopl at West Point by appointment from New York. In 1857 he graduated 
with the highest honors, and was appointed Lieutenant of Topographical Engi- 
neers. In 1860 he accompanied the Utah expedition as Aid-de-Camp to General 
Patterson. Upon the organization of the Fortj'-Third Ohio Eegiment, applica- 
tion was made for a trained commander, and he was appointed its Colonel. 

He went with the regiment to the field. At Island No. 10, the first military 
operations of any importance in which his regiment was engaged, his engineer- 
ing abilities proved to be of great service. He was afterward with Pope's army 
during the advance on Corinth, and was engaged in the advance through Mis 
sissippi, which was interrupted by the surrender at Holly Springs. 

In October, 1862, his regiment being a part of General Stanley's division 
under Rosecrans, he participated in the battle of Corinth. During the first day 
of the battle, October 3d, this division was not engaged, but on the second day 
the Ohio Brigade of that division was placed in support of Battery Robinett, 
the point where one of the most determined assaults of the Rebels was made. 
The Forty-Third Ohio was in the hottest of this attack, and in its height the 
beloved Smith was mortall}" wounded. He died eight days after, October 12, 
1862. 

General Stanley in his report of the battle says of hira : •' Soon in the battle of 
the 4th Colonel J. L. K. Smith fell with a mortal wound. I have not words to 
describe the qualities of this model soldier, or to express the loss we have sustained 
in his death. The best testimony I can give to his memory is — the spectacle 
witnessed by myself in the very moment of battle, of stern, brave men weeping 
as children as the word passed: 'Kirby Smith is killed.' By his side fell his 
constant companion and Adjutant, accomplished young Heyl." 

The name Kirby which seemed to be prized by the family, came from the 
wife of the grandfather, whose maiden name was Kirby. Her father was the 
author of the once famous Kirby Reports of Connecticut. 



1008 Ohio in the War. 



COLONEL AUGUSTUS H. COLEMAN.* 



THIS officer was born in Troy, Miami County, Ohio, on the 29th of October, 
1829. He was the son of Dr. Asa Coleman, an early settler and promi- 
nent citizen of that county. His elementary education was acquired in 
the schools of Troy. In June, 1847, he entered the Military Academy at "West 
Point as a Cadet. At the close of his course he returned to Troy and engaged 
in agricultural pursuits. 

Upon the breaking out of the rebellion he enlisted as a private soldier, and 
recruited a company (company D, Eleventh Ohio Yolunteer Infantry) of over 
one hundred men within forty-eight hours. With these he proceeded to Colum- 
bus on Monday, April 26, 1861. He was unanimously chosen Captain of the 
company, and on the organization of the Eleventh regiment was chosen Major 
of it. In January, 1862, he was commissioned Lieutenant-Colonel, vice Frizell,. 
resigned, and on the arrest of Colonel De Yilliers, was made Colonel of the reg- 
iment. 

Colonel Coleman was an efficient drill-master, and he brought his regiment 
up to a high standard of di'ill and discipline. Always cool, self-possessed, and 
thoroughly understanding the minutiae of battalion drill, he maneuvered bodies 
of men with great ease. It was frequently remarked of him that he could 
maneuver a regiment in less space than most officers required for company drill. 
He was sometimes thought too rigid in discipline, but all his measures proved 
of benefit to the men, and were by them duly appreciated. In times of danger 
Colonel Coleman was especially vigilant, and took every precaution against sur- 
prise, always visiting his picket-lines in person, and remaining near the most 
exposed point. 

At South Mountain he displayed the ability of a successful commander. In 
actions prior to this he had acted well and gallantly, but was not in j)osition8 
where his services were so marked as in that of South Mountain. 

He was in the first charge on the bridge across Antietam Creek, and while 
in the charging column fell, pierced by a Eebel bullet, which passed through 
his arm into his side. Although in great pain he was in possession of his 
mental faculties during the few hours he lived. His last words were inquiries 
as to the fate of his men. 

*The facts for this i5ketch are gleaned from a History of the Eleventh Ohio Volunteer 
Infantry, compiled by Horton and Tiverbaugh, members of that regiment. 



i 



I 



John W. Lowe. 1009 



COLONEL JOHN W. LOWE. 



J'OJIN WILLIAMSON LOWE T^as born at New Brunswick, New 
Jersey, November 15, 1809. He removed with his parents to Eahwuy, 
New Jerse}^, in 1817, and there he began to earn his daily bread by work- 
ing in Cohen's woolen factory. In 1820 he removed to New York, where he 
found employment in the Bible House, and learned the trade of a printer. In 
the meantime his father died, and upon him devolved the care of his step- 
mother and five children. With patience and self-denial this trust was feithfully 
executed. When about fourteen years old he joined the New York Cadets, and 
during the remainder of his life military tactics became one of his chief studies. 
In 1833 he settled at Batavia, Clermont County, Ohio. Here he made the ac- 
quaintance of Judge Fishback, and under his tutelage commenced the study of 
law, at the same time Avorking at his trade in order to sustain himself In due 
time he was admitted to the bar, and soon after he married Judge Fishback's 
daughter. 

In politics he was a Strong Whig, and though seldom a candidate for office, 
he was always a prominent party orator. He opposed the Mexican war until 
he saw that opposition was useless ; and then, contrary to his personal feelings 
and the interests of his family, he accepted the command of a company, joined 
the Second Ohio, and served with it until it was disbanded in 1848. He re- 
turned from Mexico with a shattered constitution. Disease, chronic and incur- 
able, had taken hold of his sj^stem, and he was ever after unable to endure ex- 
treme bodily fatigue. One of the most beautiful traits of his character was his 
sympath}^ with suffering ; and there are many who will remember that when 
the Asiatic cholera first appeared in Batavia, in 1849, John Lowe and his Avife 
seemed utterly regardless of themselves. Wherever suffering and death were 
most terrific, there were thej^ administering to the dying, burying the dead, and 
consoling the bereaved. 

In 1854 he removed to Dayton, and a j'ear later to Xenia, where he con 
tinued to reside and j^ractice his profession up to the breaking out of the rebell- 
ion. He was chosen Captain of the first company raised in Greene County, and 
on the 19th of April, 18G1, he reported with it at Columbus. The company was 
assigned to the Twelfth Ohio, and John W. Lowe was elected Colonel of the 
regiment. In June Colonel Lowe re-organized his regiment for the three years' 
service, and soon after he joined General Cox's brigade on the Kanawha. On 
the 17th of July Colonel Lowe was ordered by General Cox to take his own 
regiment, a detachment of the Twenty-First Ohio, two pieces of artillerj^, and 
a few cavalry, and to explore the country about the mouth of Scary Creek, to 
Vol. I.— 64. 



1010 Ohio in the War. 

ascertain the enemj^'s position, and, if possible, to carry it. The enemy was 
found, strongly jjosted, on the brow of a precipitous hill on the oi^posite bank 
of Scarey Creek. Preparations were at once made for the attack. The troops 
forded the creek, advanced boldly, and without doubt would soon have been 
within the enemy's works, but at the critical moment the Rebels received re-en- 
forcements, which were at once thrown into action. Colonel Lowe's entire com- 
mand was now engaged, and had exhausted its ammunition. The prospect of 
success was hopeless, and accordingly he withdrew his forces in good order, bring- 
ing off all the wounded. The enemy's force was originally fifteen hundred 
strong, and the re-enfoi'cements raised it to at least two thousand. He was at 
first censured for the withdrawal, in some quarters ; but on a fuller knowledge 
of the facts his course was justified. 

In the latter part of August the Twelfth Ohio joined General Rosecrans. 
then at Clarksburg. As soon as a sufficient force was collected to open com- 
munications with General Cox, by Avay of Gauley Bridge, the march southward 
began. The Colonel's health was delicate, but his will Avas indomitable ; and 
though cautioned and advised to retire from the service, the hardships of which 
he was no longer able to endure, he still felt that his place was at the head of 
his regiment. He looked forward to the battle in which he fell as the probable 
end of his military career; for, in a letter to his Avife onl}" four days before, he 
says : " I find mj^self hoping, and it is now about my only hope, that I will 
soon be at home, a wounded soldier, to receive your care for a little time, and 
then to lay me down to my long rest. Wait a little longer, dearest, a week, a 
day may relieve our suspense and bring my fate upon me. God rules over all 
things, and disposes of us as He thinks best." 

On the 18th of September the Twelfth Ohio was ordered up to the support 
■of the Tenth in the battle of Carnifex Cerry. The underbrush was thick, and 
in order to handle his men satisfactorily. Colonel Lowe dismounted and ad- 
vanced on foot at the head of his regiment. Soon he was in front of a Rebel 
battery in the thickest of the fight, and a moment later, as he cheered his men 
forward, a rifle ball pierced his forehead, and he fell dead, the first field-officer 
from Ohio killed in battle in the War for the Union. 

His corpse was tenderly cared for by the Chaplain of his regiment, care- 
fully forwarded to his late home, and followed to its final resting-place by a 
great and tearful congregation of stricken mourners. 



Moses F. Woostee. 1011 



LIEUTENANT-COLONEL MOSES F. WOOSTER. 



M 



OSES FAIECHILD WOOSTEE was born in Alfred, Berkshire 
County, Massachusetts, September 3d, 1825. He removed to Ohio in 
1832, and finally settled at JSTorwalk, Huron County, in 1848, and en- 
gaged in the drug trade. 

Upon the breaking out of the war he was one of two Second-Lieutenants 
in the Norwalk Light Gruards, and when the company was called into service it 
was decided b}' lot who should be retained. Lieutenant Wooster lost; but he 
immediately commenced raising another company, of which he was made First- 
Lieutenant. The company was assigned to the Twenty-Fourth Ohio, and he 
become Adjutant. He was engaged at Cheat Mountain, Greenbrier, Pittsburg 
Landing, and Corinth ; and was made a Captain for gallantry. Upon the or- 
ganization of the One Hundred and First Ohio Infantry he was made Major of 
that regiment, and soon after he was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. He was 
engaged at Perryville, and was conspicuous for his bravery and the ability with 
which he handled his men. He fell, mortally wounded, on the 31st of Decem- 
ber, 1862, while actively and courageously doing all in his j)ower to stem the 
tide of defeat at Stone Eiver. He died on the 1st of January, 1863. 



1012 



Ohio in the Wak. 



STAFF OFFICERS, ETC. 



WE have already given names, rank, and leading features m the his- 
tory of officers born in or apiDointed from Ohio, who rose to the grade 
of Brevet Brigadier-General, or above it. The regimental rosters, in 
the succeeding volume, give the official history of Ohio officers below that grade. 
There is another class, however, that can not be presented in either of these con- 
nections — the class employed as Aides, Adjutant-Generals, Paymasters, Quarter- 
masters, etc., in various phases of the work loosely known as Staif duty. Of 
these, such a list as the Eegular and Volunteer Eegisters of the army exhibit, 
is presented below. As they were all appointed from Ohio, it is only thought 
needful to give the State of their birth : 

ASSISTANT ADJUTANT-GENERALS. 



COM. ISSUED. 



Major Lucius V. Bierce 

'' John A. Campbell 

" <.'.. S. Chiulot 

" James W. Forsyth 

" William B. Price 

•' John W. Steele 

" Gates P. Thriieton 

" Alex. Von SchraeJer , 

Captain \Vm. 1'. Amierson 

" Gustave M. Bascom 

" Marcus P. Bestow , 

" James L. Bottsford , 

" Ileury M. Cist 

" \Vm. H. Clapp 

" Ezra W. Clarke, jr 

" Calvert W. Cowan 

" Tlieodore Cox 

" Murray Davis 

" Edward C. Denig 

" Charles W. Dietrich 

" John C. Douglass ., 

■' Archie C. Fisk 

" John Green 

" James A. Grover 

" Jasper K. Herbert 

" Daiiiel Hebard 

" Noel L. Jeffries , 

" Charles O. Joline , 

" Andrew C. Kemper 

" John M. Kendriek 

•' Robert P. Kennedy 

" Gordon Lottand 

" Charles Kingsbury 

*' Eddy D. Mason 

" Leopold Marlvbreit 

" Oscar Miner 

•' Seth B. Moe 

" James H. Udlin 

" Charles A. Partridge 

" Donn Piatt 

" Wm. L. Porter 

" Elliott S. Quay 

" Henry C. Kanney 

" 'Wm. A. Sutherland 

" David G. Swaim 

" John G, Telford 

" Henry Thrall 

'* Wm. C. Turner 

" James B. Walker 

" Dennis H. Williams 

" James S. Wilson 



May 


5, 


Oct. 


27, 


Aug. 


«i 


July 


4, 


Aug. 


5, 


Oct. 


27, 


April 


w, 


Feb. 


1, 


Sept. 


15, 


Aug. 


21), 


Dec. 


2.H, 


Oct. 


27, 


April 


20, 


May 


1.-., 


Feb. 


29, 


Juno 


3U, 


July 


29, 


Aug. 


17, 


Dec. 


2K, 


Oct. 


17, 


June 


2:^, 


** 


z;^, 


March 


11, 


'* 


11, 


Nov. 


28, 


Feb. 


3. 


March 2rt, 


April 


H, 


Sept. 


1, 


Feb. 


19, 


Oct. . 


7, 


April 


23, 


Sept. 


19, 



ist;3 

ISti.O 
I.Sii2 
18KI 
1S02 

1864 
lSti3 
ISM 



1863 
1861 
1862 



Dec. 

Aug. 

June 

March 

.1 uue 

JIarch 

May 

Oct. 

.■March 

May 

Feb. 

Aug. 

July 

Sept. 

Dec. 

June 



1863 
1861 
1865 
1862 

' 1864 
1862 
IShl 
1S61 
1862 
, 1863 
, ISfrt 
, 1863 



Connecticut , 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Vermont 

Ohio 

Germany 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Viriiinia 

New York ... 
Ohio 



Ohio 

Ohio 

New York 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Connecticut 

Pennsylvania... 

N(tw York 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Massachusetts 

New York 

Austria 

Pennsylvania .. 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Massachusetts 

Ohio 

Indiana 

Pennsylvania... 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Virginia 

Ohio 



Mustered out November 11, 1865. 

Brevet Colonel and Brigadier-General. 

Mustered out July 111, 1866; Brevet Lt. Colonel. 

Commission vacated to accept Brigadier-General. 

Brevet Colonel and Brigadier-General. 

Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. 

Must'd out Dec. 19, 18i'.5 ; Bvt.Lt. Col. & Brig. Gen. 

Lt. Col. Seventv-Fourth Ohio; Bvt. Brig. Gen. 

Resigned March 18, 1864. [1866. Bvt. Col 

Prom, to Maj. July 10, 1862; mustered out July 1 

Promoted to Major June 26, 1865 ; Brevet Colonel. 

Resigned February 25, 1865. 

Mustered out .lanuary 4, 1866; Bvt. Brig. General. 

Mustered out December 5, 1865; Brevet Major. 

Mustered out October 30, 1865 ; Brevet Major. 

Mustered out November 22, 1865; Brevet Colonel. 
Promoted to Major February 15, 1865; Bvt. Col. 
Resigned December 12, 1864. 

Mustered out September 19, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. 



Resigned June 7, 1865 ; Brevet 3Iajor. 

Resigned February 11. 1866. 

Died at New York City August 7, 1362. 

App. Col. V. R. Corps. Brevet Bi-igadier-General. 

Resigned November 6, ls62. 

Resigned July 25, 1865. 

Resigned September 30, 1862. [Brig. Ger 

Prom. Maj. Nov. 11, '65. Res'd April 8, '65 ; Bvi, 

Mustered out Sept. 19, 1865 : Brevet aiajor. 

Res'd March 2, '65. [esaw Mt. & bat. Peachtree C'k 

Bvt. Col." for special gallantry in the charge on Ken- 

Stalf of Gen. .\VL-rill ; long a prisoner in Libby. 

Promoted Major June .30, 1864. 

liesigned November 23, 18ii4. 

Served previously in Forty-Eighth Ohio infantry. 

Promoted Major May 11, 1862. Resigned Jvly 2, '64. 

Brevet Major. 



Prom. Maj. Feb. 7, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. and Col. 
Mustered out July 10, 1866. 

Resigned December 21, 1862. 
Honorably discharged April 14, 1865. 



Ohio" .......'.'........'. Muste'^d out June 15, 1865 ; Brevet Major. 



Staff Officers. Etc. 



1013 



ADDITIONAL AIDS-DE-CAMP. 



NAME, 


COM. ISSUED. 


BORN. 


REMARKS. 




Sept. 23, 1861 
Aug. 19, " 

Jtay 1, 1862 
June 3U, " 
March 31, " 
Feb. 26, " 
July 16, " 
March 31, " 
April 7, " 
June 9, " 
April 3, " 
June 5, " 
May 23, " 
16, " 
19, " 
March 18, " 
July 11, " 
April 26, " 


Ohio 


Com. vacated by app. as Brig. Gen. Sept. 15, 1862. 
McCk'llan's staff. Discharged March 31, 1863, under 








Ohio 


act of August ."i, 1861. 
Com. vacated by app. to Brig. Gen. Aug. 27, 1862. 


" (Jhrist(iph*-r A, Morgan 


Ohio 


Ohio 


Mustered out May 31, 1866. 




New York 


Brevet Brigadier-General. 


Lt. Col. Jolin B. Frothingham 

Major Ricliar.l M. Oorwine 


Massacliusctts . 


Brevet (-'olonel. 


Ohio 




Captain Flamen Bull, jr 


Oliio 


ResigniMl July 2, 1865. 


Ohio 






Ohio 


Discharged March 31, 1863. Since Maj. Gen. Vols. 




Ohio 

Ohio 










Ohio 










" John H Piatt 


Connecticut 

Pinnsylvauia.... 


Brevet Major. 


" Henry S. Spear 


Resigned August 4, 1S62. 



AIDS-DE-CAMP APPOINTED UNDEB, ACT OF JULY 17, 1862. 



NAME. 


COM. ISSUED. 


BORN. 


REMARKS. 




March 11, 1863 
11, " 
June 30, 1862 
Nov. 6, 1863 
March 11, " 

March 11,1863 
Aug. 16, 1864 
March 11, 1863 
Aug. 10, 1864 
July 4, " 
March 11, 1863 
Dec. 27, 1864 
Nov. 17, 1863 


Ohio 


Resigned November 22, 1865. 

Resigned April 1, 1865. 

Served on staff of Jlajor-General Pope. 

Com. vacated bv app. of Maj. and A. A. G., 
Sherman's staff, Jan. 12, 1865; Brevet Lieut 
Staff' of General Sherman. 

Re.sigued Apiil 28, 18o-.. 

Mustered out July 11, 1865. 

Mustered out January 12, 1S66. 
Resigned January 5, 1j65. 
Resigned May 1, 1865. 
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. 
Mustered out June 20, 1865. 




" \Vm. M. Este 


Ohio 

New York 










Ohio 




" Lewis M. Dayton 


Ohio 


Gen. 


Ohio 


Col. 




Ohio 






Ohio 






Ohio 






Ohio 




" Dickinson P. Thruston 

" Lewis Weitzel 


Ohio 

Oii^o 















HOSPITAL CHAPLAINS. 



NAME, 


COM. ISSUED. 


BORN. 


REMARKS. 




April 17, 1863 
July 14, 1862 
Feb, 29, 1864 
June 23, 1862 
Dec. 9, " 
July 29, " 


Indiana 


.Mustered out July 12, 1865. 






Mustered out November 20, 1365. 




Ohio 


Mustered out June 24, 1865. 




Pennsylvania.... 


Mustered out August 21, 1865. 






Mustered out Niivember 20, 1865. 
Mustered out August 4, 1865. 
Mustered out August 4, 1865. 








North Carolina. 







JUDGE ADVOCATES. 



NAME. 


COM. ISSUED. 


BORN. 


REMARKS. 








Mustered out August 3, 1864. 




Aug. i'6, i863 
Nov. 1, 1862 
Sept. 26, 1864 
Nov. 19, 1862 


Ohio 


Must'd out Dec. 1, 1865; Bvt. Col. and Brig. Gen. 






Mu8t(ued out May 31, 1866. 


" James C. McElroy 


Ohio 

New York 


Mustered out March 1, 1866; Bvt. Lt. Colonel. 
Resigned March 20, 1865, 











1014 



Ohio in the Wae. 



SIGNAL CORPS. 



NAME. 


COM. ISSUED. 


BORN. 


REMARKS. 




Mnri^h S ISKS 


Ohio 




1st Lieut. Jolin D. Holopeter 




3, " 
3, " 
3, " 

' 3, " 
3, " 
3, " 

' 3, " 


Ohio 


Slustered out May I, 1866 ; Brevet Captain, 


New Yuvli. 


" SamiiflJ. Blent 


Oliio 




" Julien R Fitch 


Ohio 

Ohio 


Mustereil out November 2r,. lsfi.'«; Brevet Captain, 


" T. B. Kelly 




Ohio 




" Alfred K. Taylor 


New York 















ADDITIONAL PAYMASTERS. 



COM. ISSUED. 



Major Richard P. L. Baber...., 

" Chambers Baird 

" Orville \V. Ballard 

" Dwight Bannister 

" Anson L. Brewer 

" Jacob A. Camp 

" Tlionias L. Carnahan ., 

" George F. Carpenter..., 

" John L. Cocki- 

" Isaac N. Cook 

" .lolm Coon 

" B. Rush Cowen 

" John H. Dolman , 

" AVarren C. Enimersuii., 

" Frank E. Foster , 

" George E. Glenn 

" John P. Gould , 

" Michael S. Gunckel 

" George \V. Hauk 

" John S. Horrick , 

" Murk HoUingshead 

" Calvin Holmes 

" Horace A. Hutchins 

" Uriel II. Hutchins 

" Wm. H. Johnston 

" Wm. Jones 

" Wilson h. Kennon 

" John W. King , 

" Coates Kinney 

" James P. Lupton , 

" Howard Matthews , 

" Benton McConnell , 

" Malcom McDowell 

" Eugene H. (Isboru 

" Joseph Poole , 

" J. K. Price 

" Henry B.Reese 

" Dudley W. Rliodes , 

" Andrew D. Rogers , 

" Albert P. Shreve 

" Edward Spear, jr 

" W. P. Stoms 

" David Taylor 

" Edmund A. Truax 

" Oliver J. Turniy 

" Geortte B. Way 

" Ezra Webb 

" Lispenard S. WVbb 

" Harlan P. Walcott 

" Henry L. Williams 



Sept. 
Aug. 
Nov. 
June 
Feb. 
June 
Feb. 

June 



Aug. 
Feb. 
Nov. 



Feb. 
Sept. 
July 
Feb. 
Nov. 
June 
Nov. 
Sept. 
Feb. 



ISfil 
1863 
1862 
1861 
1863 
1861 
1863 

1862 
1861 



Virginia... 

Ohio 

New York. 
Ohio 



New York. 



Ohio 

New York 

Ohio 

New York 

New Hampshire 



Ohio. 



June 

Feb. 

June 

Feb. 

June 

Nov. 

Sept. 

Feb. 

June 

.\pril 

Nov. 

Feb. 

Oct. 

March 

June 

Nov. 

Aug. 

June 

Feb. 

March 

June 



18IH 
1863 

ISCvl 
1862 
1861 
1862 
1861 
istti 
1863 
1864 
1861 
1864 
1861 
1863 
1861 
1862 
1864 
1863 
1861 
1863 
18()2 
1864 

1863 
1861 
1862 
1863 
1861 
18..2 

186.-; 



Ohio 

Ohio 

New York., 

Ohio , 

New York. 

Ohio 

Ohi( , 

Ohio 

Ohio 



Ohio 

New York 

New York 

Pennsylvania. 

New York 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 



Ohio 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania. 

Indiana 

Ohio 



Ohio 

Canada 

Ohio 

Maryland. 
New York. 



Honorably mustered out Nov. 15, '65 ; Bvt. Lieut. Col. 
Honorably mustered out July 1, 1866. 
Honorably mustered out July 20, 1866. 
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. [Feb. 2, 1866. 

Drowned by explosion of steamboat W. R. Carter, 
Honorably mustered out November 8, 1865. 
Honorably mustered out July 2, 1866. 
Honorably mustered out November 1, 1865. 
Resigned June 14, 1865. 

Resigned March 29, 1865. [General. 

Honorably mustered out Jan. IS, 1865; Brevet. Brie 
Honorably mustered out July 20,'66 • Bvt. Lieut. Col. 



Honorably mustered out December 1, 1855. 

Resigned February 23, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out Nov. 15, '65; Bvt: Lieut. Col, 

Honorably niustcn d out April 30, 1866. 

Brevet Lieutenant-! Jolonel 

Honorably mustered out Nov. 1, '65; Bvt. Lieut. Col. 

Honorably mustered out .luly 20,'66; Brevet Colonel. 

Honorably mustered out July 20,'66 ; Bvt. Lieut. Col. 

Honorably mustered out December 1, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out Dec. 19,65; Bvt. Lieut. Col. 

Honorably mustered out Nov. 15, '65; Bvt. Lieut. Col. 

Honorably mustered out April 30, 1866 ; Bvt. Lt. Col. 

Discharsid December 17, l,s62. 

Honorably mustered out November 1, 1865. 

Resigned February 25, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out April 30, 1866. 

Honorably mustered out Dec. 15, '65; Bvt. Lieut. Col. 

Honorably mustered out Nov. 15, '65 ; Bvt. Lieut. Col. 

Brevet Lieuteuant-Colouel. 

Honorably mustered out November 15, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out December 1, 1,S65. 
Honorably mustered out Dec. 1, 1865; Bvt. Lieut. Col. 
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. 
Honorably mustered out November 1, 1865. 

Discharged December 17, 1862. 

Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. 

Honorably mustered out November 15, 1S65. 



1 



ASSISTANT QUARTERMASTERS. 



COM. ISSUED. 



REMARKS. 



Captain George S. Atkinson Aug. 

James H. Ball 

V C. B. Beach 

" C. E. Bllven 

" Samuel N. Bonsall.... 
" Theodore C. Bowles.... 

" Edward B. Boyd 

" Roesiff Brinkerhoff. 

" Henry L.Brown [May 

" Raymond Burr July 



16, 



Ohio.. 
Ohio., 



Oct. 
Nov. 
April 



Nov. 



23. 1864 
2:1. 1862 



New York., 

iihio 

Ohio , 

Ohio 

4, 186llNew York. 

6, 18621 

14, " iNewYork. 



Resigned March 25, 1865. 
Resigned January 9, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out May 31, 1866 ; Brevet Major. 

Died at Gallatin, Tenn., July 19, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out March 25, 66 ; Bvt. Rlagor. 

Honorably mustered out June 5, 1866; Brevet Major. 

Brevet Brigadier-General. 

Appointment cancelled May 6, 1862. 

Brevet Colonel Slarch 13, 1865. 



Staff Officers, Etc. 



1015 



ASSISTANT QUARTERMASTERS-Continued. 



NAME. 


COM. 


SSUED. 


BORN. 


EEM.\BKS. 


Captain Hiram S. Chamberlain.... 


May 
Aug. 
Feb. 
Nov. 
Sept. 
April 
Sept. 
June 
Nov. 

April 
Feb. 

July 

A ug. 

June 

.March 

Oct. 

June 

April 

Dec. 

May 

Sept. 

I'eb. 

Nov. 

bY-b. 

Nov. 

Feb. 

J uue 

-May 

Feb. 

Oct. 

July 

Aug. 

July 

Aug. 

April 

Dec. 

Aug. 

June 

Sept. 

Nov. 

Aug. 

June 

Nov. 

Oci. 

Feb. 

June 
May 
June 

Nov. 

Aug. 

July 

Feb. 

July 

March 

Oct. 

Juue 

.Ian. 

Sept. 

Nov. 

Feb. 

Dec. 

May 

Dec. 

July 

Nov. 

Oct. 

April 

July 

Feb. 

Sept. 

Dec. 

Nov. 

Oct. 
May 


IS, IS64 
3, ISfil 
29, ISIH 

13, 1862 
ft, ISM 

27, 1863 
19, 1S64 
11, 1862 

25, " 
3, " 
7, 1864 

29, •' 
27, 1863 
17, 1S62 

3, 1861 
9, 1862 
24, " 

27, 1863 
IS, " 

30, 1864 

14, 1663 

12,' " 

14, 1S61 
29, 1863 
»•), 1862 

29, 1864 
11, 1862 
19, 1863 

11, 1862 

12, " 
23, 1864 
19, 1863 

31, 1861 

15, 1862 

26, 1864 

30, " 
5. 1863 

7, 1864 
5, 1863 
3, 1861 

30, 1S64 

16, 18i)2 
26, 1862 

5, 1861 

28, " 

26, 1862 

27, 1863 

19, 1862 

29, 1864 
9, 1862 

23, 1863 
26, 1861 

9, 1862 
26, " 

5, 1861 

8, 1863 
3, 1862 
3. 1863 

20, " 

31, 1861 

17, 1863 
1, ■" 

19, 1864 
26, 1862 
19, 1863 
5, " 
12, 1862 

5, 1863 
8, " 

11, 1861 

6, 1862 
31, 181.1 
23, 1863 
17, 1862 
19, 1863 

30, 1861 
5, 1863 

26, 1862 
26, " 

31, 1861 

12, 1S62 
12, " 


Ohio 


Honorably mustered out October 26. 1865. 


Connecticut 

Connecticut 

Ohio 

Ohio 


Honnral.lv mustered out March 30, 66 ; Bvt. Major 








Honoralilv mustered out Feb. 8, 1866; Brevet Major. 








Pennsylvania.... 

England 

Ohio 

Indiana 

Pennsylvania.... 
Ohio 


Honorably mustered out July 13, 1866 ; Brevet Major. 




Honorably mustered out March 13, 1866. 




Honorably mustered out Aug. 1, 1866; Bvt. Colonel. 










" D. W. 11. Day 


Honorably mustered out Feb. 2, 1866; Bvt. Lt. Col. 




Ohio 






Pennsylvania.... 


Kesigued February 20, 1865. 




[Bvt. Brig. Gen. 


" John J Elwell 


Ohio 


Honorably mustered out March 13, 1866; Bvt. Col., 




Ohio 


Honorably mustered out July 19, 1865. 


" Thomas D. Fitch 




Honorably mustered out Oct. 21, 1865; Bvt. Lt. CoL 


" Wrn. 0. Fuller 


Massachusetts.. 
Ohio 


Honorably mustered out Aug. 25, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. 


" Hob. 'ft S. Gardner 


Honorably mustered out March 13, 1866; Bvt. Major. 








" M'lii. Gastc-r 


Pennsylvania.... 
Ohio 


Dismissed August 31, 1864. 
Resigned July 6, 1865. 




Connecticut 


Honorably mustered out October 19, 1865. 




Uesigned September 16, 1864. 




Pennsylvania.... 


Honorably mustered out December 13, 1865. 


" JejSe Utah 


Honorably mustered out July 28, 1865. 


Grove L. ilratuii 

•• George 15. Uihli;ud 

•' L. 11. Hulabii-a 


New York 

Pennsylvania.... 


Honorably mustered out Jan. 27, 1866; Bvt. Major. 
Htinorably mustered out Jan. s, 1S66; Brevet Major. 
Resigned 31arch 15, IS65. 


" Wm. Hol(i(ju 


Ohio 


Honorably mustered out April 20, ISGh. 


" Will. HuoptT 




.\ppoinlmeut eaieelled. 






Honorably mn,-.tered out June 10, 1806; Bvt. Major. 




Ohio 

Ohio 


Ca^hiere.l -Mav 1, 1865. 




l)Lsmi-se,|.luiie 17, 1864. 


" Georae W. .lohnes 


Ohio 


Ilomirably musteied out Sept. 20, 1865; Bvt. Major. 


•' Htniy N. .Johasou 


Ohio 

Ohio 


Kc.^igned January 14, 18(;5. 

Honorably mustered out August 4, 1865. 


" Thomas J. Kcii 


Ohio 


Honorably mustered out Feb. 8, 1860 ; Brevet Col. 




Ohio . . 


Honorably musteied out June 26, 1865. 


" Ezra U. Kiik 


Ohio 


Brevet Ijieut. Col. August ;9, 1865. 






lloniirably mustered out July 28, 1.865. 


" Kobert S. Laccy 


Ohio 


Honorably mustered out July 1, l."<66. 


" UeiHT B. Lacey 


Ohio 


Honorably mustered out Dec. 6, 1865; Bvt. Major. 


" John V. LiwLS 

" M. li. \V. Loomis 

*' FiLlding Lowry 


Ohio 

Massachusetts... 
Ohio 


li.-si-ne.l .Mar<-h2.5, 1865. 

Hied at Fairfax C. H., Virginia, October 24, 1862. 

Uesigned .luiie 30, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out Sept'-mber 20, lSi'.5. 






Honorably mustered out May 31, 1866; Bvt. Lt CoL 


" David W. McClung 


Ohio 


Hoiioiably mustered out Nov. 8, 1865; Bvt. Major. 


" KeuhKu A. McCormick 

" E. W. Miichul 


Ohio 


Honorably mustered out March 13, 1865. 
Resigned December 6, 1862. 




New York 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.... 
I'ennsylvauia.... 


[M., V. S. A. 


" Charles \V. Moulton 


Com. vacated March 13, '63, to accept app't. of A. Q. 
Resigned December 2. 1864. 






Resigned Feb. 7, 1866; Bvt. Col., Bvt. Brig. Gen. 


" Ellas Nigh 


Com. vacated March 13,'ii3, app't. A. Q. M., U. S. A. 




Ohio 


Iliiiiorably mustered out April 30, ls66. 




Ohio 


R.'Si-m-.l .Inly 12, 1864. 


" H. W. I'ersing 


New York 

New York 

New York 


llunorablv mustered out March 13, is;6. 


" Abmr J. I'helps 

" Kalph Plumb 


Honorably mustered out September 20, 186.5. 
Honorably mustered out Nov. 11, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. 






Honorably mustered out Oct. 23, l.sii5; Bvt. Major. 


" E. C. lU-ichuubach 

" James M. lliMio 

" Warren Uussell 

*' A. W. Seiuple 

" Holly hilviiuier 


Switzerland 

Pennsylvania.... 

Pennsylvania.... 

New York 

Ohio 

Massachusetts... 
Ohio 


Honorably mustered out July 13, 1866; Bvt. Major. 
Honorably mustered out September 20, 1865. 
Di>e|iarg.-.l .Alareli 12, I8i4. 
Kesime.l .\pril 11, bs'.l. 
Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. 
Brevet Jl ijor. 


" Horatio M Smith 


Honorably mustered out March 1.3, 18C6 ; Bvt. Major 


" Bazil L. Spanuler 


Honorably mustered out June 28, 1865. 

.\pp't. tjolonel and Aid-de-Camp; Bvt. Brig. Gen. 

Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. 




Pennsylvania.... 
Pennsylvania.... 


" D. \V. Swi^iart 


Resigned October 28, ls64. 


" Randall 1'. Wade 




Resigned February 1, 1864. 


" Octavius Waters 

" Balph C. Webster 

" Henry li. Whetsel 


Ohio.'.!!.""!!!!!"!'.'.'. 


Brevet Lieut. Col. [conduct at battle of Shiloh." 
Hon. niui*t'd. out May 13,'66; Bvt. Miy. "for gallant 
H..norably mustered out May 31, 1866. 






Honorably mustered out June 6, 1865. 


" Charles T. Wing 


Ohio 


Honorably mustered out Jan. 27, 1866; Bvt. Colonel. 






Honorably mustered out Aug. 10, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. 






.\ppoiutment cancelled. 









1016 



Ohio in the War. 



COMMISSARIES OF SUBSISTENCE. 



Captain Charles Allen 

" George W. Baker 

" James Banialiy 

" Augustus V. Barringei- 

" Joseph C. Bland 

" E. v . Brooklield 

" Leonard P. Bureau 

" Thomas A. P. Champliu .... 

" Edward S. Convers 

" John W. Cornyn 

" Francis Darr 

" William Darst 

" James W. Delay 

" William H. Douglas 

" Francis Erlinian 

" George Evans 

" James U. Fitch 

" Charles S. Garfield 

" Samuel C. Glover , 

" Wm. M. Green 

" Joseph T. Haskell 

" Henry F. liawkes .... 

" Jacob Heaton 

" Samuel D. Henderson „., 

" Myron 0. Hills, 

" Eli V. Jeniiines 

" Charles C. Kellogg 

" Dennis Keniiey, jr , 

" Oscar B. Kerlin 

" Matthew M. Laughlin 

" Charles H. Leiby 

" W. L. Mallorv 

' Hngli L. JlcKee 

*' AV.H. JMcLyman 

" Koliert McQuilkin 

" Aaron II. IMiTeditli 

" Pliiueas K. Miner 

" Wm. H. Nash 

" John M. Palmer 

" Samuel S. Pattersofl 

" James K. Paul 

" John B. Pearce 

" J.C. Kamsey 

" Edward P. Ransom 

" Joseph Rudolph 

•' William D. SliepherU 

' Joseph J. Sl'icum 

* Lyman Y. Stewart 

' A. E. Strickle 

' AVm. H. Sttwart 

" James Sullivan 

" Jesse Thornton ~... 

" Richard B. Treat 

" W. M. Voulison 

" Archibald C. Voris 

" Stephen H. Webb 

" Wm. 1). Wesson 

" Aaron M. Wilcox 

" Joshua G. Willis e. 

" Gilbert E. Winters 



Feb. 
Nov. 



Aug. 
Sept. 
April 20, 
May IS, 
April 14, 
July Ifi, 
April 23. 
Aug. 3, 
March 6, 
Oct. 24, 
Aug. (i, 
Sept. 2.7, 
June 
Nov. 
July 
June 
Am 



COM. ISSUED. 



ISKl 
1S(>4 



11, 



Feb. 

Nov. 

Aug. 

Feb. 

Oct. 

lune 

Feb. 

Nov. 

April 17 

Nov 



Feb. 
Sept. 
Jlay 
Oct. 
May 
June 

Nov. 

Feb. 
May 
Oct. 
June 
May 
Sept. 
May 

Feb. 

Sept. 
May 
Nov. 
July 
March 



2", 



1S63 

ij;i;4 

1861 
16(i3 
lSrt2 
ISfil 
1S63 
1864 

18C.3 
I8'.2 
1863 
1862 
1S63 
1861 
1S63 
1862 
1864 

186: 

1864 
I 

1864 
1861 
lf63 



Au 
Oct. 

July 16 

Aug. .i 

July 16 

April 20 

M^iy 23 

March 11 



1861 
1862 
1861 
1862 
1863 



Ohio , 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.... 

New York 

Kentucky 

New York 

Louisiana 

Connecticut 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 



Ohio 

Ohio 

Pennsylvania.... 

Ohio 

New York 

New Y'ork 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Massachusetts.. 

Illinois 

Ohio 

New York 

Massachusetts.. 

Ohio 

New Y'ork 

Ohio 

Maryland 

Ohio 

Illinois 

Ohio 

New York 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

New Y'ork 

New Y'ork 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

New Brunswick 
New York .... 
Connecticut . 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

Ohio 

New York .... 

Ohio 

New Y'ork .... 



Ohio 

New Y'ork .. 
Vermont 



Houorablv mustered out Jan. IS, 1S66 ; Rvt. Major. 

Dieil at Salem, Ohio, Blarch 4, 1864. 

Resigned May 19, 186.5. 

IIoni.raMy mustered out June 26, 1865: Bvt. Major, 

Hoiiorablj- mustered out Oct. >», 1865; Brevet Major. 

HouoraLilv luustncd out Jan. 10, lsi.6; Bvt. Major. 

Ri-signed OcUilier 22, 1864. 

Honorably mustered out Oct. 9, 1S6.'); Bvt. Major. 

Hon. must'il out July 14, '65; Bvt. Maj. fBrig. Gen. 

Prom. Lt. C(d. Jan. I, '63; re.sign'd. July 31, '64; Bvt 

Discharged February 14, 18r]3. 

Honorably mnstired out July 11, 1865 ; Brevet Major. 

Honor;! blv mustered out Jnui- 24, ISi.j; Brevot Major, 

Honorably mustered out July 15, 1865; Brevet Major. 

Honorably mustered out July 1.5, 1865; Brevet Major. 

Honorably mustered out Jan. 18, 1866; Brevet Major. 

Honorably mustered out Jan. 27, 1866 ; Brevet Major. 

Honorably uuistered out Jan. 18, IS'i6 ; Brevet Blajor. 

Honorably mustered out Nov. 27, 1865; Brevet Major. 

Brevet Colonel November 26, 1866. 

Honorably mustered out Dec. S, 1865; Brevet Major. 

Resigned May 26, 1864. 

Honorably mustered out Aug. 22, 1805; Bvt. Lt. Col. 

Resigned April 11, i865. 

Resigned April 11, 1865. 

Honorably mustered ont -Aug. 10, 1865; Bvt. Lt. Col. 

Honorably mustered out July II, 1S65; Brevet Major. 

Honorably mustered out May 31, 1866; Brevet Major. 

Honorably musterfd out May 31, 1866 ; Brevet Major. 

Honoraldv mustered out Jan. 4, 1866; Brevet Miijor. 

Resigned Nov. 11, 1864. 

Resigned June 29, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out Aug. 22, 1865 ; Brevet Major. 

Resigned June 3, lf^65. 

Honorably mustered out Oct. 9, 1865; Brevet Major. 

Honorably mustered out Oct. 9. I.s65 ; Brevet Major. 

App t. Com. of Subsistence U. S. A., Nov. 17, 1865. 

Discharged March 2S, 1863. 

Honorably mustered out October IS, 1865. 

Prom. Lt. Col. Jan. 1, 1863; resigned Jan. 19, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out July 14, 1865 ; Brevet Major. 

liesigued November 15, 1864. 

Honorably mustered out Jan. 31, 1866 ; Brevet Major. 

Houorabh mustered out Jan. 18, 1866 ; Brevet Major. 

Honorably mustered ont <.>et. 9, 1865; Brevet Major. 

Honorably miustered out July 7, 1866 ; Bit-vet Major. 

Honorably mustered out June 16, 1865 ; Bvt. Major. 

Died at Cincinnati July 9, 1863. 

Resigned May 10, 1865. 

Honorably mustered out July 8, 1865; Brevet Major 

Honorably mustered out Sept. 23, 18i'5; Bievet Major. 

Honorably mustered out Feb. 21, Ksori ; Bvt. Lt. Col. 

Resigned May 11, 1865; Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel. 

Honorably discharged September 6, 1864. 

Resigned December 15, 1864. 

Honorably mustered out Oct. 9, 1865; Brevet Major. 

Resigned October 10. Is62. 

Honorably mustered out Aug. 18, 1865 ; Brevet Major. 




''^^faNot. ^""^ 







FROiW 



<^^^^^ 




THE WAR GOVERNORS, ETC. 



EX-GOVERNOR WILLIAM DENNISON. 



WILLIAM DENNISON, the first of the War Governors of Ohio, 
was born at Cincinnati on the 23d of November, 1815. On his 
mother's side he is of New England ancestr}'. His father, a native 
of New Jersey, was long and widel}' known in the Miami Vallej^ as a success- 
ful business man. 

In the 3-ear 1835 Mr. Dennison was graduated at Miami Univcrsitj'. At 
college he took from his teachers commendations for respectable scholarship, 
and for special excellence in political science, history, and belle-lettres. He 
pursued the study of the law at Cincinnati, in the office of one of the gifted 
men of Ohio, Nathaniel G. Pendleton, fiither of George H. Pendleton. In 
1840 he was admitted to the bar, and soon afterward was married, his bride 
being the eldest daughter of William Neil, of Columbus, whose name is indis- 
solubly and honorably connected with mail conti-acts and stage transportation, 
when railroads were unknown in the Yalleys of the Ohio and Mississippi. 
About the time of his marriage Mr. Dennison removed to Columbus, where he 
practiced his profession assiduously until 1848, when the Whigs of the Senato 
rial district composed of the counties of Franklin and Delaware elected him 
to the Ohio Senate. He entered public life at a hotly-contested period of Ohio 
politics. Between the Whigs and Democrats the lines were closely drawn, and 
a' third party (the Free Soil) made the result of both local and general elections 
very doubtful. So closely were the Senators and Representatives divided that 
the General Assembly, which met in December of that year, was unorganized 
for more than two weeks, during which period, in both branches, there was a 
struggle for mastery; and so heated was the contest that scenes of violence 
were feared, in which it was expected that excited partisans, who thronged the 
lobbies, would take part. In the contest for Speaker of the Senate Mr. Den- 
nison was made the representative of his fellow Whigs, but they could not con- 
trol quite votes enough to elect him. This mark of regard gave him promi- 
nence, however, as a member of the Senate, and his position was maintained 

lOlT 



1018 Ohio in the Wak. 

with skill and tact, that secured for him pei-sonal and political consideration, 
and contributed largely, in after years, to designate him as a man worthy of 
public trusts. His record as a Senator associates him Avith the repeal of the 
law denj'ing black or mulatto persons the privilege of residence, and forbidding 
them to testify in courts, which, from 1804 to 1849, disgraced Ohio statute- 
books; with a demand for the application of the Ordinance of 1787 to all Terri- 
tories of the United States, and for the abolition of the slave-trade in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. In opposition to the aggressiv^e demand of pro-slavery poli- 
ticians, 3Ir. Dennison early took a decided stand. His first public speech, 
delivered in the year 1844, was against the slavery-extension scheme involved i) 
the proposal to take Texas into the Union. 

At the close of his Senatorial term, in the spring of 1850, he resumed the 
practice of his profession, declining all political offices. In 1852, however, he 
was one of the Senatorial Electors in Ohio, and cast his vote in the electoral 
college for General Scott. About this time Mr. Dennison accepted the Presi- 
dency of the Exchange Bank of Columbus, and began to turn his attention to 
the railroad enterprises then attracting capital and business energy in all parts 
of Ohio. He was chosen President of the Columbus and Xenia Eailroad, and 
has since been actively engaged as director with the chief railway liiies center- 
ing at Columbus. 

In February, 1856, Mr. Dennison Avas a delegate to the Pittsburg conven- 
tion, at which the Eepublican part}- Avas inaugurated ; Avas a member of the 
Committee on Resolutions, Avhich prepared the platform of principles; and, in 
June of the same j'ear, Avas the acting chairman of the Ohio delegation at the 
Philadelphia Convention, and took an influential part in the committee and 
couA^ention proceedings Avhich resulted in the nomination of John C. Fremont 
for the Presidency. 

In 1859 Mr. Dennison Avas nominated by acclamation as the Republican 
candidate for Governor of Ohio. His opponent, the candidate of the Demo- 
cratic party, Rufus P. Ranne}', Avas a man of high character, Avho had been a 
member of the Constitutional Convention of 1852, and who had serA'ed Avith 
distinction as one of the Supreme Judges of the State. The candidates debated 
the issues of the campaign at a series of mass meetings held in different parts 
of the State. Earnest interest Avas manifested on both sides concerning these 
debates, and it was generally considered that Mr. Dennison's success contrib- 
uted largely to the liberal majority by Avhich he Avas elected. In his inaugural 
the new Governor affirmed that Ohio was unmistakably opposed to the exten- 
sion of shiA'ery, and bade his constituents bear him Avitness that the object 
of "these aggressions Avas permanent pro-slaA-ery dominion in the Government 
or a dissolution of the Union; peaceably', if convenient ; if not, forcibly, if pos- 
sible, for the establishment of a slaveholding confederacy. The first event of 
note in Avhich the GoA'ernor took part Avas on the occasion of an official A'isit 
from the Legislatures of Kentucky and Tennessee to the State capital, in Jan- 
uary, 1860, upon an iuA'itation from the General Assembly of Ohio. Happen- 
ing at a time Avhen the National House of Repi'esentatives Avas unable to organ- 



William Dennison. lOlS 

ize, and when discussions of danger to the Union were upon every tongue, the 
event was regarded as one of much significance. 

Governor Dennison's first message was delivered to the Fifty-Foui'th Gen- 
eral Assembly January 7, 1861. It reported an abstract of the census returns 
of 18G0, with suggestions respecting legislation required by developments of 
mining, manufacturing, and agricultural resources; gave a comprehensive 
review of the State finances, recommended a continuance of the State banking 
system, and strongly urged an effective military system. Discussing at con- 
siderable length questions pertaining to a dismemberment of the Union then 
agitated, the Governor declaimed the judgment of Ohio in 1860 to be precisely 
what it was in 1832, when its Legislature resolved: "That the Federal Union 
exists in a solemn compact, entered into by the voluntary consent of the people 
of the United States, and of each and every State, and that, therefore, no State 
can claim the right to secede from, or violate that compact; and however 
grievous may be the supposed or real burdens of a State, the only legitimate 
remedy is in the wise and faithful exercise of the elective franchise, and a sol- 
emn responsibility of the public agents." In accordance with this judgment 
he concluded his message with an emphatic declaration that, \oyii\ as Ohio has 
alwaj's been to the Constitution, she would maintain her loyalty come what 
might. These are the common sentiments and common words of patriots, but 
at the time, and under the circumstances in which they were uttered on behalf 
of the State of Ohio, they possessed peculiar force and weight. 

Of the war administration of Governor Dennison we have already spoken 
at length. It only remains to say that he continued to give time and labor 
freelj' to the Union cause through the war; that he was made President of the 
great anti-Vallandigham State Convention, and of the National Convention at 
Baltimore that re-nominated Mr. Lincoln; that, w^ien Mr. Montgomery Blair 
retired from the Postmaster-Generalship in Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, Governor 
Dennison was chosen to succeed him; that he was retained by Mr. Johnson, 
and that he resigned his portfolio when the new President began to assail the 
Union party. Since then Governor Dennison has resumed his residence at 
Columbus, and devoted himself to his private business, in which he has accu- 
mulated a handsome fortune. 



1020 ■ Ohio in the War. 



EX-GOVERNOR DAVID TOD. 



HON. DAYID TOD, the second of the War Governors, was born at 
Youngstown, Mahoning County, Ohio, on the 21st of February, 1805. 
His father, the Hon. George Tod, settled in Ohio in 1800, having left his 
native State, Connecticut, with man}^ other of the early pioneers who settled 
the Western Eeserve. Ohio was then a Territory, and the same year of his 
coming into it Mr. Tod was called upon by Governor St. Clair to act as Secretary 
of the Territory. In 1802, when Ohio was admitted into the Union, he was 
elected Judge of the Supreme Court, holding that oflSce for seven yeai'S in suc- 
cession ; he was afterward re-elected to the same position, but on the breaking 
out of the second war with Great Britain, resigned his seat on the bench, and 
tendering his services to the Government, was commissioned a Major, and after- 
ward promoted to the Colonelcy of the Nineteenth Regiment of the army. 
During the struggle Colonel Tod won laurels by his coolness, bravery, courage, 
and heroism, especially at Sackett's Harbor and Fort Meigs. After the v,-ar, 
resigning his commission, he returned to Trumbull County, where, alter a short 
time, he was elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, having for his cir- 
cuit the whole northern j^art of Ohio. Judge Tod remained upon the bench for 
fourteen years, retiring in 1829, and for the remainder of his life pursuing his 
profession of the law, dying, universally regretted, at the age of sixty-seven, in 
1841. At the death of his father, in 1841, David Tod was practicing law, hav- 
ing been admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-two, in 1827, and having 
opened an office at Warren, whei'e he followed his profession for fifteen j^ears. 
As a lawyer none were more successful. Commencing life without a pennj^ 
under even what would be embarrassing circumstances to a majorit}'- of young 
men, he overcame every obstacle and won fortune by the talents and industry 
he brought to the pi-actice of his profession. As a criminal lawyer he won rep- 
utation thi'ough the West. 

From his youth he had a strong love of politics, was an ardent admirer of 
Jackson, and in consequence of the Democratic part}^, for whose success he cast 
his first vote. In 1838 he was elected to the State Senate over his Whig com- 
petitor. In 1840, having previously become personally acquainted with Gen- 
eral Jackson and Martin Van Buren, he took the stump for the latter, and won 
a reputation as a speaker which at once gave him prominence among the ora- 
tors of the State. 



David Tod. 1021 

Such was his popularity with his own party that in 1844 he was brought 
0^ as their candidate for Governor, receiving a unanimous nomination, and in 
that struggle his opponent's (Bartley's) majority was only about one thousand, 
while Clay's the following month, over Polk, was six thousand. About this 
time he retired from his profession to his ftirm at Brier Hill, and for the next 
three years devoted himself to agricultural pursuits. 

In 1847 President Polk, unsolicited, tendered him the appointment of Min- 
ister to the Court of Brazil. From 1847 to the summer of 1852, a period of 
nearly five years, Mr. Tod represented the United States Government, nego- 
tiating several treaties ; among the rest. Government claims of over thirty years 
previous standing. On his return, and during the Presidential canvass, he did 
effective service in the campaign which secured the election of Mr. Pierce. He 
also participated in the canvass of 1856, but sought no office from either. 

In 1860, being a delegate to the Charleston Convention, and a strong Doug- 
las man, he was chosen first Vice-President of that body, and Avhen at Baltimore 
nearly the entire Southern wing of the party withdrew, followed by Caleb 
Gushing, of Massachusetts, the President of the Convention, Mr. Tod became 
the presiding officer. 

The executive and business talents of Mr. Tod were conspicuously evidenced 
as the President of the Cleveland and Mahoning Eailroad, the construction of 
which he was one of the first to advocate, and with whose success he became 
identified. To Mr. Tod, more than any other man, belongs the honor of inau- 
gurating the steps which led to the development of the vast coal mines of the 
Mahoning Valley. 

Before and after the meeting of the Peace Congress at Washington, in Feb- 
ruary, Mr. Tod warml}- advocated the peace measures, and the exhausting of 
every honorable means, rather than the Southern Fire-caters should inaugurate 
civil war. But from the moment the flag was shot down at Sumter, he threw 
off all party trammels, and was among the first public men in the State who 
took the stump advocating the vigorous prosecution of the war till every Eebel 
was cut off or surrendered. From that moment, with voice and material aid, 
he contributed his support to the National Government. Besides subscribing 
immediately one thousand dollars to the war fund of his township, he furnished 
company B, Captain Hollingsworth, Nineteenth Eegiment, Youngstown, with 
their first uniforms. 

The circumstances of the Governor's nomination to succeed Governor Den- 
nison,and of his administration, have already been given.* Since the close of his 
term of service he has devoted himself to his business interests. He resides on his 
farm, known as "Brier Hill," in Mahoning County, which formerly belonged 
to his father, and which he repurchased, after he began to accumulate property, 
from those who had come into possession of it. With a brief description of 
this place, as given by a correspondent of the Ohio State Journal, we may close 
this sketch : 

* Part I. 



1022 Ohio in the War. 

"The home farm — or ' Brier Hill Farm,' as it is called — contains about six hundred acrea 
of well-improved, highly-cultivated land. Everything about the farm is in perfect order. The 
barns, stables, out-houses, sheds, and fences are all in the right place, and indicate the clear head 
and practical good sense of the proprietoi-. The house is just as the Governor describes it: ' Ad- 
ditions with a house to them.' The original structure is no longer to be seen. In the midst of 
a large park, filled with native forest trees, evergreens, shrubbery, and flowers, all in perfect 
order, stands the mansion, which has grown into ample dimensions, as time, an increasing family, 
enlarged business, and the demands of taste and comfort required. Between the house and the 
railroad stands a noble old forest, covered with a rich foliage, just tinged with autumnal colors. 
Two avenues have been cut through, to give a view of three of the Governor's iron foundries, 
whose smoke and flames indicate at a glance to the proprietor their working condition." 



EX-GOVERNOR JOHN BRODGH. 



JOHN BEOTJGH was born at Marietta on the 17th of September, 1811. 
His father, John Brough, an Englishman by birth, came to this coun- 
try in 1806, in the same ship Avith Blennerhassett, with whom he after- 
ward remained on the most friendlj- relations until his unfortunate connection 
with the Burr conspiracy. Mr. Brough's mother was a native of Pennsylvania, 
and was a woman of great force of character, and it was from her that John 
inherited the strong mental characteristics for which he was so remarkable. 
He was the oldest of three sons, but second in a familj- of five children. He 
received a good common school education, but his father died in 1822, leaving 
him, as well as the other members of the family, to depend upon their own 
exertions for support. John went into the printing office of Eoyal Prentiss, of 
Marietta, setting type a few months. He then entered the Ohio University, at 
Athens, where he pursued a scientific course, with the addition of Latin. AVhilo 
here he worked nights and mornings at his trade, and attended to his studies 
during the day. During this time he is said to have put up as much type every 
week as a hand constantly employed, and kept at the head of every department 
of study in the college. He studied law in the same manner. He was fleet of 
foot and the best ball player at college. 

In 1832 he went to Parkersburg, Virginia, where for several months he 
edited the Gazette of that place. He then removed to Marietta, where he pub- 
lished and edited the Washington County Republican, a Democratic paper. In 
1833 he removed to Lancaster, and purchased the Ohio Eagle, which he con- 
tinued to edit with marked ability until 1838, spending almost every winter in 
Columbus, during which time he acted as Clerk to the Tipper House of the 
General Assembly. It was during this time that he began to exhibit capacity 
for financial aifairs, and he was taken into the confidence of the old leaders of 
both political parties. He saw through the corruption of the Auditor's office, 



John Brough. 1023 

and the tendency of the dominant party toward repudiation, securing the 
information Avhich enabled him to denounce the whole system so effectually 
when a member of the House of Eepresentatives in 1838-39. 

This bold course made him State Auditor in 1839, although fiercely opposed 
and threatened by Medary and Allen. The best and purest members of the Legis- 
lature of the Whig party voted for John Brough, and he was elected. Ever after- 
ward Medary and Allen were his bitter and uncompromising enemies. Brough 
continued to act as Auditor for six years, in that time perfectly revolutionizing 
the manner of doing business in that office, and building up an enviable reputa- 
tion for executive abilitj' and probity of character. The annual reports of Au- 
ditor Brough are among the most interesting historical papers of the State. They 
disclose the confusion and irresponsibility of the business transactions of the 
departments, and the mismanagement, if not corruption, of the finances. Soon 
after taking possession of his office, Brough set to work to correct the general 
system of plunder, practiced in several counties of the State by dishonest and 
inefficient oflScials, which was encouraged by the system of special legislation 
then in vogue. He soon had three hundred thousand acres of canal lands, 
which had been dodging taxation, replaced on the duplicate, and recommended 
to the Legislature that the owners be required to pay the taxes for the j^ears 
they had eluded the officers of the law. He recommended the resurvey of the 
Virginia military lands, showing that in a single instance in one county, that 
a resurvey of a warrant of five thousand acres had produced nearly fifteen 
thousand acres. He showed that in the counties of Highland and Faj^ette 
alone, not less than fifty thousand acres of land were not upon the duplicates, 
which of right should be there. He denounced the loose character of legisla- 
tion upon the subject of school and ministerial leased lands. The whole body 
of laws relating to our financial operations had become involved in such con- 
fuson, and the frequent patching of the system had given it so many forms, 
that a correct administration of the public finances was a matter of impossi- 
bility. There were no less than three financial departments: The Canal Fund 
Commissioners, the Board of Public Works, and the State officers, and all act- 
ing in independence of each other. 

From all the information and records of the Auditor's office, it was not pos- 
sible to arrive with accuracy at the indebtedness of the State, and the disburse- 
ment of the most important and extensive portion of its funds. The Fund 
Commissioners Avere authorized to loan mone}-; they did so, and reported the 
fact and gross amount to the Auditor; but those funds, instead of passing 
through the Auditor's office into the public treasury, were deposited in the 
banks and agencies; and in place of being disbursed upon the drafts of the 
Auditor, pa.ssing through his books, where a perfect system of accountability 
could be kept up, the}- were paid out on the checks of the Fund Commissioners, 
and no trace of them, save the fact of their loan, as reported by the Commis- 
sioners, was to be found upon the fiscal records of the State. Again, while this 
branch was thus independent of the fiscal officers of the State, the Board of 
Public Works was independent of both. Their requisitions for public funds 



1024 Ohio in the War. 

were made upon the Fund Commissioners; the amounts were furnished and 
placed in the banks, subject to the unrestricted checks of the Acting Commis- 
sioners. The vouchers for their expenditures were returned to themselves, in 
their aggregate capacity of a Board; and the accounts of one member were 
audited and settled by his colleagues, when he in turn became a judge in settling 
theirs; the Auditor having nothing to do but record these settlements as final! 
This, to the citizens of Ohio participating in political affairs twenty-eight yeai-s 
ago, is nothing new, but to the younger class it will show how slowly a safe 
system of finances is formed ; and comparing the recommendations of the Au- 
ditor then with the admirable financial system we now have, they will under- 
stand better what the people of Ohio owe to John Brough. 

He earnestly devoted his energies to reform ; and, by unremittingly press- 
ing his theories, from year to year, upon the General Assembly, and laying 
them before the people, he effected it. The management of the finances was 
changed ; a system of accountability between the departments of govern- 
ment was adopted ; new revenue laws were passed and put into operation, and 
the county officers held to a rigid accountability for their execution, so that, 
even as early as 1841, one million and twenty thousand acres of land were 
added to the taxable list; inefficiency in the discharge of public duties, corrup- 
tion and defalcation on the part of subordinates, which had been frequent 
before, Avere prevented or corrected ; economy in the administration of govern- 
ment and expenditures for public improvements was observed; those political 
mountebanks, whilom freest in squandering the public revenue, who broached 
the policy of repudiating the public debt, were defeated and politically buried ; 
the State was relieved from financial embarrassments and ber credit gradually 
restored. 

The heavy amount of the jniblic debt, and its rapidly-increasing charactei-, 
was a source of great anxiety to Mr. Brough, and he addressed himself to the 
task of reducing it and adopting the means for its final redemption. He dis- 
cussed in public the financial question in all its bearings. He referred to the 
theory of an English statesman, that a " national debt was a national blessing," 
for the reason that the interest and identity which it created between its citi- 
zens, the wealthj' and powerful, and the government, was the safest guarantee 
ao-ainst the revolution that involved encroachment or destruction. Mr. Brough 
held that "the remark will hold directly an inverse position when applied to 
the form of government which we enjoy, and is enforced in that position by the 
very reversed circumstances that surround our public debt." Subsequently, in 
a communication to the General Assembly, he reaffirmed this doctrine, and 
protested against any resort, on the part of the State of Ohio, to '• doubtful 
expedients" to meet her increasing indebtedness. He held that "the faith of 
the State, where it has been legally and honestly pledged, should be preserved 
inviolate;" bat, to do this in the future, "the sovereign authority should set 
rigid bounds to the debt, which, under the pledge of that faith, is so rapidly 
accumulating." Taxation and retrenchment was his theory. There was great 
inequality in the taxation of lands, town, and chattel property, which led toa 



John Beough. 1025 

misunderstanding, confusion, and wrong. Mr. Brough urged a remedy — the 
appraisement of all taxable property at its real cash value. It was true that 
this would swell the duplicate to a verj^ large amount, but the larger the aggre- 
gate of taxable property the smaller the rate of taxation. 

"While Mr. Brough was still Auditor of State he bought the Phoenix, in 
Cincinnati, of Moses Dawson, changed its name to the Enquirer, and put his 
brother Charles Brough as editor. After the close of his official term he prac- 
ticed law in Cincinnati, and also wrote editorials for his paper. There is some 
ev'dence that Mr. Brough had an ambition to represent the State in the United 
States Senate, for which position his broad and comprehensive views of public 
policy and his great ability as a speaker admirably fitted him ; but in 1848, be- 
coming disgusted with the proslavery inclinations of some of the leaders of the 
Democratic party, he resolved to have nothing more to do with politics, save 
as an elector, and sold one-half of tbe Enquirer to H. H. Eobinson. 

President Polk had oflPered him the Secretaryship of the Treasury, with- 
out consultation with the part of the Democratic leaders to whom Mr. Brough's 
course as Auditor had been distasteful. His financial turn of mind made the 
offer peculiarly grateful, but it was subsequently withdrawn without explana- 
tion. Afterward he was tendered, in succession, several important diplomatic 
positions, but he refused all; and, abandoning all political aspirations, em- 
barked in raih-oad business. He was made President of the Madison and In- 
dianapolis Eailroad Company, making Madison his place of residence. He 
continued as President of this road until 1853, and was remarkably successful 
in its management; so much so that it may be said that he thereby laid the 
foundation of the present railroad sj^stem which centers at Indianapolis. In 
Julj^ 1853, he became connected with the Bellefontaine line. This active busi- 
ness life suited him, and it was with apparent reluctance that, after fifteen 
years of retirement, he obeyed the call of the people of his native State to be- 
come their standard-bearer against treason, in 1863. 

Of his ensuing career, and of his death in the midst of his labors, previous 
chapters of this work have spoken in detail. 

Brough was a statesman. His views of public policy were broad and cath- 
olic, and his course was governed by what seemed to be the best interests of 
the people, without regard to party expediency or personal advancement. Ho 
was honest and incorruptible, rigidly just and plain, even to bluntness. He 
had not a particle of dissimulation. People thought him ill-natured, rude, and 
hard-hearted. He was not; he was simply a plain, honest, straightforward 
man, devoted to business. He had not the suaviter in modo. This was, perhaps, 
unfortunate for himself, but the public interests suffered nothing thereby. He 
was, moreover, a kind-hearted man, easily afi'ected by the sufferings of others, 
and ready to relieve suffering when he found the genuine article. He, perhaps, 
mistrusted more than some men, but when he was convinced he did not measure 
his gifts. He was a good judge of character. He looked a man through and 
through at fii'st sight. Hence no one hated a rogue more than he; and, on the 
Vol. 1.— 65. 



1026 Ohio in the Wae. 

other hand, no one had a warmer appreciation of a man of good principles. 
He was a devoted friend. 

As a public speaker Brough has had few superiors. His style was clear, 
fluent, and logical, while at times he was impassioned and eloquent. When the 
famous joint campaign was being made between Corwin and Shannon, for Gov- 
ernor, the Democratic leaders found it expedient to withdraw Shannon and sub- 
stitute Brough, in order that they might not utterly fail in the canvass. Corwin 
and Brough were warm friends, and none of Brough's partisans ever had a 
higher admiration for his genius than had Corwin. 

In 1832 Mr. Brough married Miss Achsah P. Pruden, of Athens, Oh'o. 
She died September 8, 1838, in the twenty-fifth year of her age. In 1843 ho 
married, at Lewiston, Pennsylvania, Miss Caroline A. Nelson, of Columbus, 
Ohio, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. Both of the sons have 
died. So soon as Governor Brough became aware of the dangerous nature of 
his disease he made his will, and talked freely to his wife, children, and friends. 
He sought full preparation for death. Though not a member of a church, nor 
during the last ten years of his life, an active attendant at any place of worship, 
he stated very calmly, yet with deep feeling, that he was, and always had been, 
a firm believer in the doctrines of Christianity; that he had full faith and hope 
in Jesus Christ, and through Him hoped for eternal life. He remarked that 
he had never been a demonstrative man, but his faith had, nevertheless, been 
firmly and deeijly grounded. 



Edwin M. Stanton. 1027 



SECRETARY EDWIN M. STANTON. 



ONE of the most distinguished and popular of war ministers was William 
Pitt. Yet when a historian of England, not unfriendly to Mr. Pitt's 
party (Lord Macaulay), came to pass judgment upon him, he j^ronounced 
him superlatively extravagant and incompetent. It is possible that when future 
historians apply their microscopes to the management of our War Department 
during the trying years of the long struggle, thej' may echo the first part, at 
least, of this censure. But they can no more separate the name of Edwin M. 
Stanton from the great triumphs won lander his management than they can 
obliterate the fame of the younger Pitt. 

To give a satisfactory life of Mr. Stanton would be to write with great full- 
ness of detail the inner history of the conduct of the war by our Government, 
and of the efforts at re-organization that followed the peace. The occasion is 
not convenient, nor, even if all the facts could properly be made accessible, has 
the time come for that. We must rest satisfied, therefore, with a few bare focts 
-and dates. 

Mr. Stanton is of Quaker descent. His ancestors migrated from Ehode 
Island to l^orth Carolina about the middle of the eighteenth century. His 
grandparents were Benjamin and Abigail Stanton, who resided near Beaufort, 
in North Carolina. The maiden name of the latter was Abigail Macy, and she 
was a descendant of that Thomas Macj", who was perhaps the earliest white 
pettier of Nantucket, and whose flight thither, upon pursuit for giving shelter 
to a hunted-down Quaker, is the subject of one of Whittier's poems. Benja- 
min Stanton, the Secretary's grandfiather, in his will expressed the " will and 
desire that all the poor black people that ever belonged to me be entirely free 
whenever the laws of the land will allow it; until which time my executors I 
leave as guardians to protect them and see that they be not deprived of their 
right or any way misused." In the year 1800 his Avidow, with a large family 
of children, removed to Ohio. One of her children was Dr. David Stanton, 
who married Lucy Norman, a native of Culpepper County, Virginia, daughter 
of Thomas Noi'man, Esq. Her father was a Virginia planter, who resided near 
Stevensburg, and was owner of the farm on which was fought, in 1SG2, the bat- 
tle of Cedar Mountain. Dr. David Stanton was an eminent and highlj^ respected 
pnysician in Steubenville, Ohio. 

His eldest child was Edwin M. Stanton, who was born at Steubenville, Ohio, 
in December, 1315. At the age of thirteen he became a clerk in the bookstore 



1028 Ohio in the Wae. 

of James Turnbull, of Steubenville. After three years spent here, in the year 
1831, he became a student of Kenyon College, where he remained until some 
time in the year 1833. After leaving college he was again employed as a clerk 
in the bookstore of James Turnbull, at Columbus. He subsequently studied 
law in the office of his guardian, Daniel L. Collier, Esq., at Steubenville, and at 
the age of twenty-one (in 1836) was admitted to the bar. He immediately com- 
menced to practice his profession at Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio, and was 
elected prosecuting attorney of the county. Shortly afterward, having acquired 
a large cii'cuit practice, he removed to his native town of Steubenville, and in 
1842 was elected by the General Assembly of Ohio reporter of the decisions of 
the Supreme Court. He prepared and published volumes eleven, twelve, and 
thirteen of the Ohio State Eeports. Though Mr. Stanton's attention was chiefly 
given to his profession, yet, even at this time, he took a somewhat active jDart 
in the politics of his county and State as a member of the Democratic part}'. 

In 1847 he began to practice law in Pittsbui"g, as a partner of the Hon. 
Charles Shaler, and though still retaining an office at Steubenville, his attention 
was chiefly given to cases before the courts of Pennsylvania and the United 
States District, Circuit, and Supreme Courts. Among the important causes in 
which he was engaged were those known as the "Erie war" cases, in which he 
was counsel for the railroad company ; and the Wheeling Bridge case, which he 
conducted as counsel for the State of Pennsylvania. 

In the latter part of 1856 he removed to Washington City to attend to his 
practice before the Supreme Coui't of the United States, in which he had 
acquired a leading and lucrative practice. In 1858 he went to California as 
special counsel for the Government in certain land cases, involving public inter- 
ests of great magnitude, and for his management of these cases he received fees 
almost unexampled. 

In December, 1860, while engaged before the United States Circuit Court 
at Cincinnati, in a suit arising out of the conflicting interests of the Manney 
and McCormick reaping machine (it was at an earlier stage of this litigation, in 
1859, and at the same place, that he first met Mr. Lincoln, who was of counsel 
on the same side), he was nominated to the office of Attorney-Genei-al by Pres- 
dent Buchanan, whose old Cabinet was then falling to pieces ai-ound him. Mr. 
Stanton's attitude throughout the remainder of Mr. Buchanan's administra- 
tion was that of determined opposition to the traitors in the Cabinet, and reso- 
lute maintenance of the National honor. At the expiration of Mr. Buchanan's 
term he resumed his profession, but did not relax his interest or efforts in behalf 
of the National cause. On the 20th of January, 1862, he was appointed by Mr. 
Lincoln Secretary of War. He continued a member of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, 
enjoying the most cordial friendship and confidence of the President through- 
out the rest of his first term, and during his second term up to the time of Mr. 
Lincoln's assassination. On the 5th of August, 1867, Mr. Johnson requested 
his resignation, upon the alleged ground of public considerations of a high 
character, to which Secretary Stanton replied that "public considerations of a 
high character, which alone had induced him to remain at the head of this 



Edwin M. Stanton. 1029 

Department, constrained bim not to resign befoi-e the next meeting of Congress." 
On the 12th of August Mr. Johnson notified him of his suspension from the 
oflBce of Secretary of War. 

During his service as Secretary of "War after Mr. Johnson's accession, Mr. 
Stanton supported the following measures passed by Congress against the Pres- 
ident's opposition : 

1. Freedmen's Bureau bill. 

2. Tlie Civil Rights bill. 

3. The bill giving suffrage without regard to color in the District of Columbia. 

4. The bill admitting Colorado as a State. 

5. The several acts known as the Eeconstruction Acts, providing for the establishment of 
governments in the Rebel States. 

"With this we must content ourselves. Mr. Stanton's relations to General 
McClellan and the peninsular campaign ; his relations to the Eebel incursions 
in the Shenandoah Valley and the defense of the Cajjital ; his relations to the 
changes of armies and commanders, the building up and pulling down of mili- 
tary reputations, the plans of campaigns, the recruiting of the arm}^, the policy 
of the Government on the question of slavery, and a score of other matters 
almost equally important, would furnish the material for volumes. 

He was, throughout Mr. Lincoln's administration, all-powerful. It was 
with reference to some strong-willed action of Mr. Stanton's, in opposition to 
his own wishes, that Mr. Lincoln, in reply to a personal appeal for aid, made 
the jocose remark, so often quoted, that he (Lincoln) had verj^ little influence 
with this Administration. That the Secretary always used his power wisely 
or justly can not be aflSrmed. His expenditures were enormous, and occasion- 
ally ill-guarded. He was quick, decided, impatient of opposition, regardless of 
personal feelings, relentless in his purpose, almost vindictive, sometimes, in his 
punishments. His manners to officers of the army were often utterly indefens- 
ible. Yet it was mostly to men of high rank that he was rough or insulting ; 
to the poor and defenseless he was often gentle and tender as a woman. 

These things will long continue to exert great influence on the contempo- 
rary judgment of the displaced Secretary. But they can not greatly affect his 
permanent place in the history of the war. To call him the organizer of vic- 
tory is to use a phrase that has become cant, and to award a compliment which 
he has himself expressly and conspicuously disclaimed. Yet it is the title to 
which his service and his success fairly point. 

Mr. Stanton was credited to Pennsylvania in the record of Cabinet appoint- 
ments, by reason of his having for a little time kept a law office at Pittsburg; 
but he has always regarded Steubenville, Ohio, as his home. He now resides in 
"Washington. Before entering the Cabinet he had amassed a considerable for- 
tune in the practice of his profession, in which he stood among the foremost 
lawyers at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. He has for a 
year or two been afflicted with an asthma which seems to have become chronic, 
and threatens to impair his future activity. 



1030 Ohio in the Wae. 



EX-SECRETARY SALMON P. CHASE. 



THE testimony of a conspicuous Eebel leader that the rebellion was con- 
quered by our Treasury Department rather than by our Generalship, 
has already been quoted. In a work devoted to the military aspect of 
the great struggle, we can not with propriety enter at any satisfactory length 
into an account of the troubles and labors with which the financial system, that 
carried the Nation through, was built up. Yet Ohio may be indulged, even 
here, in the pardonable pride of an allusion to the fact that in this phase of the 
contest, as well as in the others, she " led throughout the war." To take a 
bankrupt treasury, sustain the credit of the Government, feed, equip, arm, pay, 
and transport an army of a million men, and pay all the expenses of a war on 
such a scale for four years — this was the work accomplished by Salmon P. 
Chase. He has many and high titles to the Nation's gratitude; he was recog- 
nized as one of its most illustrious Statesmen before this task came upon him ; 
he has been called, since he finished it, to the most exalted ofiice in the Govern- 
ment; but, in all the round of his worthily -won honors, there is none more sub- 
stantial and enduring. 

Unlike many of those of whom, in these later pages, we have spoken, Mr. 
Chase's career is a part of the historj- of the Nation — known and read of all 
men. It may, therefore, be here the more briefly dismissed. 

He was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, on the 13th of January, 1808. 
His father, Ithaman Chase, was a type of the old-fashioned New Englanders, 
and his ancestors were from Cornish, England. His mother was of Scotch de- 
scent. Ithaman Chase was a prosperous farmer, who, during the operation of 
the "non-intercourse act," had invested his means in a glass factory, which for 
a time proved quite lucrative. The close of the war with Great Britain, how- 
ever, ruined the business and impoverished him. Not long afterward he died 
suddenly of apoplexy, and the family were left in straitened circumstances. 
The future Cabinet Minister and Chief Justice was sent to school for a little 
time at Windsor, Yermont; then — an opportunity offering for him to go AVest 
with an elder brother and Henry E. Schoolcraft, who were starting to join Gen- 
eral Cass's expedition to the Upper Mississippi — he was sent, at the age of 
twelve, to his uncle, the venerable Bishop Chase, of the diocese of Ohio (Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church), to be educated. He remained at Cleveland for some 
weeks, awaiting a chance to be sent to his uncle at Worthington, and meantime 
earning money to pay his board bills by plying an improvised ferryboat in the 
ehape of a canoe, across the Cuyahoga. At Worthington he labored on the 



Salmon P. Chase. 1031 

Bishop's farm, and attended the aeadem3\ Then, when the Bishop removed to 
Cincinnati to take charge of the college, the nephew accompanied him, and re- 
mained in his charge until, in 1823, he gave up the presidency of the Cincinnati 
College and started to Europe to secure funds for the establishment of Kenyon 
College. At the age of fifteen young Salmon was returned to his mother's fam- 
ily in New Hampshire. He attempted to teach school, and succeeded well 
enough till he was forced into whipping a boy bigger than himself, who was the 
eon of one of the school directors. Then his engagement as a teacher was sud- 
denly ended. He attended the academy at Eoyalton, Vermont, for a short time, 
and then, in 1824, entered the junior class at Dartmouth College. He was 
graduated, two years later, the eighth in his class. 

After a few months' stay with his family the young graduate, with little 
enough money in his pocket, started to Washington to seek an opening as a 
teacher. His uncle, Dudley Chase, then a member of the United States Senate, 
from Yermont, helped him to references, but they brought no pui^ils, though he 
diligently advertised in the National Intelligencer his intention to teach a "se- 
lect classical school." At last, in despair, he ajjplied to his uncle, the Senator, 
to procure for him a place in the Treasury Department. The plain-spoken, wise 
old New Englander replied that he had once procured an appointment for a 
nephew, and it had ruined him. "If you want half a dollar to buy a spade and 
go out and dig for a living," he consolingly added, " I '11 give it to you, but I 
will not help you to a place under the Government." Finally, when he seemed 
to have an excellent prospect for either starving or having to call on his uncle 
for the half dollar to buy a spade, he was asked suddenly to take charge of the 
school of a Mr. Pluniby, who wished to give it up. Thenceforward his career 
was less difficult. He entered, after a time, the office of William Wirt, and 
under the instruction of that eminent advocate, studied law. In 1830 he re- 
moved once more to Cincinnati, to begin the practice of his profession. 

Of his subsequent career as the opponent of the fugitive-slave law, the 
counsel of negroes in the courts of Cincinnati, the leader of the great anti-slav- 
ery movement in the West, and finally its representative as United States Sen- 
ator and Governor of the State, we have in preceding pages* made brief men- 
tion. In 1861 he resigned his place in the United States Senate, to which he had 
just received a second election, to accept the place of Secretary of the Treas- 
ury in the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln. He had been a prominent candidate for the 
presidency before the convention which finally nominated Mr. Lincoln, and in 
i8()4: he was again, for a time, a candidate. Bowing, however, to the over- 
whelming public sentiment in favor of keeping Mr. Lincoln in office till the 
rebellion should be suppressed, he wrote a graceful letter of withdrawal from 
the contest. 

He retired from the Cabinet in consequence of interfei-ence with his 
appointments of important fiscal agents — but not until he had successfully 
fought the financial battle, and left a perfected system on which his successors 
could work. Mr. Lincoln soon afterward appointed him Chief Justice of the 

* Part I, Chapter 11. 



1032 Ohio in the Wak. 

United States, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Chief Justice 
Taney. The first consjDicuous public act he was called on to perform in this 
exalted place was to swear Mr. Lincoln into office, on the occasion of his second 
inauguration. A little later he had the sad task of swearing in Mr. Lincoln's 
successor. 

Mr. Chase has long displayed, in the various high offices he has held, con- 
spicuous executive ability, and it is well known that it is in this direction that 
his inclinations lead him. He has resided, since the outbreak of the war, in 
Washington, though his legal residence is still in Cincinnati. Before entering 
upon the duties of Secretary of the Treasury he was worth about a hundred thou- 
sand dollars, the fruits of his long and successful professional labors. He went 
out of office, after controlling the vast pecuniary business of the !N"ation for 
nearly four years, poorer than when he went in. 

In person, Mr. Chase presents the most imposing appearance of any man 
in public life in the country. He is over six feet high, portly, with handsome 
features, and massive head. His manners are dignified and gracious, but not 
always cordial ; he is incapable of the ordinary arts of the demagogue, and his 
great reputation is due entirely to his abilities and seiwice — not at all to per- 
sonal popularity. 



Benjamin F. Wade. 1033 



D. S. SENATOR BENJAMIN F. WADE. 



ONE of the Ohio Senators, stood at the head of the Committee on the 
Conduct of the War throughout its duration. In many ways his services 
have been of National importance; not the least of them will be reckoned 
to be the influence thus exerted ujjon the vigorous prosecution of the war, and 
the unflinching demand for its continuance to the end. 

Benjamin F. Wade was born in Feeding Hills Parish, Massachusetts, on the 
27th of October, 1800. His parents were poor, and he I'eceived but a limited 
education ; he had enough, however, to secure a district school, which he taught 
for a little. Not above work, he next suppoi'ted himself as a farm hand, and 
afterward as a laboi-er on the excavations for the Erie Canal. About the age 
of twenty-one he removed to Ohio. He had now accumulated a little money. 
The first use he made of it was to review his old studies, and then to enter the 
office of a lawyer in the Eeserve. In 1828, after some further struggles with 
poverty and the hard times of the backwoods settlements, he was admitted to 
the bar. 

Mr. Wade soon took prominent rank among the lawyers of Ohio as a hard- 
working, plain-spoken practitioner, remarkable for "horse-sense," as the phrase 
of those days had it, and for a good deal of success in his cases. He settled in 
the town in which Joshua R. Giddings resided, and, after being for a time a 
fervid Whig, came to sympathize to a great extent with the political views of 
that champion of abolitionism. Before being admitted to the bar the people 
of Ashtabula County had made him a justice of the peace. After his admission 
they elected him prosecuting attorney. He was next elected to the State Senate. 
Finallj' he was made President of a Judicial Circuit. 

His reputation now extended through the State; and his standing in the 
dominant party was high. Through the hearty support mainly of the Eeserve, 
he was pressed upon the Legislature in 1851 for election to the United States 
Senate and his canvass was finally successful. Here he soon became known 
for his indomitable pluck, the strength of his anti-slavery convictions, and his 
plain-spoken, and sometimes vehement defense of his views against the domi- 
nant Southern party. He kept up with the advance of the anti-slavery move- 
ment, and was always one of its conspicuous champions- on the floor of the 
Senate, and before the people of the State. He has been successively re-elected 
at each expiration of his term of office up to the present. His term now expires 
in 1869, and as his party has lost the control of the Legislature, his long Sena- 
torial career seems likely then to end. 



1034 Ohio in the Wae,. 

Of the value of his services in the Committee on the Conduct of the War^ 
many pages of this work bear ample evidence. His reports are the best reper- 
tory of material for the history of the times accessible, the best ci'ucible in 
which to try reputations, the best mirror of the curious, changing phases of the 
struggle as they presented themselves to the Administration. But they can 
give no adequate idea of the energy with which he helped to inspire the Gov- 
ernment, of the zeal, the courage, the faith, which he strove to infuse. 

Mr. Wade is a forcible, direct speaker, little given to polish, and much given 
to hard-hitting. His manners are plain and hearty, his tastes are simple in 
spite of his long public service, and his industry is as marked as in the days 
of his digging on the Erie Canal. He is far from wealthy, but he has saved 
enough during his active life to provide for old age. He was elected President 
of the Senate, and consequently became acting Yice-President of the Uiiited 
States, shortly after Mr. Johnson's accession to the Presidency; and in the event 
of the impeachment of that officer, he would have become the President. He 
has otten been spoken of as a probable nominee of the Eepublican party for this 
office. He resides at Ashtabula, where a correspondent of the Cincinnati Com- 
mercial lately visited him, from Avhose letter about the old Eadical chief we may 
extract these closing sentences: 

" Mr. Wade lives in a plain white frame house, hid away among the trees and surrounded by 
ample grounds. Everything about him is like the man, plain, but substantial. In the lot near 
the house stands his office or 'den,' as the family familiarly term it, and here, for more than 
thirty years, when not in Congress, Mr. Wade has passed most of his time. Entering it with the 
Senator, we found two rooms, the floors lined from floor to ceiling with book-cases, filled with 
books. This library contains nothing but public documents, maps and charts, and is the most 
complete in the country, embracing all information concerning the Government, from its founda- 
tion to the present day. 'Nile's Kegister,' 'Madison's Notes,' 'Knox's Reports,' and many other 
books long since out of print, can be found there. A carpet, lounge, an old-fashioned arm chair, 
a few common chairs, a table, and some maps on the wall completed the furniture of the rooms, 
which seemed dreary and lonely enough in their isolated solitude. He is a self-made man, an 
original thinker, and perhaps the best informed man now in public life in this country. His 
parents were among the poorest people in Massachusetts, and he never had but seven days' 
schooling; yet, at the age of twenty-one, he had read a vast number of books, mastered the 
Euclid, and was well versed in philosophy and science. He read the Bible through in a single 
winter by the light of pine torches in his wood-chopping cabin. He read much and reflected on 
ail he read. His grandfather on his mother's side was a minister, and had a small but well- 
selected library, and to this he was indebted in his early youth for much valuable information.'* 



John Sherman. 1035 



U. S. SENATOR JOHN SHERMAN. 



JOHN SHEEMAN, a leading- member of the Finance Committee of the 
Senate through the whole war, and for some time its Chairman, the 
efficient ally of the Secretarj' of the Treasury- in shaping the financial 
policy by which, rather than by fighting, the Nation at last triumphed, was 
born at Lancaster, Ohio, on the 10th of May, 1823. He was the eighth child 
of Judge Sherman, and was born some j-ears after his distinguished brother, 
Ivicutenant-Ceneral William Tecumseh Sherman.* 

For some years after completing his education Mr. Sherman was engaged 
in the successful practice of law. He was elected a Eepresentative to the 
Thirty-Fourth Congress by the Whig party of his district, and was assigned to 
the Committee on Naval AflPairs. At the time of the Kansas excitement he was 
sent out to the disturbed Territory as a member of the Congressional Investi- 
gation Committee, and his conduct here was so handsome and manly as to bring 
him at once into prominence as one of the leading members of the House. He 
thus came to be chosen as the candidate of the Eepublican party for the Speak- 
ership. A recommendation which he had given to the "Helper Book" was 
made the pretext by Southern members for a violent opposition to his election, 
and a scene of turbulent excitement ensued, which lasted for some weeks. Mr. 
Sherman's explanation of his indorsement of the obnoxious book was not quite 
satisfactory to some of his supporters; but his bearing through the trying con- 
test aroused general admiration. When it became necessary to withdraw him 
in order to secure an organization, he was at once indorsed by being appointed 
to the most important position in the House, the Chairmanship of the Commit- 
tee of Wa5"S and Means. Here he served industriously, and with credit, until 
his election, in the winter of 1860-Gl, to the United States Senatorship, made 
vacant by the resignation of Mr. Chase, on entering Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. 
This Senatorial contest was also protracted and exciting. Eobert C. Schenck 
and Governor William Dennison were the other candidates, and for a long time 
the strength of the three seemed about equally balanced. The scale was finally 
turned by some members from the Eeserve, who believed the contest to lie, 
finally, between Schenck and Sherman, and regarded Sherman as the moi-e 
radical of the two. At the expiration of his term Mr. Sherman was re-elected, 
having, this time, a considerable majority over General Schenck. 

* In the life of that officer may be found some further account of the family lineage. 



1036 Ohio in the War. 

Mr. Sherman's prominence in National affairs is mainly due to his labors on 
financial questions. He was soon recognized as the actual leader of the Senate on 
all this class of subjects, and his position was advanced to the nominal, as well 
as actual leadership, when Mr. Fessenden left the Senate to enter the Treasury 
Department as Mr. Chase's successor. 

In general politics Mr. Sherman has followed rather than led in the Eadi- 
cal movement. His habits of mind are cautious and conservative, and he never 
commits himself rashly. He has generally, however, been in line with his 
party, and has always enjoyed a large share of its confidence. 

He is in many respects almost the opposite of his brother, the General. 
He has much talent and no genius; he is cautious, correct, unexcitable, never 
likely to be carried away by an impulse, never liable to extravagancies of 
expression or demeanor. He is polite to all, though he has few intimate friends. 
In political management he has proved himself exceptionably skillful; and 
for his services in supporting the financial policj^ of the country through its 
darkest hours, he will always be held in honor. He has acquired a handsome 
fortune by his own exertions, and is likely to devote himself for many years to 
political matters. 



Jay Cooke. 1037 



JAY COOKE. 



JAY COOKE, who, as financial agent of the Government furnished the money with 
which the army was paid, was horn at Portland, Huron County, Ohio (now Sandusky), 
August 10, 1821. His parents were Eleutheros Cooke* and Martha Cooke, the latter 
of whom is still living. These were horn in Middle Granville, New York. Eleutheros Cooke 
received a collegiate education, studied law and practiced for a few years in the region surround- 
ing White Hall, and Saratoga ; then in company with a few neighbors removed to Ohio in 1817. 
He was among the prominent lawyers of his day. He was prominent in the Masonic brother- 
hood, and was the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio. In political life, in which 
for years he actively participated in connection with the Whig party, he was repeatedly honored 
with stations of trust, elected for successive terms to the State Legislature, and in 1831 to Con- 
gress. There he assumed prominence ; represented the House as prosecuting counsel in the ex- 
citing case of Stansberry vs. Samuel Huston, and was a leader in a great Congressional temperance 
movement. 

During one of his legislative campaigns he found his beautiful Greek name Eleutheros — 
signifying peace — a serious disadvantage. Its orthography puzzled the unlettered Germans of 
Seneca County, and the election was decided by judges of adverse political faith against Mr. 
Cooke, by the rejection of a thousand ballots which were deposited for him in good faith, but in 
which his Christian name was fearfully contorted. This determined him never to entail upon 
his sons, if any were born to him, any other than the simplest names. Accordingly when his 
first son was born in 1819, he called him Pitt, after the Earl of Chatham, whose defense of the 
American Colonies was still green in the memories of the people of the new republic. Two years 
later Jay Cooke was born, and named after Chief-Justice Jay of New York. Other sons were 
born, one of whom, Henry D. Cooke, is the resident partner of the house of Jay Cooke & Co., 
Washington. 

Mr. Cooke trained his children with especial care. In those primitive days of western civil- 
ization, educational privileges were few and obtainable only at great cost, but the sons of the 
pioneer were afibrded every accessible advantage, and on his return from his legal excursions he 
brought with him plentiful supplies of well-selected books, charts, maps, writing materials, and 
whatever would conduce to the progress of the lads. He died December 28, 1864. 

Jay Cooke's inclinations were always for a business life. At an early age he was engaged in 
a store in Sandusky, and next in a leading house in St. Louis. In the spring of 1838 he went to 
Philadelphia, and after some minor engagements entered the banking house of E. W. Clark & 

*The Cooke family are lineally descended from Francis Cooke who landed from the Mayflower. He built the third 
house in Plymouth. One branch of his family removed to Connecticut, and another settled in Northern New York. 
From this latter branch descended Jay Cooke. 



1038 Ohio in the Wae. 

Co. When twenty-one years of age he became a partner, after having been previoualy entrusted 
with full powers of attorney to use the name of the firm. This house, which had its branches in 
Boston, New York, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Burlington, Iowa, was the largest domestic ex- 
change house then in the country. During the succeeding twenty years the management of the 
business of the firm devolved almost entirely upon Mr. Cooke. In 1840 he wrote the first money 
article that appeared in Philadelphia, and for a year continued to edit the financial column of 
the Daily Chronicle. The after life of the banker attests how valuable was the training of this 
financial and editorial labor. At that time the importance of money articles was recognized by 
but three journals in the country, the New York Herald, Philadelphia Chronicle, and Nashville 
Whig. With James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald the column originated. 

During Mr. Cooke's connection with the house of E. W. Clark & Co., several loans were 
oflPered by the Government, in the subscription to which this firm largely participated. In 1S58 
he retired from the partnership, carrying into effect a resolution previously announced, but de- 
layed for two years by the illness and ultimate death of the senior partner. The firm had been 
prosperous, and a moderate but satisfactory fortune was the result of the long years of labor then 
performed by Mr. Cooke. 

Until the commencement of 1861 Mr. Cooke was engaged in private business, and in nego- 
tiating large loans for railroads and other corporations. Then, for the purpose of providing 
business openings for their sons, he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Wm..G. 
Moorhead, and commenced banking again, under the title of Jay Cooke & Co. Mr. Moorhoad 
was one of the railroad pioneers of Pennsylvania, whose foresight provided for the extension of 
transportation from the Delaware to the prairies of the West. He was one of the earliest presi- 
dents of the Philadelphia and Erie Kailroad Company. 

In the spring of 1861 the Government, in need of means, called for subscription loans, and 
the firm of Jay Cooke & Co. at once organized and carried into operation the machinery to obtain 
and forward to Washington large lists of subscribers. This was done without compensation. 
The State of Pennsylvania then required a war loan of several millions. Its negotiation, in a 
large measure, fell into the hands of Jay Cooke & Co., and they disposed of it at par during that 
period of universal business depression and distrust. 

Through these successful negotiations Mr. Cooke was first made acquainted with the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury, Shortly afterward, and after Mr. Chase had failed to obtain further satis- 
factory aid from the associated banks, he determined to try the experiment of a popular loan, 
and to this end appointed four hundred especial agents, selecting generally the presidents and 
cashiers of the most prominent banking institutions in different parts of the country. In Phila- 
delphia preference was given to Jay Cooke & Co., and they immediately inaugurated a system 
which resulted in the effectual popularization of tlie loan, and secured the co-operation of :he 
masses in the subscription to the loan. Of the entire sum secured by the four hundred agents, 
amounting to but twenty-five or thirty millions, Jay Cooke & Co. returned about one-third. 

This plan not filling the treasury rapidly enough, Mr. Chase, after full consultation wi.A 
prominent financiers, decided to place the negotiation of the five hundred million five-twenty 
loan of 1862 in the hands of an especial agent. Congress had just authorized the loan and the 
employment of an agent, and having found the most efficient aid and greatest results from the 
efforts of Jay Cooke, Mr. Chase appointed him. In connection with his partners and assistants 
Mr. Cooke organized his plan of proceedure, the result of which is now history. 



Jay Cooke. 1039 

In this great transaction between Mr. Cooke and the Government the Government assumed 
no risk. The risks of the undertaking were all assumed by the agent. If sales were made, the 
treasury agreed to pay a commission amounting to three-eighths of one per cent, to cover the 
immense expenditures connected with an enterprise which at best was but an experiment. If the 
loan failed, the agent was to receive nothing, and with tlie full success of the negotiations there 
could accrue but a meager remuneration, not one-twentieth of the amount which European 
bankers are accustomed to receive from a foreign power, in addition to absolute security from 
loss. The public do not know how closely Mr. Chase managed the expenditures of the Depart- 
ment, and how meager were his disbursements compared to the sums paid for similar service in 
■other countries. Neither are they aware that the enormous negotiations of the great war loans 
■of the United States were taken by the subscription agent, with the possible prospect of receivino- 
no benetit therefrom, and the chance of ruining his own fortune and those of his partners. 

This immense experiment was handsomely carried out. The loan was sold, but even its 
remarkable success did not save Mr. Chase and Mr. Cooke from the detractions and accusations 
. of the political enemies of the Secretary, who sought to damage his Presidential aspirations by 
charges of favoritism. So closely, however, did Mr. Chase guard the expenses of his Depart- 
ment that commission on the five-twenty loan was paid to Mr. Cooke on only three hundred and 
sixty-three millions of dollars. A part of the agent's plan for the sale of the loan was to have 
the notes distributed from the sub-treasuries, and all his advertisements and sub-agents so instructed 
the people. One hundred and fifty-one millions of dollars of the loan was sold at these desio'- 
nated olBces, and on these Mr. Cooke received no commission. He performed the labor and 
induced the purchase of the bonds, but received no compensation for the sale of this portion of 
the loan. The clamor of the opponents of Mr. Chase increased, and finally succeeded. The treasury 
attempted to negotiate its own loans and it failed. The consequence was that the rebellion which 
might have been suppressed in the latter part of 1864, was defiant when the first of January, 
1865, came. The force of financial success would have defeated the Richmond conspirators but 
familiar with the condition of National finances, the Rebels waited confidently for the relapse 
of the Union efibrt to subdue them. The prospect was dark and dreary. The treasury was in 
debt for vouchers for the quartermaster's department, the armies were unpaid and heavy arrearaf es 
due, and a debt of three hundred millions of dollars stared the new Secretary in the face, while 
the financial burden steadily accumulated at the rate of four millions of dollars a day. 

This was the condition of afiairs when Mr. Fessenden was at the head of the Treasurv 
Bureau. The Government could only pay in vouchers, and these were selling in every part of 
the country at a discount of twenty-five to thirty per cent., and gravitating rapidly downward. 
This wa-s known to the Confederate authorities and excited the hopes of the Rebel armies at 
home and their sympathizers abroad. Had this condition continued, gold would have reached a 
much higher premium, the vouchers of the Government become unsaleable, and ruin resulted. 
The Government then tried to obtain money without the aid of a special agent. The endeavor 
was made, backed by the powerful assistance of the National banks, but proved entirely abortive. 
With all this powerful machinery the receipts to the treasury averaged but seven hundred thou- 
sand per day, one-sixth of the regular expenditure. Mr. Chase and the leading friends of the 
Government earnestly advised Mr. Fessenden to employ Mr. Cooke as the special agent of the 
Treasury Department, and the Secretary sent for the banker. 



1040 Ohio in the War. 

The interview was successful. Mr. Cooke asked the amount of daily sales which would 
meet the urgent demands upon the Treasury. The reply was, " Two million five hundred thou- 
sand dollars ; can you raise the money ? " "I can," was the ready reply. " When will you com- 
mence?" "On the first of February!" and the conference ended. This was on the 24th of Jan- 
uary. His commission was sent to Mr. Cooke ; he organized his stafi" of agents, and by the first 
of February was in full operation. Innumerable assistants were appointed. Special and trav- 
eling agents were set at work ; advertising was ordered by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and 
in a few days money began to flow into the depleted treasury, and cash instead of vouchers paid 
the purchases for the maintenance of the Government and the subsistence of the army. 

From the first organization of Mr. Cooke's machinery for popularizing the loan, the 
daily sales averaged from two to three millions of dollars, and steadily increased, until at the 
close of the loan the receipts avaraged five millions of dollars per day. In five months the 
last note was sold, fifteen or sixteen millions of dollars being sold occasionally in one day, 
and once forty-two millions. The result of these grand successes was the speedy collapse of the 
hopes of the Eebels. The vouchers of the Government were paid ofi", and new purchases were 
paid for promptly at a saving of from thirty to fifty per cent, on former prices. Since the close 
of the war Mr. Cooke has continued to act for the Government, in connection with other parties, 
in many important matters. He was also the most efficient assistant in the establishment of the 
National banking system. 

It should be added that Mr. Cooke's profits from the percentage allowed by the Government 
were far less than has been generally supposed. There are on file in the Treasury Department 
letters from him making repeated offers to give up the percentage and do the work for nothing, 
if the Government would release him from his liabilities for loss through any of his thousands 
of agents — a risk which constantly threatened him with ruin. The Department always refused 
this offer. 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



Adams, Brevet Brigadier-General E. N., Pa- 

reutase, summary of service, 954. 

Aids-de-Camp from Ohio, 1013. 

Aid Societies, 251; General work of, 264. 

American Knights, Order of, 202, 345. 

Ammen, Brigadier-General Jacob, Early life, is 
appointed Colonel of Twenty-Fourth Ohio, serves in 
West Virginia, ;'01 ; conduct of at Pittsburg Lauding, 
902 ; character, 903. 

Andrews, Colonel Lorin, Early life, educational 

labors, 995; President Kenyon College, enlists in the 
ranks, 25 , his service in the army, 99fi. 

ANDRE-tvs, Geo. W., Action of in the Legisla- 
ture on the appropriation bill, 22, 23. /. o i 

Andrews., G. W. D., Superintendent of Sol- 
diers' Home, 255. 
Antietam, Battle of, 305 ; Map of, 669. 
Arkansas Post, Battle of, 437. 
Armed Eesistance to the Authorities, 

Askew, Brevet Brigadier-General Frank, Sum- 
mary of service, 957. , 

Assistant Adjutant-Generals from Ohio, 

1012. 

Atlanta, Battle of, 457, 585, 826 ; Campaign 

of, 449 ; map of, 451. 

AvERYSBORO', Battle of, 477. 

B 

Bacon Creek Bridge, Burning of, 83, note. 
Baird, General, Commends Colonel Van Der- 

veer, s'Jl, 892 : commends Colonel Este, 896. 

Baldwin, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. H., 

Early life, enters the army, gallantry at Mobile, 957. 

Ball, Brevet Brigadier-General W. H., Sum- 
mary of service, 958. 
Banning, Brevet Major-General Henry B., Pa- 

reutase, earlv life, enters army, conduct in West Vir- 
ginia, is appointed Colonel One Hundred and Twenty- 
First Ohio, his conduct at Perryville and Chickamauga, 
isjy; his conduct in the Atlanta campaign, summary of 
character, 830. 

Barber, Brevet Brigadier-General Gershom 

M., Summary of service, 958. 

BERNARD, General, Renders Washington City 

defensible, 284. 

Barnett, Brevet Brigadier -General James, 

Summary of service, 958. 

Barr, R. N., Surgeon-General of Oliio, 247. 
Barry, General, Forms an artillery establish- 
ment, 283; his disappointment at Yorktown, 291. 
Bates, J. H., Appointed Brigadier-General of 

Ohio troops, 34. 

Bates, Samuel D., Persuades Jas. A. Garfield 

to attend Geauga Seminary, 739. 
Beatty, Brigadier-General John, Early life, en- 
ters armv, serves in West Virgiaia and in Mitchel's Ala- 
bama campaign, conduct at Perryville, 924 ; his conduct 
at Stone River (Murfreesboro'), in the Tullahoma cam- 
paign, and at Chickamauga, 925 ; participates in Knox- 
ville campaign, resigns, summary of character, 926. 

Beatty, Brevet Major-General Samuel, Is made 

Cclonel Nineteenth Ohio, is engaged at Rich Mountain, 
Pittsburg Landing, Stone River. Chickamauga, in At- 
lanta campaign, and with Army of Cumberland against 
Hood. 856. 

Belmont, Battle and map of, 360. 
Vol. I.— 66. 



Bennett, James Gordon, Originates a financial 

column in newspapers, 1038. 

Bentley, Brevet Brigadier-General Robert EL, 

Summary of service, 959. 

Bentonville, Battle of, 477. 

Big Black, Battle of, 389. 

Biggs, Brevet Brigadier-General J., Summary 

of service, i).59. 

Blackburn's Ford, Skirmish at, 666. 

Bond, Brevet Brigadier-General John R., Sum* 

mary of service, 9.'>9. 

Bond, Colonel J. R., Refuses to muster Sergeant 

Woodrufl'on commission issued by Governor Brough, 236. 

BoONEVTLLE, Battle of, 502. 

Boynton, Brevet Brigadier-General H. V. N., 

Summary of service and character, 969. 

Bragg, General, Force of at Chickamauga, 340. 
Brannan, General, Commends Colonel Van 

Derveer, t;91. 

Brayton, Miss Mary Clark, Extract from her 

history of the Cleveland Branch Sanitary Commission 
258, 264. 

Brelsford, Dr., Services of, 250. 

Brice, Brevet Major-General, Summary of 

service, 874. 

Brinkerhoff, Brevet Brigadier-General Ros- 

lifl, Parentage, early life, summary of services, 960. 

Broadhead, Colonel Thornton F., First Mich- 
igan cav., accuses General McDowell of treason, 690. 

Brooks, Brigadier-General Wm. T, H., Sum- 
mary of service, 922. 

Brough, Governor John, Is nominated for Gov- 
ernor, 166; he accepts the nomination, 168; he is elected, 
169 ; opening of his administration, his care for the sol- 
diers and the strifes to which it led, 182: he urges a 
heavy tax for the aid of soldiers' families, 183; he urges 
the people of Ohio not to resist the draft, 202 : writes to 
the Secretary of War, urging a draft, 205 ; writes to Hon. 
R. C. Schenck against the bounty system, 205 ; thanks 
the National Guard, 212; seeks to have the National 
Guard exempted from draft, 215; makes an appeal for 
the families of the National Guard, 217 ; his trouble with 
officers, his failure to be renominated, 221 ; issues Gen- 
eral Order No. 5, 222 ; defends Major Skiles, 224 ; defends 
Order No. 5, 226: addresses letter to the military agent at 
Chattanooga on the Boml case, 228 ; issues an address to 
the people of Ohio in regard to his re-election, 230; close 
of his administration, 231 ; strives to soften asperities 
between Lincoln and Chase, 231 ; writes to Theodore Til- 
ton, protests against the appointment of an officer from 
New Hampshire as Provost-Marshal of Ohio, 2,'..'. ; writes 
to General John E. Hunt refusing his influence for the 
parole of a Rebel General, writes to lawyers in regard to 
soldiers' claims, writes to Samuel Pike in regard to a 
special exchange for his son, 234 ; his message to the Leg- 
islature, his services at the close of the war, 2.35, his 
death and causes of it, 236 ; his character and the char- 
acter of his administration, 237; parentage, early life, 
edits a Democratic paper, 1022; is State Auditor, his 
work, 1023; becomes connected with the Cincinnati En- 
quirer, business operations, summary of character, l(i25. 

Brown, Brevet Brigadier-General Charles E., 

Summary of service, 965. 

Brumback, Brevet Brigadier-General Jefier- 

son, Summary of service, 961. 

Buckingham, Brigadier -General C. P., Pa- 
rentage, enters \V<st Point, standing and classmates, 
early military lite, 887 : is Professor in Kenyon College, 
becomes Adjutant-General of Ohio, is made Brigadier- 
General, and serves in the War Department, 888; re 

BUCKLAND, Brigadier-General Ralph P., Early 

life enters army, conduct at Pittsburg Landing, 907: 
his conduct in the Vicksburg campaign, commands at 
Memphis, is elected to Congress, summary of character, 

90S. 

1041 



1042 



Index. 



BrrcKNEB, Inspector-General of Kentucky, Ne- 
gotiates with General McClellan on the suliject of Ken- 
tucky neutrality, 279, 2S0, note ; his conduct at Fort Don- 
elson, 367, 358. 

BuELL, Major-General Don Carlos, Drives the 

Rebels into Alabama, 13 ; his operations in Kentucky, 
363; parentage, boyhood, 695 ; enters West Point, class- 
mates, early army life, 696 ; is placed in command of Ken- 
tucky, 697, his work in the Army of the Cumberland, 
700, endeavors to co-operate witli Halleck, 7i)2, 707 : ad- 
vances agninst Bowling Green and Nashville, 70ii; is placed 
under command of Halleck, 7IJ.S ; advances toward Sa- 
vannah, 709 ; his conduct at Pittsburg Landing, 372, 376, 
710 ; his conduct in the siege of Corinth, undertakes the 
occupation of East Tennessee, 713 ; difficulties, 714; loses 
the confidence of the Government, 715 and note ; is com- 
pelled to fall back, 716 ; denies Andrew Johnson's state- 
ment in regard to the abandonment of Nashville, 717, 
note ; loses the confidence of the army, 717 ; reaches Lou- 
isville, condition of his army, 718 ; his conduct at Perry- 
ville, 719; asks to be relieved, 721 and note; he protests 
agaiust entering East Tennessee and is relieved, 722 and 
note ; summary of character, 723, 

BUFFINGTON ISLAND, Battle of, 146. 

Bullock, Judge, States the position of Ken- 
tucky before the citizens of Cincinnati, 40. 

Bull Eun, Battle of, 667; map of, 669; effect 

of disaster at on the country, 673 ; second battle of, 688. 
BuRKE, Brevet Brigadier-General Joseph W., 

Summary of service, 962. 

Burnett, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry L., 

Summary of service, 961. 

Burns, Brigadier-General Win. W., Early mil- 
itary life, serves under McClellan, resigns as Brigadier, 
and returns to his rank in the regular army, 927. 

BuRNSiDE, General A. E., Issues General Or- 

lierNo. 3S, lOU, 

Butler, General, Operates against Richmond 

along the James, 403: gains position at Chapin's Farm, 
409; ditticulties between him and Gillmore, 648; his con- 
duct at Drury's Bluft', 650 ; his expedition against New 
Orleans, 790. 

Buttles, Lucien, Aid to Commissary -General 
of Ohio, 28. 

c 

Cadwell, Mrs., Matron of Sanitary Commis- 
sion Hospital, 2."i3 and note. 
Campbell, Brevet Brigadier-General John 

Allen, Summary of service, 9ii2. 

Camps in Ohio, 59. 

Candy, Brevet Brigadier-General Charles, Sum- 
mary of service, 962. 

Carnifex Ferry, Battle of, General Eose- 

crans's part in, 318. 

Carolinas, Campaign of, 471 ; map of, 473. 

Carrington, Brigadier-General Henry B., Sug- 
gests a plan for the defense of Ohio against liostile action 
from Virginia, 64; orders Ohio troops to the Ohio fron- 
tier, 49; early life, is appointed Adjutant-General of 
Ohio, is appointed Brigadier-General, serves in Indiana, 
his efi'orts against the Knights of the Golden Circle, 931. 

Carroll, Brigadier-General S. S., Summary 

of service, 930. 

Casement, Brevet Brigadier-General John S., 

Summary of service, 962 

Casey, General, Is assigned to duty of brigad- 
ing new troops, 283. 

Cedar Crerk, Battle of, 529, 803. 
Champion Hills, Battle of, 389, 575, 
Chaplins' Hospital, From Ohio, 1013 
Charleston, Operations against, 631. 
Chase, Hon. S. P., Secretary of the Treasury, 

14 ; his political views at the outbreak of the war, 17, IS, 
19; parentage, early life, 1030; his public life, 1031; his 
operations with Jay Cooke & Co., 10.38. 

Chattanooga and Vicinity, Map of, 341; 

campaign of, 3:!9. 

Chickamauga, Battle of, 340, 507. 
CHiCKASAVi^ Bayou, Battle of, 435. 
Christian Commission, Cincinnati Branch, 

270; condensed report, 271. 

Christy, Eobert, Ordered to desist in attempts 

to raise a regiment lor defense of the State only, SI. 

Churches in Ohio at the Outbreak of the 

Wak, 17. 

Churchill, Brevet Brigadier-General Mendal, 

Summary of service, 962. 



Cincinnati, Citizens of, pass resolutions against 

the shipment of arms or provisions to the Rebels. 40; 
siege of, 83; condition of during Morgan raid, 141 ; San- 
itary Fair, 265 ; city ministers adopt a deliverance on the 
state of the country, 270. 

Cincinnati Gazette, Editorial from, 170, 
Cist, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry M., Sum- 
mary of service 962. 
Clendenin, Dr. Wm., Services of, 249. 
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Denounces the 

appointment of Schleich as Brigadier-General, 34. 

Cloyd Mountain, Battle of, 800. 

CoATES, Brevet Brigadier-General Benjamin 

F., Summary of service, 963. 

CoCKERiLL, Brevet Brigadier-General J. E., 

Summary of service, 965. 

Cold Harbor, Battle of, 403. 

Coleman, Colonel Augustus H., Early life, 

summary of service, 1008. 

Colonels of Ohio Eegiments, Promotions 

among, .58, .59. 

Colored Troops raised in Ohio, 176. 

Columbia, Burning of, 475. 

CoMLY, Brevet Brigadier- General James M., 

Summary of service, 9ii3. 

CoMMAGER, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry 

S., Summary of service, 963. 

Commissary General of Ohio, His labors in 

Dennison's administration, 60. 

Commissaries of Subsistence from Ohio, 

1016. 

CoNNELL, Colonel John M., Introduces bill in 

Legislature changing name of Volunteer Ohio State 
3Iilitia to National Guard, 242. 
CooKE, Jay, Parentage, early life, 1037; his 
banking operations, his connection with Secretary 
Chase, 1038; with Secretary Fessenden, 1039. 

Corbin, Brevet Brigadier-General H. C, Sum- 
mary of service, 963. 

Corinth, Battle of, 324, 825. 

CowEN, Brevet Brigadier-General B. E., Adju- 
tant-General of Ohio, 210; parentage, 963; early life, en- 
lists as private, is appointed Adjutant-General ot the 
State, services in that capacity, his politics, 964. 

Cox, Major-General Jacob D,, Is appointed 

Brigadier-General of Ohio troops, .34; calls on Governor 
Deunison for aid in holding West Virginia, 53 ; parentage, 
early life, politics, enters the army, 770; his services in 
West Virginia, 771 ; is transferred to the Army of Vir- 
ginia, his conduct at Moiiocacy Bridge and South Mount- 
ain, 773; his ccmduct at Antietam, is transferred to West 
Virginia, is placed in command of the District of Ohio, 
is ordered to the field in East Tennessee, participates in 
the Atlanta campaign, 774 ; his conduct at Franklin and 
Nashville, is appointed Major-General, is ordered East, 
his conduct at Kingston, joins Sherman's army at Golds- 
boro', 775; commands District of Ohio, is elected Gover- 
nor, summary of character, 776. 

Crittenden, General, At the battle of Stone 

River, 329. 

Crittenden, Thomas L., asks Governor Den- 
nison's inlluence to secure a truce between the General 
Government and the seceded States, 38, note. 

Crook, Major-General Geo., Early military life, 

is made Colonel of the Thirty-Si.vth Ohio, serves in West 
Virginia, is appointed a Brigadier, is transferred to the 
Army of the Cumberland, defeats Wheeler, 799; is trans- 
ferred to West Virginia, his conduct at Cloyd Mountain, 
New River, and on the Lyncliburg raid, 800; commands 
District ot Kanawha, his conduct at Snicker's Ferry, 
commands Department of West Virginia, 801 ; his con- 
duct at Opequau and Fisher's Hill, 802; his conduct at 
Cedar Creek, 529 and note, 802; is captured at Cumber- 
land, 803 V is assigned to a cavalry command in the Army 
of the Potomac, 804. 

Cumberland, Army of. Soldiers of address 

Union Convention, 167; condition of under Buell, 700. 

CuRTiN, Governor, Oilers McClellan the com- 
mand of the Pennsylvania troops, 33. 

CuSTEB, Major-General George A,, Early life, 
attends military academy, his conduct at Bull Run, 
serves on General Kearney's staff, his conduct in the 
Peninsula campaign, 77S ; his conduct at Williamsburg 
and at the Cliickah'ominy,' selves on McClellan's start, 
his conduct at Chancellorsville, serves on Plcasanton's 
statt", is made a Brigadier, his conduct at Gettysburg, 
and in the subsequent pursuit of the Rebels, at the bat- 
tle of the Wilderness, and on Sheridan's raid toward 
Richmond, 779 ; his conduct at Trevillian Station, at 
Winchester, at Fisher's Hill, at Cedar Creek, at an 
engagement with Rosser, and at Waynesboro , 780; hia 
conduct at Dinwiddle, at Five Forks, at Sailor's Creek, 



Index. 



1043 



and at Appomattox, 761 and note; receives the white 
flag bent iu by General Lee, is appointed Major-Geueral, 
goes to Texas, summary of character, 7S2. 



D 



Dahlgken, Admiral, Operations of against 

CharU'Stoii, lUO. 

Dare, Brevet Brigadier-General Francis, Sum- 
mary of service, 963. 

Dawson, Brevet Brigadier-General Andrew R. 
Z., summary of service, 9*15. 

Dayton Empire, Article from on the arrest 

of Vallamligham, 101. 

Dayton Journal, Office destroyed by mob, 103. 
De Haas, Colonel, Absent from his command, 

Democrats of Ohio present an address to Mr. 

Liiiiolii asking the return uf Valliimligliam, l.iii, ir>:; 
Dennison, Governor, His war administration, 
upeninn acis, L'o ; liis character, 26; asks the detail of 
Lieutenants Poe and Hazen, 31 ; reorganizes his staff, 
36 ; recommends the seizure of prominent points in Iven- 
tucky, S-^ ; promises protection to the Unionists of West 
Virginia, 39; states his position in regard to Kentucky 
neutrality, 39, 40; forbids tlie shipment of contraband 
articles to the seceded States, and the passage of any 
news by telegraph of the movements of troops, 41 ; otiers 
to fill Kiutucky's yuota with Ohio troops, 42; nrge.s 
McClellan to occupy Parkersburg, 47 ; progress and close 
of his administration, .32; responds to Generals Kose- 
crans and Cnx calling for aid in West A'irgiuia, 53; 
members of his staff transferred to the regular army, 
34; tinal organization of his staft, 54, note; summary 
of his administration, 62; appoints Board of Medical 
Examiners, 245; parentage, early life, his politics, 1017; 
his business operations, is elected Governor, lOli; his 
policy as Governor, subsequent lite, 1019. 

Devol, Brevet Brigadier-General, Early life, 

summary of service, 942. 

Devore, Mr., Action of in the Legislature on 

the Appropriation Bill, 22. 

Dewey, Brigadier-General Joel A., Summary 

of senvice, .sy7. 

DiNWiDDiE C. H., Battle of, 540. 

Doane, Brevet Brigadier-General Azariah N., 

Summary of service, 963. 

Dodge, General, Conduct of at Kesaca, 581. 

DoNELSON, Fort, Siege of, 365. 

Drury's Bluff, Battle of, 650. 

Duke, Basil W., Defeated by Home Guards at 

Augusta, 97. 



E 

Early, General, Force of in Shenandoah Val- 
ley, 521, note. 
Eaton, Brevet Brigadier-General Charles G., 

Summary of service. 965. 

Eaton, Brevet Brigadier-General John, Sum- 
mary uf si-rvici'. 9i>3. 
Eggleston, Brevet Brigadier-General B. B., 

nummary of service, y.33. 

Elliott, Lieutenant-Colonel Jonas D., Early 

lifi-. -uiMmar> of (djaracter. 1005. 

Elwell, Brevet Brigadier-General J. J., Sum- 
mary of si^rvice, 966. 

EsTE, Brigadier-General George P., Early life, 
enters the army, 894; his influence in re-enlistments, 
895; his conduct in the Atlanta campaign, 895; personal 
appearanc. 897. 

Evening Times, Cincinnati, Suppression of, 93. 

EwELL, General, Captured by Sheridan, 548 
and note. 

EwiNG, Brevet Major-General Hugh, Parent- 
age, enters the army, duties in the three months' service, 
is appointed Colonel Thirtieth Ohio, 8:53; his conduct at 
South Mountain, Antietam, and in the Vicksbiirg cam- 
paign, 8.34; his conduct at Jackson, moves to the relief of 
ICnoxville.. 8."i5 ; is appointed minister at The Hague, 865. 

EwiNG, Brevet Major-General Thos. H.. Pa- 
rentage, political life, enters the army, his services in the 
West,' 834 ; his conduct at Pilot Knob. 835. 

EwiNG, Hon. Thos., Adopts W. T. Sherman, 

418. 



F 



Farmers, Number of in Ohio at the outbreak 

of the war, 16. 

Farragut, Admiral, Bombards forts below- 
New Orleans, 790. 

Fearing, Brevet Brigadier-General B. D., Pa- 
rentage, early life, enlists as private, is proumted, 940; 
his conduct at Pittsburg Landing, Chickamauga, in the 
Atlanta campaign, and at Avi-rysboro', 911. 

Fessenden, Secretary, His connection with Jay 

Cooke A Co., 1039. 

First Ohio Infantry, Organized, 27. 

Fisher's Hill, B;ittle of, 526. 

Five Forks, Battle of, 411, 542. 

Flagg, Wm. ,J., xAction of, in Legislature on 

tlie .Vppropriation Bill, 23; introduces bill in Legislature 
authorizing a cnntriljution from the contingent iuud for 
Sanitary Commission, 2.39. 

Fletcher, Dr. Robert, Services of, 249. 
Floyd, General, at Fort Donelson, 367, 369. 
FooTE, Admiral, At Fort Henry, 364; at Fort 

Donelson. .366 

Force, Brevet Major-General Manning F., 

Earh life, enters the array, 827; his conduct at Pittsburg 
Landing, in the Vicksburg campaign, in the Atlanta 
campaisirn, on the march to Savannah, and in the cam- 
paign of the Carolinas, 82s. 

Forsyth, Brigadier-General J. W., Summary 

of service, 906. 
Frizell, Brevet Brigadier-General J. M., Sum- 
mary of service, 966. 

Fuller, Brevet Major-General John W., Pa- 
rentage, eariv life, enters the army, 823; is appointed 
Colonel Twenty-Seventh Oliiu, his conduct at New Mad- 
rid and Island No. 10, 824 ; his conduct at luka and Cor- 
inth, 823; his conduct in the Atlanta campaign, on the 
march to the sea, and in the campaign of the Carolinas, 
826. 

FuLLERTON, Brevet Brigadier-General Jos. S., 
Summary of service, 966. 

Fyffe, Brevet Brigadier-General Edward P., 

Summary of service, 966. 



G 



Garfield, Major-General James A., Supports 

a bill defining ami providing pnnisliment for treason 
against the State of Ohio, 23; procures arms from Illi- 
nois for Oliio Troops, 35 ; parentage, boyliood, 739 ; enters 
Geauga Academy, 740; his religion, goes to college, 741 ; 
becomes a teacher in the Hiram Institute, 742 ; is elected 
to the State Senate, his political course, 743; is appointed 
Lieutenant-Colonel, 745; his campaign against Marshall, 
702,745; pilots a boat up the Sandy, 747; his expedition 
against Pound Gap, 748; participates in battle of Pitts- 
burg Landing, 749; serves on court-martial, 750 ; is made 
chief of staft" to Rosecrans, 751 ; recommends the remo- 
val of McCook and Crittenrlen, urges an advance of the 
army, 752; his part in the TuUahoma campaign and bat- 
tle of Chiekamauga, 7.36; goes to Congress, 757; his 
speech against Alex. Long, 7.38; extracts from other 
speeches, 739; summary of character, 763. 

Garrard, Brevet Brigadier-General Israel, 

Early life, summary of service, 943. 

Garrard, Brevet Major-General Kenner, Pa- 
rentage, life in regular army, .serves iu the .\rniy of the 
Potomac, conduct in the Atlanta campaign and in the 
Mobile campaign. 8.32. 

Gay, Dr. Norman, Services of, 249. 

Gettysburg, Map of, 669. 

Gibson, Brevet Brigadier-General Horatio G., 

Summary of service, 966. 

Gibson, Brevet Brigadier-General "VVm. H., 

Summary of service, 967. 

GiESY, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry, Sum- 
mary of service, 967. 

Gilbert, Brevet Brigadier-General Samuel A., 

Summarv of service, 967. 

GiLLMORE, Major-General Q. A., Revolution- 
izes gunnery, 13; parentage, 617; boyhood, 618; is ap- 
pointid cadet at West Point, his classmates, 619; early 
military life, 62"; his services at the commencement of 
the rebellion, his operations against Fort Pulaski, 621 ; 
is made a Brigadier and ordered West,i.29; his conduct 
at Somerset. 630 ; his plans and operations against 
Charleston, 6.32; his Florida campaign. 647; goes to Fort- 
ress Monroe and moves up the James, 648 ; his conflicts 
with Butler, 648, 651 ; his conduct at Drury's Bluff, 650; 
is president of board for testing artillery, returns to 
Charleston, 653 , summary of character, 651. 



1044 



Index. 



Given, Brevei Brigadier-General Josiah, Sum- 
mary of service. 967. 

Given, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm., Sum- 
mary of service, %". 

GoDMAN, Brevet Brigadier-General James H., 

Summary of service, 9rt7. 

GoODALE House, Soldiers quartered in, 28. 
Grant, General U. S., In command of United 

t>tatfS army at close of war, 13; is accused of drunken- 
nesg at Pittsburg Landing. 6^, note ; parentage. .351 and 
note; incidents of early life, 352; enters West Point, liis 
classmates. 353; early army life, 3."i4 : his conduct at Re- 
eaca de la Palma, Palo Alto, Blonterey, Molino del Key, 
Cliapultepec, 355 ; resigns, 365 and note ; his civil life, 35fi; 
re-enters the army, .357; is placed in command at Cairo, 
359; his conduct at Belmont, .360; his operations in Ken- 
tucky, 363; his part at Fort Henry, .364; at Fort Donel- 
SOM.367; his conflict with Halleck, 370; his conduct at 
Pittsburg Landing, 371; is humiliated by Halleck, .378; 
establishes head-quarters at Memphis, his conduct at 
luka. 379; at Corinth and in the Tallahatchie campaign, 
380 ; in the Vicksburg cijmpaign, 381 : injured by accident 
in New Orleans, 392; goes to Chattanooga, 393 ; is made 
Lieutenant-General and goes to Washington, 399 ; in the 
Wilderness, 400; at Spottsylvania C. H., 402; at Cold 
Harbor, 4n3; moves to the south of the James, 401 ; at 
Petersburg, 405; at the surrender of Lee, 412, .^.l!, note; 
summary of character, 413 ; his estimate of MePherson, 
577: Avrites to Lydia Slocum, grandmother of General 
MePherson, .5S8. 

Greenwood, Mile.«, Furnishes the Greenwood 

rifle. 60. 

Griffin, Brevet Major-General Chas., Early 

array life, first service a'-'ainst the rebellion, gallantry at 
Mechanicsville and Malvern Hill, 871 ; summary of bat- 
tles and commands, dies of yellow fever, 872 ; summary 
of service and character, 872, 873. 

Grosvenor, Brevet Brigadier-General C. H., 

Parentage, summary of service, 952. 

Gunckle, Senator, Introduces bill enabling 
soldiers to vote, 238 ; introduces bill for the relief of sol- 
diers' families, 241. 

H 

Halleck, General, Congratulates Rosecrans 

after stone River, 3.33 : his operations in Kentucky , 363; 
his connection with battle of Pittsburg Landing, 372; 
his conduct toward Grant after Pittsburg Landing, 378 ; 
his treatment of General lluell, 702, 705, 707. 

Hamer, Hon. Thos. L., Secures appointment 

as cadet for U. S. Grant, .353. 

Hamilton, Brevet Brigadier-General Wra. D., 

Summary of service, 967. 

Hamlin, E. S., Appoints Q. A. Gill more ca- 
det at West Point, 61S. 

Harker, Brigadier-General Chas. G., Early 
life, early military life, cond\ict at Stone River, Mission 
Ridge, and Resaca, is mortally wounded at Kenesaw, 
summary of character, 917. 

Harris, Brevet Brigadier-General Andrew L., 

Summary of service, 968. 

Hart, Brevet Brigadier-General James H., 

Summary of service, 968. 

Hatch, Mayor of Cincinnati, Eeceives delega- 
tion of citizens from Louisville, 39. 

Hayes, Brevet Major-General Rutherford B., 
Early life, enters the' army, services in West Virginia, 
848; his conduct at Winchester, is elected to Congress, is 
elected Governor, 849. 

Hazen, Major-General Wm. B., Parentage, 

earlv military life, 765 ; is appointed Colonel Forty-First 
Ohio, hi^ conduct at Pittsburg Landing and Stone 
Kiver, 76ii; his conduct at Chickamauga, Brown's Ferry, 
Orchard Knob, and Mission Ridge, 767; his conduct in 
the Atlanta campaign, in the Georgia campaign, at Fort 
Mc.'^llister, and on the campaign of the Carolinas, 768; 
summary of charaeter, 769. 

Heath, Brevet Brigadier-General Thomas T., 

SuniuKiry of service. 968. 
Hetntzleman, General, Testimony of before 
('..miiiittee on Conduct of War, 301 and note. 

Henry, Fort, Siege of, 364. 
Herrick, Brevet Brigadier-General Walter 
F., Summary of service, 969. 

Hickenlooper, Brevet Brigadier -General, 

Earlv life, enters army, conduct at Pittsburg Landing, 
serves on McPherson's staff, conduct in Vicksburg cam- 
paign, 9.37; is recommended by MePherson, receives 
medal, serves in .\tlanta campaign, is recommended by 
several general otficers for promotion, 938. 
Hill, Brevet Brigadier-General Charles W., 
Parentage, early life, enters army, service iu West Vir- 



ginia, 811 ; is appointed Adjutant-General of Ohio, 814; 
organizes the National Guard, 131, 814; is appointed Co- 
lonel One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Ohio, is mus- 
tered out, 815. 

Hitchcock, Mr., Introduces bill in Senate au- 
thorizing pay agents, 239. 
Hoge, Brevet Brigadier-General George W., 

Summary of service, 968, 

Holloway, Brevet Brigadier-General E. S., 

Summary of service, 969. 

Holly Springs, Surrender of, 380. 
Holmes County, Resistance to draft in, 127. 
Holmes, Dr. W. W., Services of, 249. 
Holton, Brevet Brigadier-General Marcellus J. 
W., Summary of service, 969. 

Hooker, General, At Williamsburg, 291; at 

Antietam, 305; at Lookout Mountain, 397. 

Howard, General, Pays a tribute to General 

Harker, 918. 

HowBERT, Rev. R. A., Employed by Governor 

Tod to visit wounded Ohio soldiers, 178. 

Howe, Orion P., Gallantry of, at Vicksburg, 

441. 

HowLAND, Brevet Brigadier-General Horace 

N., Summary of service, 969. 

Hundred Days' Men, 208; offered to the 

President by the Governors, 209; called out, 211. 
Hunt, Brevet Brigadier-General Lewis C, 
Summary of service, 969. ^ 

Hunt, Brevet Major-General Henry J., Sum- 
mary of service, 874. 
Hurst, Brevet Brigadier-General Samuel H., 

Summary of service, 969. 

Hutchison, Mr., Action of, in Legislature on 

the Appropriation Bill, 22. 

HuTCHlNGS, Brevet Brigadier-General R. P., 

Summary of service, 969. 



Initial War Legislation, 20. ^ 

Irvine, Colonel Sixteenth Ohio, Occupies 

Wheeling and skirmish at Pliilippi, 49. 

luKA, Battle of. General Rosecrans's part in, 322. 



Jackson, Battle of, 440, 574. 

Jackson, Stonewall, Comparison between and 

Sheridan. .5-55. 

James, Dr., Services of, 250. 

Jessup, Mr., Action of, in Legislature on the 

apijropriation bill, 22. 

Johnson, Governor Andrew, Asserts that he 

prevented the abandonment of Nashville, 717 and note. 

Johnston, General Jos. E., Strength of his 

army in October, 1861, 2-5; his conduct iu Vicksburg 
campaign, 387, ?>Ss ; surrender to Sherman, 480. 

JoNESBORO', Battle of, 458. 

Jones, Brevet Brigadier-General J. S., Early 
life, enlists as private, summary of service, 948, 969. 

Jones, Brevet Brigadier-General Theodore, 

Summary of service, 970. ,-, r^ c~i 

Jones, Brevet Brigadier-General Wells S., Sum- 
mary of service, 970. 
Jones, Colonel Fred. C, Parentage, early life, 

motives for entering the army, 997 , his conduct at Pitts- 
burg Landing, at Stone Kiver, his death, 99S. 

Jones, Colonel W. G., Parentage, enters regu- 

ular army, serves against the rebellion, 999. 
JuDAH, "General, fails to check Morgan at the 

Cumberlanil, 135. 

Judge Advocates from Ohio, 1013. 

K 

Kautz, Brevet Major-General August V., Pa- 
rentage, early life, services in Mexico, enters West Point, 
services in regular army, 841 ; joins the Army ot the Po- 
tomac on the peninsula campaign, is appointed Colonel 
Second Ohio cav., 845 ; participates in siege of Knoxville, 
commands cavalry of the Army of the James, 846 ; com- 
mands First Division, Twenty-Fifth Corps, 847; sum 
mary, 848. 



Ikdex. 



1045 



Keifer, Brevet Major-General Josepli W., 

Stiuiit'B law, enters the armv, conduct in West Virginia 
iiu.l on the Huiitsville Ciinipaign. >5S ; his conduct at 
Wimhester, joins the Army of the Potomac, .So9 ; his 
coniluot at battle of the Wilderness, Opequan, Fisher's 
Hill, Cedar Creek, and bailor's Creek, S60. 

Kelly, Brevet Brigadier-General John H., 

Summary of service, 970. 

Kenesaw Mountain, Battle of, 454. 
Kennedy, Brevet Brigadier-General R. P., 

Suuiniary of service, 970. 

Key, Judge Thomas M., votes for appropri- 
ation liiU in Ohio Senate, 21 ; visits Governor Magof- 
fin, of Kentucky, as agent from Governor Dennisou, and 
makes report, 37, 3S. 

KiMBERLY', Brevet Brigadier-General Robert 

L., Summary of service, 97(1. 

King, Colonel First Ohio militia, 19. 

King, Rufus, States position of Ohio with ref- 

ereULe to Kentucky to Louisville delegation, 39. 

Kingsbury, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry 

II., Sumn\ary of service, 970. 

Krum, Mr., introduces bill in Legislature to 

provide for tlie payment of bounties, 240. 

Kyle, Lieutenant-Colonel Barton S., Parent- 
age, early life, enters the army, is killed at Pittsburg 
Lauding, 1000. 



Ladies' Aid Societies, Organized, 253. 
Lancaster Guards, First company to report 

for duty at the outbreak of the war, 27. 

Lane, JBrevet Brigadier-General John Q., Sum- 
mary of service, 971. 

Langdon, Brevet Brigadier-General E. Bas- 
set t. Early life, summary of service and character, 971, 

Lang, Mr., Moves to amend title of bill estab- 
lishing National Guard, 2t2. 

Leavitt, Judge, Gives his opinion on the ha- 

beas corpt's in the case of Vallandigham, US. 

Lee, Brevet Brigadier-General John C, Sum- 
mary of service, 972. 
Lee, General Robert E., Assumes command of 

the Rebel army at Richmond, 297; sends Early against 
Wasliington, 406: surrenders to Grant, 412. 
Leggett, Major-General M. D., Early life, en- 
ters the army, his conduct at Pittsburg Landing and 
Corinth, S09 ; his conduct at Bolivar, Champion Hills, 
Vicksburg, and in the Atlanta campaign, summary, 
SIO. 

Lincoln, President, Replies to Democratic 

committee from Ohio asking release of A'allandighamj 
61 ; acknowledges the services of the Ohio National 
Guard, 219; his ideas of McClellan, 2.S7, 291; congratu- 
lates Kosecrans after Stone River, 334 : his friendship lor 
(iiant, 3S5; congratulates Grant after fall of Vicksburg, 
391; his confidence in McDowell, 674; is first suggested 
for the Presidency by Robert C. Schenck, 727; compli- 
ments General Tyler, 832. 

Lister, Brevet Brigadier-General Fred. W., 

Summary of service, 973. 

Long, Alexander, Speech against by Garfield, 

758. 

Long, Brevet Major-General Eli, Early serv- 
ice, conduct at Stone River, Chickamauga, McMinnville, 
and Farmington, 861 ; moves with Sherman to Knox- 
ville, his conduct in the Atlanta campaign and at Selma, 

862. 

Lookout Mountain, Battle of, 397. 
Louisville Journal, Charges Mitchel with 

cruelty, 613. 

Lowe, Colonel John W., Early life, politics, 

conduct at Scary Creek, 10fl9; at Carnifex Ferry, liHO. 

LucY', Colonel J. A., One Hundred and Fif- 

teeenth Ohio holds indignation meeting in his regiment 
about promotions, 22.5. 

Ludlow, Brevet Brigadier-General B.C., Early 
life, enters the array, serves in Missouri, 934 ; serves with 
the Army of the Potomac, his work on the Dutch Gap 
canal, 935; summary of character, 936. 

Lytle, Brigadier-General Wm. H., Parentage, 
early life, is appointed Colonel Tenth Ohio, conduct at 
Carnifex Ferry, 880 ; is on Mitchel's Alabama campaign, 
conduct at Perryville, 381 ; hiscouduct at Chickamauga, 
862 ; funeral honors, summary of character, 883. 



M 



Magoffin, Governor of Kentucky, Issues a 

neutrality proclamation, .".7. 

Manderson, Brevet Brigadier-General Chas. 

F., summary of service, 973. 

Mansfield, Hon. E. D., Commissioner of Sta- 
tistics, 181. 
Manufacturers in Ohio at the ouibieak of 

the war, 16. 

March to the Sea, 465; map of, 468. 
Martin, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. H., 

Summary of service, 973. 

Mason, Brigadier-General John S., Parentage, 

standing and classmates at West Point. .•Serves in Mexico 
and in the West, 928; summary of service against the 
rebellion. 929. 

Mason, Brevet Brigadier-General Edwin C, 

Summary of service, 973. 

Maxwell, Brevet Brigadier-General O. C, 

Summary of service, 973. 

Mayer, Captain, His commission as Colonel 

withheld by (governor Brough, 225. 

McAllister, Fort, Capture of, 468, 768. 
McCleary, Brevet Brigadier-General James, 

Summary of service, 973. 

McClellan, Major-General Geo. B., Assumes 

command of Uniteii States forces after battle of Bull 
Run, 13; is recommended by Ciuciunatians for the rank 
of General of Ohio troops, 32 ; declines the command of 
Pennsylvania troops, 33; his ingratitude toward (iiover- 
nor Dennison, 43 ; his reply to Governor Dennison's let- 
ter urging him to occupy Parkersburg, his plan lor tak- 
ing Richmond, 4s ; his part in the battle of Laurel Hill, 
50; his classmates at West Point, 276; his conduct at 
^'era Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Puebla, Mexicalcingo, Coutre- 
ras. City of Mexico, 277; is directed to visit Europe dur- 
ing the Crimean War, resigns his commission and goes 
to railroading, marries Miss Ellen Marcy, 278; is ap- 
pointed Major-General, 33, 279; commands at Camp 
Dennisou, 279; negotiates with General Buckner on 
the subject of Kentucky neutrality, 279, 280, note; his 
instructions to General Morris, and proclamation to 
West Virginians, takes tlie field, strength of his army, 
his plans, 281 ; he fails in execution, 282; assumes com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac and reorganizes it, 
283: his plans for other departments, his responsibility 
for the Bali's Bluff aflair, 285; his reasons for inaction, 
286 ; his plans for the Army of the Potomac, 287 ; temper 
of the Administration toward him, 288; his conduct at 
Yorktown, 289; he is hampered by the Government, 290 ; 
his conduct on the pursuit of the Rebels from Yorktown. 
291; his exaggeration of the enemy's strength, 293; his 
dispositions on the Chickahominy, 294; his part in the 
battle of Seven Pines, 297; he procrastiinites, 298; his 
strength compared with Lee's in front of Uichniond, 299; 
his conduct at Gaines's Mill, 300; he falls back on the 
James, 301 ; his conduct at New Market Cross Roads and 
Malvern Hill, 302; he is ordered to withdraw to Wash- ' 
ingtou, 303; his ability as an organizer, his conduct at 
South iMountaiu, 304 ; his conduct at Antietam, .305 ; his 
force compared with Lee's at Autietatn, 306 ; summary 
of character. 307 ; his idea of an expedition against New 
Orleans, 790. 

McCoNNELL, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry 

K., Summary of service, 974 ; as Colonel Seventy-First 
Ohio, corresponds with Governor Brough, 223. 

McCoOK, Brigadier-General Daniel, While Col- 
onel of the Fifty-Second Ohio corresponds with Governor 
Brough, 223; parentage, early life, enters the army. 9<H ; 
his conduct at Perryville, Stone River, Chickamauga, 
IMission Ridge, and in the Atlanta campaign, his death, 

McCooK, Brigadier-General Robert L., Family 

connectiims, early life, studies law, s7.'> ; becomes Colonel 
Ninth Ohio, his services in West \irginia, 876; is ap- 
pointed Brigadier and joins Buell s army, is taken sick, 
.s77 ; is murdered, 878 and note; summary ot character, 

S79. 

McCooK, Brevet Brigadier-General Anson G., 

Snmmary of service, C74. 

McCooK Family, Services of, 875 and note. 
McCooK, George W., Is placed in command of 

the First and Secnml Ohio, .30. 

McCooK, Major-General Alexander M., Early 

military life, is appointed Colonel First Ohio, his conduct 
at Bull Bun, is made a Brigadier, s06 : his conduct at 
Pittsburg Landing, 807; at Perryville 719, 807; at Stone 
Kiver, :«9, 807; at Chickamauga. 343, SU7; demands a 
Court of Inquiry, findings, t07 ; is assigned to unimport- 
ant duties, his brevet commissions, his political views, 
SU> and note. 

McCooK, Major Daniel, Killed at Burlington 

Islaud, 147 and note. 



1046 



Index. 



McCoy, Brevet Brigadier-General Daniel, Early 

life, enlists as private. conuU.-t at Stone River, Chiclva- 
iiiau;.':(, and Franklin, 944 : summary, <i45. 

McDermott, Dr. Clarke, Services of, 249. 
McDowell's Corps, Dispute concerning its 

disposition, 2"J3. 

McDowell, Majoi-General Irvin, Parentage, 

boyhootl, enters West Point, 65fi: his classmates, early 
military life, conduct in Mexico, 657; his positional the 
opening of the war, 63S; is made a Brigadier, B60; his 
ditlicultic-s with General Scott, (ifiO, 6(il, i;63; is ordered 
across the Potomac, iifil ; his standinganiong volunteers, 
tltl4,t;S0 ; makes an advance, 6()5 ; his conduct at Bull Run, 
13, 6i." ; liis conduct aftei ward, HTl ; has an interview with 
Mr. Lincoln in regard to operations with the Army of 
the Potomac, t;75 ; his opinion on the protection ot \\ asli- 
iugton, t)79; is much abused liy papers and otherwise. 
ego (^89; his campaign against Jackson, fi82; is assigned 
to a command ill the Army of Virginia, fi84 ; his conduct 
at the second battle of Bull Run, ii86 : demands a Court 
of Inquiry, 090; result of, (191; subsequent services, ii9:i; 
summary of character, 693. 

McGowAN, Brevet Brigadier-General J. E., 

Summarv of service, 974. 

McGroarty, Brevet Brigadier-General Ste- 
phen .1., Summary of service. 974. 

McIlvaine, Bishop, Expresses himself in re- 
gard to sustaining the Government, 270 ; extract from 
sermon on Colonel .Vndrews, 99j. 

McLean, Brigadier-General N- C, Early life, 

enters the armv. serves in Virginia, 92i : serves with the 
Army of the Potomac, and in the Atlanta campaign, 
commands district in Kentucky, is ordered to Jsorth 
Carolina, resigns, 922. 
McMlLLEN, William L., Surgeon-General of 

Ohio, 246. 

McNeil, Guerrilla, Captures General Crook, 

&03. 

McPherson, Major-General James B., Parent- 
age, 561 ; becomes a clerk, 562; goes to West Point, his 
associates, 563: becomes a Professor in the Academy, 
earlv militarylife, 564 ; his social life, 565 ; his politics, 566 ; 
is assigned to duty on Halleck's staff, n&S; his conduct at 
Fort Donelson, Pittsburg Landing. 569; around Cor- 
inth, 569, 570; his conflict with Rosecrans, 570; is made a 
Major-General, has a light near Old Lamar, 571 ; his con- 
duct in the Vicksburg campaign, 572; at Port Gibson and 
Raymond, 573; at Jackson, 574; at Champion Hills, o75; 
undermines Rebel works at Vicksburg, 576 ; his com- 
mand in the Meridian expedition, 580; enters on the At- 
lanta campaign. 580; his cimduct at Resaca .')81,.582; at 
Dallas, 583; at Kenesaw, 584; at Atlanta, .585; is killed, 
.586; summary of character, 589; recommends Captain 
Hickenlooper, 938. 

McVeigh. Mr., Introduces bill in Senate to 

provide for'the defense of the State, 239, 240. 
Meigs, Quartermaster-General, Opinion of, on 

the battle of Mission Ridge, .39s. 
Mejia, Major-General Thomas, Corresponds 

with General Weitzel in regard to alleged outrages in 

Mexico, 794. 

Meyer, Brevet Brigadier-General Edward b.. 

Summary of service, 975. 

Military Agencies of Ohio, 186. 
Military Committees, 172. 
Military Legislation of the State, 238._ 
Military Peace Establishment of Ohio at 

the outbreak of the war, 19. 

Militia of Ohio tender their services to the 

Government at the outbreak of the war, 25. 

MiLLiKiN, Colonel Minor, Parentage, early 
life, 990 ; enlists as private, 991 : is appointed Major First 

' Cavalrv, remonstrates with Colonel Ransom lor drunk- 
enness^ 992: is appointed Colonel, etfect of this, his con- 
duct at Stone River, his " Sohliers' Creed," 993; charac- 
ter, 995. 

MiSCHLER, Captain Wendell, Co. B, Fortieth 

Battalion, Xatioual Guard, his company is dishonorably 
dismissed from service, 216. 

Mission Ridge, Battle of, 396, 397, 444, 509. 
Mitchell, Brigadier-General John G., Early 

life enters the armv, serves in West Virginia, and on 
Mitchel's Alabama campaign, his conduct at Cliicka- 
mauga, 911; his conduct on the Atlanta campaign, at 
Nashville, and Bentonville, resigns, 912. 
Mitchel, Major-General O. M., In the De- 
partment of the South. 13; parentage and boyhood, 591 ; 
enters West Point, his classmates, 592; early military 
and civil life, .593 ; goes to Europe, .595 ; superintends the 
Cincinnati Observatory, .596 ; invents the declinometer, 
597 and note ; publishes several works, .598 ; his scientitic 
and religious opinions. .599; his feelings at the opening 
of the war, 601 ; is appointed Brigadier-General, 602 : cap- 
tures Bowling Green, 603; Nashville surr.-nders to his 
command, calls on the widow of James K. Polk, jeal- 



ousy of other officers toward him, 604 ; his advance on 
Huntsville, 605; his treatment of Rebels, 608 ; his con- 
duct at Bridgeport, 610: demonstrates against Chatta- 
nooga, 611 : is ordered to Washington City, 612; is charged 
with cruelty, 613; is assigned to the Department of South 
Carolina, is seized by yellow fever and dies, 614; sum- 
mary of character, 615. 

Moody, Brevet Brigadier-General Granville, 

Summary of service, 975. 

Moor, Brevet Brigadier-General August, Sum- 
mary of service. 975. 

Moore, Brevet Brigadier-General F. W., Sum- 
mary of service. 950. 

Moore, Brevet Brigadier-General John C, Sum- 
mary of servii-e, 975. 1 1, -ri 
Moore, Brevet Brigadier-General Marshall F., 

Summary of service , 975. 
Moure, Colonel, Defends the crossing of Green 

River against Morgan. 136. _ 1 • • 

MoOKE, Senator, Votes for appropriation bill in 

the (_>hio Senate, 21. 

Morgan, Brigadier-General Geo. W., Parent- 
age, services in Texas and Mexico, civil life, re-enters 
the army, conduct at Cumberland Gap, 923. 

Morgan, John, Sketch of, 84; surrender of, 

149 ; death of, 150. 

Morgan Eaid through Ohio, 134 ; plundering 

and excitement, 144 ; expenses of the raid, 151 ; abstract 
of claims for property destroyed, 152. 

Morgan's Kentucky Cavalry, Exploits of, 

83, 86. 

Morris, General Thos. A., Conduct of at Lau- 
rel Hill. 50; his conduct in McClellan's West Vir2inia 
Campaign. 281. 

Morris Island, Descent on, 633. 

Mott, Brevet Brigadier-General Samuel R., 

Sumrnarv of service, 975. 

Murdoch, Tragedian, Suggests the writing of 

Sheridan's Ride, 532, note. 

Murphy, Colonel, Surrenders Holly Springs, 

380. 

MusCROFT, Dr. C. S., services of, 250. 
MussEY, Brevet Brigadier-General Reuben D., 

Parentage, early life, 975; enters the army, assists in or- 
ganizing colored troops, his letter to the Mayor ot >ash- 
ville in regard to a Fourth of July celebration. 97ii ; is 
secretary to President Johnson, resigns, 977. 

MusSEY, Dr. Wm. H., Member of Board of 

Medical Inspectors, 248 ; services of, 249. 



N 



National Guard, Organization of, 130 ; serv- 
ices of, 219. 
Neff, Brevet Brigadier-General George W., 

Summary of service, 977. . 

Negley, General, Demonstrates against Chat- 
tanooga, 6ii. 1 T- CI 
Neilson, Major W. G., Twenty-Seventh L. S. 

Colored Troops, corre-^ponds with Governor Brougli, 224. 

Nelson, General, Isjealous of General Mitchel, 

Nettleton, Brevet Brigadier-General A. B., 
Summary of service, 97s. 

Newhall, Colonel, Describes Sheridan s last 

interview with Grant before Lee's surrender, 5;',s, note ; 
describes fight at Dinwiddle C. H., 540, note ; subsequent 
uncertainty in regard to position of Rebel army, 541, 
note ; describes General Ewell after his capture at bail- 
or's Creek, 548, note; relates incident between Snernlan 
and citizen, .549, note; describes Lee's surrender, 550, 
note; ilescribes Sheridan's personal appearance, 558, 
note; describes Custer's personal appearance, 783. 

New Hope Church, Battle of, 453. 
Newman, Senator, Votes a-gainst appropriation 

bill in Ohio Senate and afterward changes his vote, 22 
and note ; his constituents denounce his hrst vote, 22. 

New Orleans, Defenses of, map of, 790. 
Newspapers in Ohio at the outbreak of the 

Noble County, Speck of war in, 125. 
NoYES, Brevet Brigadier-General Edward F., 
Summary of service, 978. 







Odlin, Peter, Introduces bill in Legislature ena- 
bling soldiers to vote, 238, 241 ; introduces bill for defense 
of the State against invasion, 241. 



Index. 



1047 



O'Dowi), Brevet Brigadier-GcneralJohn, Sum- 
mary of service, 979. 
O'DowD, Captain, Attempts to raise an Irissli 

Catholic regiment, 73. 
Ohio at tlie outbreak of the war, 16. 
Ohio Churches and Clergy in the war, 269. 
Ohio Legislature, Thanks General Thomas, 

Colonels Garnold and McCook, Grn.'ral Gvniit, ami Flag 
Utticer Foote, General Knrnsidc anil rommamler Gold-- 
bovo'. Generals Curtis ami Siijcl. ami Colonrls Asbolh, 
Davis, and Carr, 23ii; thanUslJcrn-ral Shields and olliei'is 
and men of his command, (iriicral Kosi'craus arid olticcrs 
and men of his comnmnd, tirneval Benj. F. Bnller, 
Eighty-Third, Ninety-Sixth, and Seventy-Sixth Ohio 
Regiments, and Seventepnth Ohio Battery, the Squirrel 
Hunters, General Lew. Wallace and Captain Abner Heed, 
authorizes lithographic discharges for the Squirrel 
Hunters, L'4(i ; authorizes the Governor to contriljute 
money for the burial of soMierg in Green Lawn Ceme- 
tery, 241 ; authorizes a commission to exatnitie claims 
growing out of the Morgan raid, a bureau of military 
statistics, the relief of debtors in the military service, a 
bureau (d' soldiers' claims, 242; autliorizes a Soldiers 
Home, 243 ; authorizes the appropriation of money for 
monument to General McPherson, 244. 

Ohio Militia rescues West Virginia, 45. 
Ohio Kegimexts in Kentucky in the tall of 

ISi'd, 52 : in Virginia in the fall of ISfil". .OS. 

Ohio Relief Association at Washington, 

2')2 : organization of, 2ii3. 

Ohio's Place in the war for the Union, 13. 
Olds, Dr. Edson B., Opposes enlistments and 

is arrested, 80, M ; he arrests Governor Tod, 1.^0, 
Opdycke, Brevet Major-General Emerson, En- 
lists as private, his conduct at Pittsburs Landina, is 
appointed Colonel One Hundred and Twenty-l'iftli Ohio. 
his conduct at Chickamauga, at Mission Kidge, and in 
the Atlanta campaign, 837 ; his conduct at Franklin, s3« ; 
personal habits, 839. 

Orchard Knob, Capture of, 396. 
Orr, Senator, Votes for appropriation bill in 
Ohio Senate, 21. 



Pardee, Brevet Brigadier-General Don A., 

Summary of service. 981. 

Parrott, Edward A., Commandant of First 

Ohio, 27. 

Parry, Brevet Brigadier-General Augustus C, 

Summary of service, 979. 

Patrick, Colonel John H., Early life. Sum- 
mary of service, 11)01. 

Pay'Masters from Ohio 1014. 
Peachtree Creek, Battle of, 456. 
Pearce, Brevet Brigadier-General John S., 
Summary of service, 981. 

Pemberton, General, Conduct of, in the Vicks- 

burg campaign, .'fss. 

Pendleton, Hon. Geo. H., Acts as counsel for 

Vallandingham. H)4. 
Perrin, Dr. Glover, Services of, 249. 
Perry, Aaron F., Replies to Pugh's argument 

for a lidbffis carijiis in tlie case of \allandigham, 112. 

Perryville, Battle of, 503, 719. 

Petersburg, Siege of, 405. 

Phelps, Dr. A. J., Services of, 249. 

Piatt, Brigadier-General A. Sanders, Early 
life, enters the army, serves in West Virginia, 913 ; his 
conduct at the second battle of Bull Run, 914 ; his con- 
duct at Fredericksburg, resigns, 91.'>. 

PiERSON, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. S., 

Summary of service, ;i8l. 

PiLLOW% General, At Fort Donelson, 367, 368. 
Pittsburg Landing, Eti'ect of battle at in 

Ohio. i>6 ; battle of. 374, 431 : map of, 37fi. 

Plympton, Editor of Cincinnati Commercial, 

Has an interview with Sherman, 42.8, note. 
PoE, Brevet Brigadier-Cieneral Orlando M., 

Summary of service. 'ii81; as Lieutenant, sent to examine 
J exposed points on the Ohiii Hivei , 47. 

k Political Parties in (Jhio at the outbreak of 

the war, 17. 

Pope, Captain (now Major-General), Recom- 
mends the fortifying of Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati, 32. 
Porter, General, Conduct of at Gaines's Mill, 



Port (iiBsoN, Battle of, 387, 573. 

Potts, Brigadier-General B. F., Early life, en- 
ters the army, serves in West Virginia, 8'.i8 ; "his conduct 
in the Vicksburg campaign and on the Meriflian expedi- 
tion, 8'.)9; his conduct at .\tlanta, personal appearance, 
<«I0. 

Powell, Brigadier-General Wm. H., Early 

life, enters the army, serves in West Virginia, Is cap- 
tureil, 909 : summaryiif his ensagements, he resigns, 9lil. 

Powell, Brevet Brigadier -General Eugene, 

Summary of service, 981. 

Powell, Colonel, His ability as a commander, 

8(1.'. 

Prentice, George D., Pays a tribute to Daniel 

McCook, iiii.-,. 

Prentiss, General, Conduct of at Pittsburg 

Landing ,37.'i. 

Price, Rebel General, Conduct of at Corinth, 

.325 ; invades Missouri, 345. 

PuGH, Hon. Geo. E., Acts as counsel for Val- 

landigham, loi ; makes application for a writ of habeas 
corpus in the case of Vallandingham, 107 ; his argument 
for it, 109 ; makes a speech before the Democrat ;i-' nom- 
inating convention, 1.54. 

Pulaski, Fort, Operations against, 621. 
PuRCELL, Archbishop, Raises the flag over the 

Cincinnati Cathedral, 270. 

Q 

Quartermasters from Ohio, 1014. 

R 

Rappahannock, map of, 669. 

Ratliff, Brevet Brigadier-General R. W. 

Summary of service, 981. ' 

Raymond, Battle of, 573. 

Raynor, Brevet Brigadier-General W. H., 

Summary of service, 981. 

Read, Thomas Buchanan, Writes " Sheridan's 

Kide," .=).12, note. 

Recruiting, The last, its progress and perils, 

2tKI. 

Reedy, Mr., Introduces bill in Ohio Legisla- 
ture for the relief of soldiers' families, 2.18. 

Re-enlistments among Ohio troops, 175. 
Reilly, Brigadier-General J. W., Earlv life, 

enters the army, participates in siege of Knoxvifle, 91S; 
participates in the battle of Franklin, resigns, yiy. 

Relief Work, 251. 

Resaca, Battle of, 450, 582. 

Reynolds, Private Geo., Fifteenth Iowa, at- 
tends on JlcPherson at his death, 7)87. 

Rice, Brevet Brigadier-General Americus V., 
Summary of service, 982. 

Richardson, Brevet Brigadier-General ^V. P. 

Early life, enters tlie army, conduct at Cliancelh r>vllle, 
;i45; summary of character, 94ti. 

Richardson, Private Wm. R., Second Ohio 

Cavalry, gallantry of at Sailor's Creek, 548. 

Richmond, Map of routes to, and battle-lields 

around, 29.i. • 

Rich Mountain, Battle of, Ro.secrans's i)art 

in, 315. 

RiSDON, Brevet Brigadier-General Orlando C, 

Summary of service, 982 

Ritchie, General Thos., Secures appointment 

for Sheridan at West Point, 49!i. 

Robinson, Brevet Major-General Jas. S., Is en- 
gaged in the Rich Slountain campaign, in the Shenandoah 
Valley campaign, in the secon<l battle ol Bull linn, in 
th<' Chancellorsville caMipMii.'ii, in the Cetly>bing cam- 
paign, in the Atlanta cjnjpaiun, in the (■<o.«ia eanipaign, 
and in the campaign of the Carolinas, summary of pro- 
motions, 8.57. 

RoSECRANS, Maj(n-General Wm. S., Assumes 

command in the mountains. T.(; calls on Governor Den- 
iiison for aidin holding West Virginia, 52; his conduct in 
McClellan's West Virginia campaign, 282; parentage, 
311; enters West I'oint, early military life. 312 : his civil 
life, 313; re-enters the service, 314; his work in West 
Virginia, 315; his conduct at Rich .^lountain. .50, 315; his 
conduct at Oarnife.x Ferry, 31S; his conduct at and 
around Corinth, 321. 323, 380; fights the battle of luka, 
322,379; his conflicts with Grant, 323, 32ti, ;»i, .345 and 
note; he relieves Buell, 327; his conflict with Halleck. 



1048 



Index. 



327, 335, 33fi, 338 ; his conduct at Stone River, 329 ; liis ca- 
reer after Stoue River, 335; semis Rosseau to W asliiug- 
ton to obtain cavalry, 33i) ; iiis coullicts with the Secre- 
tary of War, liis Tullahoma campaign, 337; his Cliatta- 
tiooga campaign, 339; his conduct at Cliickanianga, his 
force compared with Bragg s, 34lp; turns ov.r liis com- 
mand to Thomas, is president of the Cincinnati Sanitary 
Fair, commands Department of .Missouri, 344; his en- 
gagements with Price. 345; is relieved of a command and 
resigns, summary of service and character, 34ii ; his plans 
for the 3Iission Ridge campaign, 394, 395 and note; his 
cnnfiict with McPherson, 570; compliments Fuller's bri- 
gale at Oorintli, 825; compliments General Thomas H. 
Ewing for conduct at Pilot Knob, S35, S36. 

RoTJSSEAU, General, Is sent by Eosecrans to 

Washington to obtain cavalry, 33rt. 

RuNKLE, Brevet Major-General Ben. P., Early- 
life, enters the armv, conduct at Pittsburg Landing, S6u ; 
commands Ohio militia in tin- Morgan raid, isdiscliarged 
on arcount of wounds, is appointi-d Lieutenant-Colonel 
Veteran Reserve Corps, is assigned to duty in the Freed- 
meu's Bureau, his Conduct in the Memphis riots, is ap- 
pointed Major Forty-Fifth United States Infantry, 865. 

EuNYAN, George W., Commissary-General of 

Ohio, 23. 



s 

g.iLlSBURY, Prof. J. H., Visits hospitals and 
reports on army ^•pidemics, 247. 

Sailor's Creek, Battle of, 548. 
Salineville, Battle of, 148. 
Salter, Dr. Francis, Services of, 249. 
Sanderson, Brevet Brigadier-General Thomas 

W., summary of service, 9S2. 

Sanitary Commission, Cincinnati Branch, 252 ; 

its organization, 253; its services at Fort Donelson, 254; 
istablishes a Soldiers' Home, purchase lots in Spring 
Grove Cemetery, 2.ij; stati-ment of its receipts, disburse- 
ments, and supplies, 25tj; Cleveland Brancli, 2.57; estab- 
lishes a Soldiers' Home, holds a lair, 26; Columbus 
Branch, 259, note. 

Savannah, Siege of, 469. 

Sawyer, Brevet Brigadier-General Franklin, 

Snmmary of service, y-'2. 

Sayler, Milton, of Hamilton County, Intro- 
duces bill in Legislature enabling soldiers to vote, 2oS. 

ScAMMON, Brigadier-General Eliakim P., Pa- 
rentage, standing and classmates at West Point, early 
military life, 915; his civil life, serves against the re- 
bellion, 91(i. 

ScHENCK, Major-General Eobert C, Early life, 
is elected to the Legislature, 725; is elfcteil to Congress, 
is appointed minister to Brazil, 72h ; suggests Mr. Lin- 
coln for the Presidency, is appointed Brigadier-General, 
his conduct at Vienna, 727; his conduit at Bull Run, 
728 ; commands a brigade in West Virginia, 729 ; his con- 
duct at McDowell, at Cross Keys, and at second Bull 
Bun, 7.30; is made a Major-Gener.il, commands the Mid- 
dle Department, his treatment of Rebels, 731 ; issues 
General Order .53 in reganl to elections. 732; resumes his 
Seat iu Congress, is made Chairman of the Committee on 
Military atlairs. 14, 733; his speech against Fernando 
Wood, 734 ; summary of character, 737. 

ScHLEiCH, Newton, is appointed Brigadier- 
General of Ohio troops, 34. 
Scott, Dr., of Warren County, introduces bill 

ill the Legislature for relief of soldiers' families, 23s. 

Scott, General, replies to McClellan's propo- 
sal for taking Richmond, 48; difficulties between him 
and General McDowell, 6S0 ; his responsibility for the 
(lisaster at Bull Run, rt72. 

Second Ohio Infantry, Organized, 27. 
Shane, Lieutenant- Colonel James W., Early 

life, summary of service and character, lOOi'.. 

Shanks, Mr., Describes Sheridan, 557, note. 
Sheldon, Brevet Brigadier-General Lionel A., 

Summary of service, 9S2. 

Sheridan, Major-General Pliil. H., The First 

Cavalry General of this Continent, 14; makes a raid 
around Lee, 403; his parentage, 495; incidents of early 
life, 496; becomes a clerk, 49S ; enters West Point, class- 
mates, early army life, 499; his service at the opening of 
the war, 500; is Quartermaster in the Pea Ridge cam- 
paign, .501 ; is made Colonel of cavalry and fights the bat- 
tle of Booneville, 5J2 ; his conduct at Perryville, 503; at 
Stone River, 330, 504 ; his conduct in the Tullahoma cam- 
paign, knocks down a railroad conductor, his conduct at 
Ohickamauga, 507; at Mission Ridge, 509 ; his relations 
with Grant, his services in the East, 511 : his battles, 
612; makes a raid around Richmond, 517; tights the battle 
of Yellow Tavern, 516 ; raid on Virginia Central Rail- 
road, 519; creates a diversion iu favor of Bnrn>ide, 52ii: 
goes to Shenandoah Valley, strength of his command. 



521 and note; assumes the defensive, 523; his conduct 
atWinchester, .524 ; at Fisher s Hill, .526 ; at Cedar Creek, 
.5;iO ; "Sheridan's Ride," poem, circumstances under 
whicli it was written, 532; moves southward, 535; dmount 
of property destroyed on the march, 536, note; resumes 
command of cavalry, army of the Potomac, 537 ; his last 
interview with Grant before the surrender, 53s and note; 
his conduct at Dinwiddle C. H., 540; at Five Forks, 411, 
542; his final operations against Lee, 545; his conduct at 
Lee's surrender, 550, note; goes to the South-west, his 
administration of affairs, 553 , is ordered to the frontiei , 
summary of character, 554 ; his conduct at Sailor's Creek. 
7,sl ; presents the table ou which the terms of Lee's sur- 
render were signed to Mrs. General Custer, 782. 

Sherman, Major-General W. T., Defends Grant 

for locating the army at Pittsburg Lauding, 371. note; 
his criticism on Grant's Vicksburg campaign, 382, note, 
and 386 and note ; parentage, 417 ; is adopted by Hon. T. 
Ewing, enters West Point, 418; his classmates and life 
at the academy, 419 ; enters the army, his life in Florida, 
421; is married, resigns, enters on the practice of law, 
423; accepts professorship in the Louisiana Military 
Academy, 424 ; resigns, attempts to re-enter the army, 
425; is appointed Colonel, his conduct at Bull Run, 426; 
is appointed Brigadier-General, goes to Keutucky, i:;7 ; 
is reported insane, 14, 429, 430 and note; his conduct at 
Pittsburg Landing, 375, 431; advance to Coriiiih. 433; 
goes to Memphis, 434; attempts to reduce Vicksburg, 
380,434; his conduct at Chickasaw Bayou, 435; at Ar- 
kansas Post, 437 ; his conduct in an expedition against 
Haines's Bluff, 437; his plan for taking A'icksburg, his 
part in the Vicksburg campaign, 438; his conduct at 
Jackson, 440; recommends Orion P. Howe for gallantry 
at Vicksburg, is made a Brigadier in the regular army, 
441; his relations towards Grant, 441, 44ii; is ordered to 
co-operate with Rosecrans, 442 ; his conduct at Mission 
Ridge, 396, 444 ; moves to relief of Burnside at Knoxville, 
445; his Meridian expedition, 446; his plans for the .\t- 
lanta campaign, 447; enters on the campaign, 449; his 
care of his troops, 461 ; orders the inhabitants out of At- 
lanta, 463; commences his march to the sea, 465; invests 
Savannah, 469; gives his views on reconstruction. 470; 
moves on the Carcdina campaign, 471 ; his responsibility 
for the burning of Columbia, 475 ; his laxity of discipline 
ou the march, 478; foi'ces Johnston to surrender, 4>o; 
terms agreed on, 482; Government refuses to sanction 
terms, 483; his mortification and auger, 485 ; refuses to 
shake hands with Secretary Stanton on review day, 4.^ii ; 
summary of his ability, 4,-7; his conduct on hearing of 
the deash of McPherson, 587 ; his estimate of General 
Charles R. Woods, 843; of General Walcutt, 850. 

Sherman, Senator John, Parentage, early life, 

public lite, lU3'i; summary of character, 1036. 

Sherwood, Brevet Brigadier-General Isaac E., 

Summary of si rvice, 953. 

Shumard, George H,, Surgeon-General of 

Uhio, 246. 

Shurtliff, Brevet Brigadier-General G. "VV., 



SMUiimarv 



SiGEL, General, conduct of, at second Bull 

Run, 687. 

Signal Officers from Ohio, 1014. 

Sill, Brigadier-General Joshua W., conduct 

of at Stone River, 504; early military life, 919; civil life, 
serves against the rebellion, 920. 

SiNNET, Mr., Introduces bill in Legislature ap- 
pointing militaiy claim agents, 240; introduces bill to 
organize and discipline the militia, 241. 

Sixty-Sixth Ohio Infantry, Tiie first regi- 
ment to 1-eturn to the State after re-enlistment, 174. 
Slevin, Brevet Brigadier-General Patrick, 

.•Nummary of service, 982. 

Slocum, Brevet Brigadier General Willard, 

Nummary of service, 983, 

Slocum, Lydia, Grandmotlier of General Mc- 
Pherson, « rites to (ieneral Grant 5t^, 

Slough, Brigadier-General John P., Early life, 

summary of service, 933. 

Smith, Brigadier-General William Sooy, Pa- 
rentage, early life, enters \\ est Point, his classmates ami 
standing, resigns, civil life, re-enters the army, and 
serves in West Virginia, ^^54; his coudui-t at Pittsburg 
Landing and in the pursuit alter battle of Perryville, 
885; makes a raid against the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, 
,S86: is attacked by rheumatism and resigns, 887. 

Smith, Brigadier-General Thomas Kilby, Pa- 
rentage- summary of service, 939. 

Smith, Brevet Brigadier-General Benjamin F., 

Summary of service, 982. 

Smith, Brevet Brigadier-General Orlando, 

Summary of service, 9.;'3. 

Smith, Brevet Brigadier-General Orlow, Sum- 
mary of service, 983. 

Smith, Brevet Brigadier-General T. C. H., 

Summary of service, 982. 

Smith, Colonel Joseph L. Kirby, Parentage, 

I Summary of service, 10O7. 



Index, 



1049 



Smith, Dr. Samuel M., Visits the battle-fields 
of Pittsburg Landing and Antietam, 67, is SurKeon-Gtn- 
oral of Oliiu, L'47. 

Smith,' General Charles F., Character, 359; 

his operatinns in Kcntiuky, 3("i3 ; his conduct at Fort 
Donelsoii, 368. 

Smith, General Giles H., Commends Colonel 

Pott:*, y(io. 
Smith, General W. F., At Petersburg, 404. 
Smith, Kirby, Advances into Kentucky, 88. 
Smith, Robert, Engages James E. McPherson 

as clerk. .i''2. 

Snicker's Ferry, Battle of, 801. 
Soldiers' Home Established, 235. 
Somerset, Battle of, 630. 

Sowers, Brevet Brigadier-General Edgar, Sum- 
mary of service. ;iS4. 

Spottsylvania C. H., Baltle of, 402. 

Sprague, Brevet Major-General John W., En- 
ters the army, is captured, bfrl ; is appointed Colonel 
Sixty-Third Ohio, his conduct at Corinth and in the 
Atlanta campaign, iS65 ; is appointed Commissioner for 
Freedmen in Missouri, summary of character, 86t). 

Squirrel-Hunters in Cincinnati, 94; number 

of discharges given, 180. 

Staff-Officers from Ohio, 1012. 
Stafford, Brevet Brigadier-General Joab A., 

Summary of service, 9-3. 

Stager, Brevet Brigadier-General Anson, Sum- 
mitry ot service, 9t"3. 
Stanley, Brevet Brigadier-General Timothy 

K., Summary of service, 9>3 

Stanley, Major-General David S., Early mili- 
tary life, his services in the West at the opening of the 
war, is appointed BrJL'adier, 79fi ; his services under 
Pope, his conduct at luka, Corinth, Stone Kiver, and in 
the Atlanta campaign, 797 ; at Franklin, 798. 

Stanton, Hon. E. M., Secretary of War., 14; 

Dispatches to Governor Brough in regard to tlie National 
Ciuard, 214 ; presents objections to Sherman's basis of 
peace, -liS; his parentage. IOL'7; early life, his law prac- 
tice, enters BucliaUHns Cabinet, is Secretary of War to 
Mr. Lincoln, hisdifBculty with President Johnson, 1028 ; 
summary of character, 1029. 

State Agencies for the assistance of soldiers 

established, 67. 

Steadman, Brevet Brigadier-General William, 

summary of service, 983. 

Steedman, Major-General James B., As Col- 
onel of Fourteenth Ohio, occupies Parkersburg, 49 ; 
action of his command at Carrick's Ford, 50: early 
life, becomes a printer and a Democrat, removes to Ohio 
and engages in canal and railroad contracts, 784; his 
public lifH, enters the army, conduct at Perryville, 785; 
is ciinipliinented by Gemral Thomas, his conduct at 
I liickauiau;,'a and in the Atlanta campaign, 786; has a 
;ii:lit witli \\ lii-i-ler, his conduct at Nashville, resigns, 
snmniar\ <'f character, 787. 

Stem, Lieutenant-Colonel Leander, Early life, 

conduct at Perrvville and Stone River, loot. 

Stevenson, Mr., Introduces bill in Legislature 

authorizing ta.K fcr the payment of bounties, 241. 

Stiver, Mr., introduces bill in Legislature for- 
bidding traffic with Rebels, 239. 

.Stone River, Buttle of, 329, 504; map of bat- 

,leat,:Wl. 

.Storer, Judge, States position of Ohio with 

1. fereuceto Kentticky to Louisville delegation. 40. 
SxoUGH, Brevet Brigadier-General William, 

Summary of service, 984. 

Strickland, Brevet Brigadier-General Silas 

.v.. Summary of service, 9S4. 

Struggle AND Surrender of Party in Ohio, 

Stuart, General J. E. B., Killed at Yellow 

Tavirn, 518. 
Sullivan, Brevet Brigadier-General Peter J., 

Summiry of service, 984. 

Sumner, General, Conduct at Antietam, 305. 

Sumter, Fort, Reduction of, 636. 

Surgeons from Ohio in the war, 245 ; sum- 
mary of apptinted, resigned, promoted, and deceased 
.iurins the ■ Andlion, 246, note; deaths among, 2j0. 

Surgeon , of volunteers from Ohio, 248. 
SwAYNE, Hon. Noah H., and other citizens, 

render important aid to the State, 36, note. 

SwAYNE, Major-General Wager, Early life, en- 



ters the army, is provost -marshal at Memphis, 804 ; hie 
condtict on the Atlanta campaign, on the march to the 
sea, and on the campaign of the Carolinas. is appointed 
assistant commissioner of freedmen in Alabama, 805. 

Sweeney, General, conduct of at Resaca, 581. 
Swinton's Army of the Potomac, Extracts 

from, 67.'). 



T 



Tabular Statement of enrolled militia in 

each Cdunty in Ohio, 133. 

Tabular Statement of militia in the Mor- 
gan raid. 150. 
Tabular Statement of number of recruits 

fnrnislieil to old reizimcnts in 1-02, 79. 

Tabular Statement of number of troops 

raised in each county under the first two calls, .58, no;e. 

Tabular Statement of number of trotx 

raised in each county up to October I, 18r.2, 77. 

Talbot, Mr., Hires Philip H. Sheridan 

clerk, 498. 

Tay'lor, Brevet Brigadier-General Jar 

Summary of service, 984. 

Taylor, Brevet Brigadier-General Th 

summary of service, 984. \ 

Thirty -Ninth Ohio Infantry furnishes 

largest number of veterans, 175. 

Thomas, General Geo. H., His part in the 

battle of Stone River, 329 ; his part in the battle of Chick- 
amauga, .340; captures Orchard Knob, 396- refuses to ac- 
cept present of a house, 486, note ; defeats Zollicofler, 702 ; 
compliments Steedman, 786; compliments coloreil troops 
at Ivashville, 7s7 ; recommends Stanley for promotion, 
798; recommends Opdycke, 838; pays a tribute to Colonel 
Jlinor Millikin, 994. 

Thompson, Brevet Brigadier-General David, 

Summary of service, 984. 

Tidball, Major-General J. ,C., Early military 

life, his conduct in the peninsula campaign, 816 ; his con- 
duct at Gaines's IMill, Malvern Hill, and Antietam, 817 ; 
his conduct on the Stcmemau raid and in the Gettysburg 
campaign, is appointed Colonel Fourth New York Heavy 
Artillery, his conduct in the battle of the Wilderness, 
818; his conduct at Spottsylvania C. H., at the North 
Anna, is appointed commandant of cadets at West Point, 
his difficulty with the Secretary of War, is brevetted 
Brigadier-General, 819; his conduct at Fort Steedman, 
his final operations, 820. 

TiLGHMAN, General, Conduct of at Fort H' ry, 

364. 

ToD, Governor David, General feati^ e 

first year of his administration, early poI' 
organization of his staft', 64, note ; summa) 
the first year of his administration, 65 ; his 
soldiers, 68 ; his efforts at recruiting, 69; hi,,. ^.> .n the 
appointment of officers, SO; his conduct in the siege of 
Cincinnati, 92: issues proclamation to insuraents in 
Holmes County, 12s; calls out the militia to repel Jlor- 
gan, 1.39; closing features of his administration, 172; hi" 
care for the wounded, 177; his system of promotions 17i 
parentage, early life, his politics, 1020; his public life, 102 
his home, 1022. 

ToLAND, Colonel John T., Early lif ( Sun 

mary of service, 1002. 

Tripler, Surgeon C, S. Medical Diredior i 

at Cincinnati, corresponds with Governor Brough., 194. 
TULLAHOMA CAMPAIGN, 337. 

TuRCHiN, Colonel, Dismii=sed from service and 

re-instated, 715; charges ag;iinst him, 750, note. 

TuRLEY, Brevet Brigadier-General John A., 

Summary of service, 9S4. 

Twenty-Third Ohio Infantry, First regi- 
ment in which re-enlistments began, 175. 
Tyler, Brevet Major-General Erastus B., Early 

life, enters the armv", serves in West Virsinia, 831 ; his 
conduct in the Kanawha Valley, at Winchester. Port 
Republic, and Antietam, assumes command in and near 
Baltimore, his part in the Monocacy battle, >32 ; sum- 
mary of character, 8:13. 

Tyler, General Daniel, Conduct of at Black- 

burns Ford, 666. 

u 

Union Convention at Columbus, 167. 



Vallandigham, Hon. C. L., Remonstrates 

with Democrats for sanctioning the war, 23 ; his arrest 



1050 



Index. 



and trial, 99 isstii^s An address to the Democracy of 
Ohio, charges preferred against him before a military 
commission, 1(13; protests against being tried by^ mili- 
tary commission, lUii ; campaign for Governor, 1.)..; ac- 
cepts the nomination for Governor, 164; speech against 
the wai-, 381. , T-< T J 

Van Deveer, Brigadier-General Ferdinand, 

Serves in Mexico, conduct at Jl.mterey, is appointed 
Colonel Thirty-Fifth Oliio, conduct at Mill bprings, 89il ; 
his cnn.luct at Ohickamauga, SlU. S92 : at Mission Ridge 
and in the Atlanta campaign, S91 ; summary ut charac- 
ter .**^''* 

Van Dorn, General, Conduct of at Corinth, 325. 

ViCKSBUBG Campaign, 381, 438. 

Vienna, Disaster at, 727. 

Vincent, Brevet Brigadier-General Thomas M., 

Standing and classmates at West Point, early military 
life, serves against the rebellion, summary of promotions, 
947 

Von Blessingh, Brevet Brigadier -General 
'/ewis. Summary of service, 9S4. 
i^ Schraeder, Brevet Brigadier - General 

xander, Summary of service. 9S5. 



w 



, p ,.rigadier-General Melancthon S., Pa- 
rentage, siimniary of service, 932. 

Wade, Hon. Benjamin F., Chairman of Com- 
mittee on Conduct of the War, 14 ; early life, public life, 
in.33; character, life at home, 103t. 

Wagner Fort, Siege of, 635, 642. 

Walcutt, Brevet Major-General Charles C, 

Earlv life, enters the army, conduct at Pittsburg Land- 
in;; and Mission Ridge, S50 ; conduct in the Atlanta cam- 
paign and on the march to the sea, 8.t1. 

Walker, Brevet Brigadier-General Moses B., 

Early life, summary of service, 955. 

Wallace, General Lewis, Assumes command 

in Cincinnati during siege, 90 ; his staff, 98 ; his conduct 
at Fort Donelson, 3tiS. -r, i • 

Ward, Brevet Brigadier-General Durbin, Poli- 
tics, summary of service, 985. , -rv • x> 
Warner, Brevet Brigadier-General Darius B., 

Summary of service, 986. ,,„.,, , t-i i 

Warner, Brevet Major-General WiUard, Early 

life, enters the army, is engaged at Donelson, Pittsburg 
Landing, Corinth, Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, Mis- 
sion .Kidge, and Ringgold, 8.39; his conduct in the Atlanta 
can bei-^n, his services in the East, 840. _ 

W/ScHEi, General, Conduct of at Five Forks, 
isapp,oin.,y_ J), X., Gives account of Mc- 

?°'°r*nn notion in Boston Commonwealth, 34, note. 

WebeI, °". C. E., Surgeon-General of Ohio, 

247. 

Webster, Colonel George P., Early life, serves 

in Mexico, politics, summary of service against the re- 
ellion,, 1003. t-, i i-r 

eitzs:l, Major-General Godfrey, Early lite. 

Iters Vi-st Point, early military life, reports to Gen- 
al Bntf -r, 789; advises an attack on ^Fort rst. Philip, 
W: conducts the troops to the Quarantine fetation, is 
ppoin.ed assistant military commander and acting 
layor of New Orleans, is made a Brigadier and operates 
n thej t,a Fourche district, 791: his conduct at Port 
Hii?ison, on the e.Kpedition to Sabine Pass, and on the 
West Louisiana campaign, is ordered to report to Gen- 
eralButlerin Virginia, 792: is made chief engineer ot the 
department, commands Eighteenth Corps, commands 
■ Twenty-Fifth Corps, accompanies tirst expedition to 
Fort Fisher, enters Richmond, 793 ; goes to Te.xas, his 
correspondence with the Imperial General Jlejia, 794; 
summary of character, 795. 

Wells, Brevet Brigadier-General George E., 

Summary of service, 986. 

West, Brevet Brigadier-General Henry K., 

Summary of service, 986. 



West Virginia rescued by Ohio militia under 

State pav, 4.'i. 

Whitbeck, Brevet Brigadier-General Horatio 

N., Summary of service, 9M). 

White, Brevet Brigadier-General Carr B., 

Summary of service, 987. 

Wickfield, Lieutenant, Ordered by Grant to 

eat a pie, 358, note. 

Wilcox, Brevet Brigadier-General James A., 

Summary of service, 987. 

Wilderness, Battle of, 400. 

Wildes, Brevet Brigadier-General Tiios. F., 

Parentage, early life, summary of service, 951. 

Wiles, Brevet Brigadier-General G. F., Sum- 
mary of service, 946. 

Wiley, Brevet Brigadier -General Aquila, 

Summary of service, 987. 

WiLLiCH, Brevet Major-General August, Pa- 
rentage, early life, removes to the United States, enters 
the aiinv, S6S"; is engaged at Munfonlsville, his conduct 
at Pittsburg Landing, Stone Kivii-, Libi-rty Gap, and 
Chlckamauga, 869 : his conduct at Mission Ridge, in the 
Atlanta campaign, commands th.- District «>f Cincin- 
nati, is elected auditor of Hamilton County, 87<l. 

Wilson, Brevet Brigadier-General Wm. T,, 

Summary of service, 987. 

Wilson, Lewis, Commandant Second Ohio In- 
fantry, 28. 
Winchester, Battle of, 524. 
WoLCOTT, Judge Advocate-General, Acts as 

Governor Dennison'g agent in New York for the pur- 
cli.ase of arms, 36. 

Woman's Central Association of New York, 

257, 

Wood, Brevet Brigadier-General Oliver, Sum- 
mary of service, 987. -, • r^ 
Wood, Fernando, Replied to in Congress by 

Robert C. Schenck. 7:34. .tmi • i 

Wood, General Thos. J., Conduct of at Chick- 

amauga, 343. .,;r t^ 

Woodruff, Sergeant John M., Promoted by 

Governor Brough, promotion not recognized by Colonel 
Bond, 226. 

Woods, Brevet Major-General Chas. R., Early 

services, his conduct at Fort Donelson and Pittsburg 
Landing, 841 ; at Arkansas I'ost, in Vicksburg cam- 
paign, and at Lookout Mountain, 842 , his services in the 
Atlanta and Georgia campaigns, and in the campai^in o( 
the Carolinas, his battles, summary ot cliaracter. 843. 
Woods, Brevet Major-General Wm. B., His ac- 
tion in the Legislature on the appropriation bill, 22, 
•>3; supports a bill exempting property of volunteers 
from execution for debt, 23; political life, enters the 
army, 863 ; his battles and promotions, 861. 

WooSTER, Lieutenant-Colonel Moses F., Sum- 
mary of service, 1011. 

Y 

Yellow Tavern, Battle of, 518. 

Yeoman, Brevet Brigadier-General Stephen B., 

Parentase, early life, enlists as private, conduct at 
Pittsburg Landing, Russell House, and Arkansas Post, 
serves around Richmond, summary of engagements, 949. 

Young. Brevet Brigadier-General Thos, L., 

Early life, serves in regular army, civil life, volunteers 
against the rebellion, 988. 



Zahn, Brevet Brigadier-General Lewis, Sum 

mary of service. 989. . ,. „ , ^, ,< 

Zeigler, Brevet Brigadier-General Geo. Al. 

Summary of service. 989. 



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